MonkAtWork.com

A young monk is taken by his teacher to a cave in the mountains. It is there he will learn to live, to deepen his mind, and to code.

Chopping wood, carrying water, and practicing meditation and kung fu by sunlight in the day, memorizing CSS standards by monitor-glow at night, the young monk studies design, color, and usability statistics for years, honing his skills with weapons and Wordpress both, all in service to the greater good.

What greater good? The good of his future patrons, who would one day be spared the humiliation of dealing with elitist web designers, only interested in padding their own portfolios, and rendering massive, Flash-laden, user- and owner-unfriendly websites that become the bane of the web.

The young monk’s mission: to provide clean, beautiful, engaging websites that are as enjoyable to own and maintain as they are to browse.

Monk at Work Webdesign is Born

For those of you who have enjoyed the Monk at Work articles and posts in the past, have no fear — they are still here.

Monk at Work is going through an extensive redesign right now… to rise from the ashes of its former self very soon. Stay tuned. And, thank you for your patience (it’s a virtue, after all).

What is now known is that the Monk has left his remote cave in the mountains in favor of a high-speed connection, and is currently creating websites for patrons who wish to experience the bliss that comes from having a business-savvy, hand-crafted website.

To find out more about how you can work with the Monk, you can contact me here.

Image by babasteve on Flickr, via Creative Commons license.

Ah, the sakura (cherry) blossoms… so beautiful, so fragile, so… fleeting.

Okay, I’ve left you faithful readers in suspense for long enough. Time to spill the beans.

If you’ve been reading Monk at Work for any length of time, you know I’ve been going through a soul-search for the past few months, evaluating my direction, my values, my passions, etc. And the long and short of it is that Monk at Work is over.

I know, I know…

I know that many of you love the Monk. And some of you have just subscribed. But as Seth Godin says,

Ignore people like me who scream and yell about how much they love it and how much potential there is. If you’re not improving, if the yield is negative… kill it.

To tell you the truth, I dig the Monk at Work message. I think it’s relevant and useful and needed by more people than I can ever reach. At the same time, I have passions and interests that fall far outside the scope of what Monk at Work can deliver, and as anyone who knows me knows, I’m not good at living with any kind of split. I’m an all-or-nothing guy, to the core.

And the truth of it is, Monk at Work hasn’t been solvent, plain and simple. I’ve been studying, though; asking, learning, watching, and growing, and my hope is that my new direction (which will encompass Monk at Work’s message, and more), will become something that provides much more value to you, and allows me to serve in much greater ways.

So here’s where we go from here:

While Monk at Work is over, the spirit will live on. I’ve created a new venue for my voice, one that I believe has the room to grow with my evolving nature. I’ll continue to talk about matters of the spirit and how they apply to work and life. I’ll also continue to develop and evolve my ideas around intuition, healing, and productivity (in fact, I’ve started a series there that will help you with managing all the bits and bytes of your life, called "Surfing the Digital Tidal Wave"), and all the things that made Monk at Work special.

And, at the same time, I’ll also speak about other subjects that fascinate, thrill, educate, and enlighten, all for the purpose of living the most exceptional, "literate" life possible. In fact, the new site is called, "Viverati"; meant to call forth the idea of "literacy in that which is vital in life."

So if you like what you’ve been getting from me as "the Monk", you’re going to love what you’ll get from me "uncensored."

If you’re a Monk at Work subscriber…

If you subscribe to the weekly newsletter, you don’t have to do a thing: you’ll continue to get weekly updates about new articles, as always (and even more consistently).

If you subscribe via RSS (via a reader or email), it’s simple: click here. For the next 30 days, the m@w feed will be transferred to Viverati, and after that, it’ll disappear. The last thing I want to do is lose anyone, so please click the new feed address to sign up there.

Bigger, better, and brighter

That’s the idea with Viverati. It’s what made Monk at Work special, and then some. It’s the flowering evolution of my own personal sakura, and I hope that, as I do, you will find more joy, expansiveness, and value there as it grows.

Above all, I hope you become a part of it; a part of the community of people who want to live life to its fullest, and realize that many times, you have to shed the status quo to get there.

Thank you all, and I’ll see you at Viverati!

Image by Noël Zia Lee on Flickr, via Creative Commons License.

It has been quiet here lately, hasn’t it?

• Did I fall off the face of the planet?
• Did I create the Inner Peace Audio, strike it rich, and take una vacanza? I wish.
• Have I been working hard behind the scenes, hardly taking time to breathe, much less post? Bingo!

If you take a gander through recent posts, you’ll see that I’ve been talking about what makes you happy, delving into tough inner questions, and Intention Chickens.

If you were to read between the lines a little… you may start to think that a change is afoot. You know what? You’d be right.

It’s still a bit too early to let the cat out of the bag (how do all those cats wind up in bags, anyhow?), but suffice it to say that when its time to spill the beans (next week, most likely), I’ll be doing it right here, first.

Nothing like a little anticipation, huh?

Image by surekat on Flickr via Creative Commons license.

When I was in my early twenties, I was learning Chinese martial arts from a Taoist teacher (known as a "Shr Fu"). In addition to teaching us how to seriously maim anyone who might want to mess with us defend ourselves, there were also some lesser publicized teachings available to the student who knew to ask.

One of those was in "bone setting", which is where I learned some very handy tricks, including how to set my (and other people’s) joints that have gotten out of whack (ankles, shoulders, wrists, fingers, etc.). Very handy to know in a pinch. Another was meditation.

