Personal Development Face-Off: Round #2
Glen / 
28 Comments / 
March 30th, 2009 / 
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Another Monday is upon us so it is time Round 2 of the Personal Development Face-Off. The first round was a huge success with a massive 266 votes, and thousands of visitors came to the page to view the answers.
As an added bit of fun, it would be great if you could vote for your favourite answers in the poll below. In this second round with have Albert from Urban Monk and Scott H Young.
Albert is the owner of UrbanMonk, a site which aims to help its readers in areas such as consciousness, happiness and personal power.
Scott H Young runs one of the webs most popular blogs on Personal Development, with over 7,000 subscribers he has made quite a mark for himself, and he’s only 20.
Questions & Answers
| Albert | Scott H Young |
| What is your most effective productivity tip? |
|
| 48/12 rule. Many of us try to multi-task and cruise our way through our tasks. An effective rule I’ve found is working hard – no music, no online chat, not even sipping a coffee while we work, nothing at all – just 100% dedicated work for 48 minutes. Then we spend 12 minutes relaxing. This is surprisingly much more productive than 1 hour of non-stop work with a coffee and music in the background. (I can’t remember where it was from so I can’t credit it). | Keep two lists for your daily and weekly to-do items. Don’t add extras to these lists when you finish early, but don’t subtract when you have too much. Keeping these lists skyrocketed my productivity, because it forces you to focus on manageable chunks of work. |
| To you, what is the meaning / purpose of life? |
|
| Becoming more conscious. Everything else falls into place from here. Happiness, inner peace, inner freedom. Many spiritual or religious goals – enlightenment, the end of suffering, etc – are in my opinion only, different ways of saying the same thing. | There are many good answers to that question. My favorite perspective at the moment is the Stoic view that virtue or excellence is the purpose of life. |
| What advice would you give a shy person who wants to become confident? |
|
| Feel the shyness. Sit at home, visualize yourself in a situation that makes you feel shy, and welcome the sensation. Welcome it – what does it feel like? Most emotions (shyness could possibly be mild fear) have a physical sensation. So feel it completely, and relax into it. Don’t fight it, let the sensations be there, and let it dissolve. It won’t happen overnight, but keep at it and your shyness will drop away completely. This is very different than other advice, but as a formerly shy person, I have found other external techniques only mask the insecurities and emotions that underlie these things. | Set up your life to force yourself into social interactions. Shyness and low confidence isn’t a birth defect, it’s just a muscle that hasn’t been trained. |
| How would you encourage someone to stay focused on their goals? |
|
| Gently and supportively. A listening ear, and some kind words. Nothing more than that, which would probably cross the line into being a busybody. If they are unmotivated, they might have a good reason for it. | Write them down. Ask yourself each day how you’ve contributed towards them. Then, ruthlessly eliminate the activities that don’t contribute. |
| What is the main criteria for a successful relationship? |
|
| Unconditional Respect for both parties. Letting them be exactly the way they are, without trying to change or manipulate them. Recognising their beliefs, emotions, and behaviours, who they are, with respect – even if it makes us uncomfortable. But not at the cost of our own self-respect, or safety. | Trust |
| How can people remain financially stable in this economy? |
|
| No idea! I’m rubbish with money | Give value back to society. A bad economy eliminates a lot of the people who were making money without contributing much value. If you’re contributing a meaningful service to the world, and you have the skills to turn that contribution into income, then a bad economy shouldn’t have a major impact on your financial life. |
| If you could only share readers once sentence of wisdom, what would it be? |
|
| Become more conscious, more aware of yourself. Other things will fall into place, I believe. | Savor everything life gives you. |
| Define the reason for your success in one word. |
|
| Success? What? I define success a bit differently than society, I guess. I feel I have grown to become more emotionally mature, more at peace, more forgiving, more accepting of other people – and all that contributes to my inner peace. I’ve still some way to go, but I am happy with what I’ve accomplished in this regard, even though it’s purely an inner experience. | Attitude |
Vote for Your Favourite
(Note: Voting is now closed)
Thanks to both of you for taking part! Another great Face-Off
This was tremendous fun, and really helped me get my thoughts straight. Thanks for the invite!
You’re welcome Albert, thanks again for taking part. I’ve updated the post with the final scores!
Hi Glen,
This is a very cool series. I look forward to see who you will include next.
Thanks Nadia, glad you liked it!
Insightful and interesting.
How fun! What an entertaining and succinct way to learn a little about all sorts of interesting people. I love it!!
Hey Lisis, I’m glad you like the idea. The series will continue every Monday!
Glen, can you give me the link to Scott`s blog? I liked his answers and i already know UrbanMonk.
Hey Rose, you can click on his name under ‘Questions and Answers’. While you’re here thanks for that email you sent me!
thanks and you`re welcome!
Hi Glen,
This Face-Off Series is such a genius idea! It’s tremendously educational and entertaining at the same time! Thanks for getting it running.
Great work!
Cheers~
Mark
I’m glad that you like it Mark, thanks a lot for your comment!
This is nice actually. After reading it all I voted for Albert.
Ah, each week there’s one personal development blogger I know well, and another one I don’t know at all! Awesome
Last week, I voted for the guy I didn’t know, because I liked his answers a tad better. This week, I voted for the guy I did know. Because I liked his answers better.
Great stuff! Keep it coming!
Hey Vlad, thanks for the comment!
Just to note that I am picking people who offer great advice and tend to have a lot of blog subscribers / a big audience. In this case they have 4k and 7k subscribers
Your Face-Off series is a great idea and I do enjoy it Glen. With your format, it’s nice to see their answers side by side as it can not only offer another perspective, but the words they choose to express them. It gives you something to think about or to even clarify your own thoughts even more so. I look forward to your next round in the series.
Glen, another great interview. I really enjoyed reading it.
Thank you.
You’re welcome as always Arswino!
glen, you should interview steve pavlina for next round, he´s great! do u know him?
Hey Rose, I did email Steve but he didn’t want to take part.
oh, too bad. are u looking at my picture? and u said i couldn`t……
Sorry I’m not sure what you are talking about? I see your gravatar…
i asked you once, how do i put a picture in my comments, and you answered: ¨HTML is disabled in the comments so you wont be able to add a picture. It helps prevent people from hacking the site. Feel free to link to one though¨
i found out all i needed was a gravatar, that`s what i´m talking about
Sorry, I didn’t know you meant like an avatar, I thought you just meant posting a picture. Glad you got it sorted!
hee hee, yeah, i rock