Hi 5 and welcome back to 40 awesome tips how not to give advice. This time we start off with a drinking advice. These are always very popular, like my favourite: Don't drink and drive. I take that very seriously, especially since I have been riding a bigger motorbike for years. There's very few cases in which I claim to have adapted to a zero tolerance policy. However this is one of those things, where the red line is pretty clear for obvious reasons. Back to 40 awesome tips, we have a suggestion to drink plenty of water, at least 2 litres each day. Sounds reasonable, you say? Why water? Why can't you drink 2 litres of tea, lemonade, coffee, milk, or anything that isn't hazardous to your health, i.e. basically non-alcoholic and sugar-free? Do people who weigh 100 kg or more and those who weigh 60kg or less have to stick to the lower bound of 2 litres? Do people who exercise and people who don't eqaually have to go with 2 litres as a reference point? In summer and in winter? I don't want to be a nitpicker. The point however is: advice always has to be 'tailored to the mission' (yes, go ahead, you may cross that off your consultant-bullshit-bingo ^^). Take your focus group's (your custuomer's) situation and restrictions into account. If you don't know your customer well, either do your research (do more drill down - yes, cross that one off too), or at least stay generic. For example you could say 'stay sufficiently hydrated' or 'don't risk/ prevent dehydration'. Funny thing about drinking water is, it can actually do harm. You can demineralize your body and hereby sort of poison yourself by drinking an excess amount of water. Endurance athletes keep good account of their hydration levels as well as of their mineralization levels by drinking enough AND consuming sufficient electrolites and minerals at the same time.
Yes, that is one of my favourites. Playing cannot be overrated. My advice would go slightly different: Play as much as you can and play fair. Regard life as a set of games. Basically all sports and also all career is about playing games. It is a fun way of contesting your skills and your capabilites with others. Also I am a huge fan of game theory, becouse it helps to explain people's -often irrational- behaviour in so many situations. Whether you negotiate your salary/contract/price, have your next job interview/argument/pitch, haggle a price/service/strategy, or even try to beat your friend in a game of chess/tic-tac-toe/ching-chang-chong: it is all about playing games. There's one downside to playing games: face it, most of the times, you won't win. So much for the drawbacks. The rest is fun: you win (success!), you have a draw (compromise!) and if it is a real challenge, no matter the result, even if you lose, you'll get a hell of a thrill just out of playing. In German there's a saying: You have to choose whether you want to be king among dumbasses or dumbass among kings, meaning you have to pick your controlling group. Of course you can up the odds and always win against weak opponents. Or you can regularly have a can of whoop-ass from real cracks. For my part, I seek opponents rather than victims. Also I am convinced, that the first lesson you have to learn, is to lose big time and absolutely, in order to be a good winner. Only if you have lost enough times, you'll appreciate victory. And only if you put in everything you have, will you feel the bliss of a real champion, even if you don't win.
Sounds very sophisticated and educated. In my opinion, this is just another dud. 'Read more' assumes you don't read enough, no matter how much you read. So far so bad. However the addition 'read more books' makes this one completely ridiculous once more. Most of the English I picked up in my early teenage years I learnt from tv and video games. My first video game on Sega Master System was a role playing game (Phantasy Star). Looking back, I guess this game was worth at least one decent size book. By the age of 15 I played lots of role playing games with lots of English texts (e.g. Wizardry VI and VII) and also read Lord of the Rings in English for the first time <It sucked>. Eventually I read 'The Hobbit' and 'Lord of the Rings' one more time <It still sucked>
http://www.economist.com/news/obituary/21616858-joan-rivers-americas-most-abrasive-comedienne-died-september-4th-aged-81-joan-rivers
No, I don't think you have to read a lot of books. Surely good books will have some kind of future. But reading does not rely on books solely. So don't read more. And for heaven's sake, don't read books. Be open to new things, learn something and steadily enhance your horizon. How you do that is not important. Wheter you learn to play an instrument, you make new aquaintances, you travel to exotic places, meet people, solve problems or mathematical equasions, according to Steve Jobs even drop LSD ;-p, or according to me, even write a blog: do something that concerns your mind. Something that keeps your grey cells busy.
Yeah, yeah. Sure. Why not? Go and meet a lot of experienced and young people. However, take care their age is at least 70 or above or at max 6 or below. According to this, if you have a relative or an aquaintance who is 69, he/she is disqualified. Also if you have children of your own or godchildren who are older than 6, they're out. Sorry, but these are the rules. Consulting can be such a tough job.
Yes, I'd like to. Every damned day! How else could anyone endure reality? ;-p However most of the time I dream while I am asleep. Sometimes I even remember what I dreamed. The other day it was something really weird. To begin with: I foreslept. To those who know me, for me this is already the(!) ultimate nightmare. I had to dress the twins and they were not amused at all and kept struggeling, while I tried to calm them down. Finally I managed to get them all dressed up and ready for the nanny and put them into the car. Then, exiting our parking lot, I caused an accident with my company's car. Mandatorily I had to call the police, which took an eternity to arrive; plus they gave me 100% guilt in the accident - my lucky day :-/ On our way to the nanny, I got lost. Even though her house is only about 2km away from us, I got completely bogged down. So I had to stop at a certain point, had to pull over the car and ask two young mothers, who were taking a walk with their baby-carriages, for the way to our nanny. They immediately got all excited by indignation how I dared to leave my two children unattended in the back of the car (I was approx a couple of meters away from them, standing next to the car), how bad of a father I was and how they pitied my wife and how men are all the same. Finally they also told me the way to our nanny, which wasn't far. Already too late, the twins were hungry and therefore screaming. By consequence our nanny wasn't too happy at my arrival. I left the kids at her place and was already far too late for an appointment at a customer's. When I arrived the workshop was already in progress and everyone just gave me an annoyed look by entering the conference room, most of all my boss. When I started to set up my computer and to start my presentation, everyone just kept staring at me, as if they had seen an alien. My boss suddenly stopped me by saying: "David, are you serious to hold this presentation in pyjamas?"
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