Here (unlike bone setting), the instruction wasn’t all that detailed. Basically, I was told to sit, focus on a certain point in my body, and breathe. And, as best I could, empty myself of thought.

But, as anyone knows who has tried to meditate, it’s much easier said than done. I futzed through a few months of trying, but gave up not long afterward. Not surprisingly, most people I talk to about meditation have found themselves in the same boat.

Fast-forwarding a couple years, I got involved in energy healing and spiritual development, and in the school I went to, we meditated together every morning for about 45 minutes. Some were silent, and in others, we were guided through a process. And all of it was fantastic.

Having my teacher up in front of us all made it so easy to connect, to quieten, and to relax into the process.

But then, I went back home…

And again, I floundered.

Whenever we were at school, meditating became simple. On my own, though, it was a supreme challenge to stay with it for more than ten minutes.

Luckily for me, I wasn’t the only student in this situation, and we asked our teacher if we could record him leading us through a meditation session, so we could listen at home. He agreed, and the resulting tape became a well-worn favorite of mine for years. It helped me get and stay focused when I was on my own, and it made a world of difference in the depth of my meditation, and in the progress I made in developing my self-awareness.

Since that time, I’ve seen a number of "meditation aids" out there, and sampled a few myself. Once you get used to a particular audio recording, it can be a huge boon to your individual practice.

The moral of the story, of course, is to seek help when you need it. Also easier said than done at times, I realize, but consider the alternative.

Question for you: When have you tried something and floundered, and then found help from an unexpected hack? Leave a comment and share it with us.

(for those of you not-so-internet-lingo-savvy folks, a "hack" is a way of doing something that’s not typically known, or thought of, but saves your bacon big time once you’re shown what it is.)

Brand Spanking New:

I’ve just completed a set of helpful audio resources myself — but not just meditation-centered. Because there are times when meditation doesn’t float your boat, or scratch your itch; sometimes, your soul is needing a different kind of soothing. For example, you might be needing:

• a deeper sense of connection, of spiritual intimacy, of nurturing
• to clear an issue that has come up and is keeping you from feeling peaceful
• clarity about a decision you need to make, but can’t decide which path to take
• awareness about the kinds of signals you’re sending "under the radar" — but are dramatically affecting your life, your work, etc.
• to stop procrastinating and get back to productive work
• to relax, unwind, and let go of stress at the end of the day

Rather than turn to outside help, or pay for a healing/therapy session, you may want a solution that allows you to get through it on your own (and, for a lot cheaper, I might add).

Enter: Inner Peace Audio!

Inner Peace Audio is a set of seven recordings that can help you in a variety of situations… for more details about what’s included in Inner Peace Audio, click here to be taken to the just-unveiled website.

UPDATE: I’ve added (by popular request) an affiliate program to Inner Peace Audio, so if that’s your cup of tea, you’re on. The link to sign up is at the bottom of any page of the site. 

[audio:Getting%20Help%20Where%20You%20Need%20It _ Meditation.mp3]

Want a podcast of this? Press play, or click here to download.

Image by 顔なし on Flickr, via Creative Commons license.

In case you haven’t seen it yet, my buddy Alex Shalman, from AlexShalman.com (Practical Personal Development), recently launched his "Happiness Project." After hearing Tim Ferriss recommend Dan Gilbert’s book, "Stumbling On Happiness" (which I read, and whose TED video I’ve set up for you at the bottom of this post), I’m very, very curious about people’s findings about one of the most sought after prizes in life: good, old-fashioned happiness.

So, I’ve accepted Alex’s proposition, and here are my answers.

1. How do you define happiness?

Continue reading »

Totally Random Post: I had a friend ask me for my legendary pancake recipe this morning, and as luck would have it, SpongeFish is having a recipe contest at this very moment. So, I sent it to my friend, and I submitted it to SpongeFish for all the word to enjoy.

If you want to try it yourself, you can get it here (and please vote for me, too, while you’re there – what a blast it would be to win!).

Update: I won! The Spongefish team made my pancakes at their cocktail party, and my recipe got judged as the winner. How cool is that? Thanks to everyone that went to see my recipe and voted on it… I got over five times as many views as any other recipe, and I had to think you all were a part of that. Thanks again!

Image by digiyesica on Flickr, via Creative Commons license.

Ever have a time in your life that looked something like this?

Back in college, Trina got so busy with her academic schedule, she found that she wasn’t reading the notes she scribbled furiously in lecture. And when she did, she realized she just needed a quick point or two, and all the material would come back to her. So, instead of writing sentence after sentence of notes, she started drawing pictures and diagrams that represented the core ideas of the lecture. Then, two years later, she saw a book on MindMapping — and it was exactly what she’d figured out on her own so long before.

Doesn’t it just rock your world when it hits you that there are entire movements out there, based on things that you’ve just been doing naturally, and you’ve been completely oblivious to it?

Well, according to Seth Godin (and I agree with him), "three things are true":

1. Digital technology, especially computers and cell phones, can dramatically increase productivity.
2. More and more users of digital technology are small firms or individuals.
3. The vast majority of users of digital technology are totally lame in getting the most out of the investment of their time and money.

Does this mean people are lame? Of course not; as Holly Buchanan of GrokDotCom says, it’s a matter of priority. Some people would rather focus on other aspects of their work, rather than spend time debugging the processes involved in how they do it.

Well, sometimes.

Sometimes it’s a matter of custom (as in, Joe isn’t accustomed to doing the dishes by hand), and, sometimes it’s a matter of fear.

Continue reading »