Reality, when looked at truthfully, is quite depressing. We’re all doomed to tumultuous lives filled with toil and frustration. Most of us won’t live up to our potential. Most of our hopes and dreams will never be realized. Most of us will never become rich or famous or successful.

Just when you think a problem is solved, an uglier one replaces it. The cycle of desperation continues as our faculties decline. We lose our strength and beauty. We become shells of our former selves and eventually die.

Fortunately, thinking about the nasty truth can be averted with a well crafted Life Lie.

How? Luckily it’s easy. If you are relatively happy person, my guess is you already have one.

A Life Lie is a story we tell ourselves. A story we actually believe about our lives that lets us ignore reality and focus on a glorious future. Allow me to provide a background story.

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What would you rather do, work a 9-5 job with a decent salary for 40 years or work nonstop for 2-4 years forming a startup?

The regular job is consistent and predictable. There isn’t as much pressure and there isn’t nearly as much risk. The job is the safe way to go.

On the other hand, the potential payout from a startup is enormous. If you succeed, you can basically do what you want for the rest of your life. There are other benefits: freedom, control, fame, and the chance to make your vision a reality. Everyone wants to be the next tech sensation, and everyone knows the chances of making it are slim.

Startups are intriguing, but the details behind them are a bit of a mystery.

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In the feedback on my original post, 5 Simple Ways to Make the Most of Your Intelligence, two of the most common comments were:

1. 5 ways aren’t nearly enough

2. Nothing works for everyone

I whole heartedly agree with both of these statements.

One reader even went as far as posting his/her own 5 Ways in the Reddit comment thread. I thought they were so good that I wanted to share with everyone else. Here they are:

1. Cultivate friendships with people who think differently. I enjoy talking to people who really challenge my conception of the world. Artists (I’m not one), medical staff (I’m not one), construction workers (I’m not one) and so on.

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Your brain needs exercise just like a muscle. If you use it often and in the right ways, you will become a more skilled thinker and increase your ability to focus. But if you never use your brain, or abuse it with harmful chemicals, your ability to think and learn will deteriorate.

Here are 5 simple ways anyone can squeeze a bit more productivity out of the old gray matter.

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Welcome to the Valentines Day 2007 edition of the Carnival of Entrepreneurs. I’d like to thank all the submitters for sharing their articles. If you have a minute to spare after wooing your lover, you should spend some time browsing these thoughtful and informative posts.

To help you sort through the submissions, I’ve divided them into a few categories.

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This is a bit off topic for this blog so I’ll keep it short and sweet.

Note: I’m not trying rip on other social sites and take a beat down from their supporters (even though I probably will regardless). I use and enjoy all the sites mentioned in this post. This is merely an expression of personal preference. Different strokes for different folks, or so they say.

1. No News – Or at least none if you aren’t looking for it. The news junkies own Digg and Reddit, where political and tech buzz stories dominate the front page. This is nothing new, but these stories all seem the same to me, and only 1 in 20 brings anything new to the table. I love to Stumble because I don’t have to go past the first page and into subtopics to find something interesting.

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If someone told you they’d pay you for brushing your teeth, you would pay attention right? Money doesn’t come much easier, because brushing your teeth is something you already do for free (I hope). This opportunity isn’t quite as easy, but it comes pretty close.

Brian Lee’s recent post on AGLOCO and the announcement that the Viewbar will be released in mid March has prompted me to post this reminder that you should sign up today and start building your referral network.

Why?

Because you should never pass up easy money. Especially when there is no risk and very little work involved. (We all browse the web more than 5 hours a month anyway, right?)

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If you examine the individuals, organizations, and movements that have achieved phenomenal success, you will note that success is realized by the work of hundreds or thousands of people. Yet the core of every phenomenal success is a Vision that can be traced back to one or two individuals. Think of Bill Gates and Microsoft, Steve Jobs and Apple, or Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Google. If you go back further through history, the trend continues.

So why do these organizations flourish while others crumble? The first reason is Vision.

Vision

So what is Vision? And why is it essential?

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Is There Any Money for the Little Blogger?

In the past two days I’ve been contemplating two important ideas that make me feel very uncomfortable about what I’ve done and what I plan to do with this site.

This is a very good thing.

The first idea can be summed up in two sentences.

Make something remarkable.
Make something worth talking about.

This idea comes from Seth Godin. If you aren’t reading him you should be. Read everything he writes. Start with this free e-book.

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Do you think we learn from mistakes?

We don’t.

Not when we’re told we’re making a mistake.

Not when we know we’re making a mistake.

Not even when the mistakes we’re making negatively affect our lives. (Just ask smokers about that one.)

Only the smartest people learn from mistakes, and only geniuses learn from the mistakes of others. The rest of us learn from pain. We don’t realize drinking too much is a bad idea until we wake up the next day with a throbbing headache. And once the pain goes away we forget and make the same mistake again.

Decisions aren’t made rationally (as much as we’d like to believe that), they’re made with emotion. Afterwards we use reason to make ourselves feel better. Sadly, knowing what’s right doesn’t equate with doing it.

So how do we learn?

Pain. But pain isn’t enough. We need the fear of pain to scare us straight. Pain alone is bearable. It’s certain, finite, manageable. Fear of an unknown pain, of an unbearable future is the real motivator.

I asked the most positive and productive individual I know what keeps him motivated.

“I’m afraid of wasting my life,” he said. “Afraid of growing old and seeing myself as a missed opportunity, as someone who could have been what they wanted, but didn’t want it enough.”

Life is now, and it’s all real. This moment has no second chances.

Scare yourself straight.