I’m off to fabulous Las Vegas later this week to celebrate a friend’s birthday, which means an opportunity to try my luck at my favorite casino game of all time - blackjack.

I’m the kind of player who actually enjoys playing the game. In other words, I’m not in it to make a quick buck. The suspense and strategy of the game is a thrill for me, so my goal is to maximize the amount of time I can spend playing without losing everything.

Here are a few tips I use on a regular basis when playing blackjack that help me spend several hours playing with the same hundred dollars. Hopefully they’ll be helpful to someone else too!

Use basic strategy

Basic strategy tells you how to play every single combination of hand. You can find the little basic strategy cards in most casino gift shops, and the casino has no problem with you using the card while you play (although it’s a little embarrassing). For that reason, it’s worth memorizing the card if you can. Here’s a link to an online version that you can print out if the thought of visiting the gift shop makes you cringe.

The magic of basic strategy comes from the fact that it’s mathematically sound. The probabilities are all worked out for you, meaning that most of the time, the advice on the card will work out in your benefit. Obviously, there’s no guarantee, and if you have a hunch (or you’ve counted) that certain cards are left in the deck, you may on occasion choose to deviate from basic strategy.

Bring a pre-established bankroll to the table

This is common sense gambling tip #1, no matter what game you’re playing. I’m a fan of $5 blackjack tables, so I generally will sit down with between $100 and $200. If I reach a point where it’s time to get more money, it’s time to go visit the buffet or have a drink instead.

This is the most common sense piece of gambling advice you’ll ever hear, but many people don’t pay attention to it. If you’re spending a few days in Vegas, you don’t want to go broke on the first night. Believe me, I’ve done it. It’s not fun.

Find a fun table with an easygoing dealer

You’ll have a lot more fun at a table with a conversational, friendly dealer than you will at a table with six Japanese businessmen who are all losing money. Look for the table where people are clearly smiling and having fun. Chances are that people are winning, and that the social dynamic at the table will make for a more fun time.

The easiest way, in my opinion, to avoid being stressed about gambling is to remember that it’s supposed to be fun. If you surround yourself with others who are actually having a good time, chances are that you’ll find yourself having more fun too. If it stops being fun and starts being stressful, it’s time to switch tables.

Don’t play when they screw with the rules

If the rules of the game are different that normal at your casino, chances are likely that they’re cheating you. Even though it’s fun to have Cher or Michael Jackson impersonators deal for you at the Imperial Palace, they’ll only pay you 6:5 for a blackjack.

You should also watch out for casinos where the dealer hits on a soft 17, or where they offer extra bets to offer you the ability to win some kind of fancy prize. All of these techniques are meant to shift the odds further in favor of the casino.

Use a betting system

If you sit at the table playing the minimum bet over and over again that might last you for awhile, but chances are that you’ll go broke faster than you’d like. Using a betting system will help you play for the longest amount of time on the house’s money instead of your own.

Here’s my favorite — the 1-2-3 system. Basically, you always start with one betting unit (the minimum bet of the table) and each time you win a hand, you invest some of the proceeds back into the next hand. This is a really great way to build up a bank rapidly, and to get extended play out of your initial investment. If you lose a hand, you simply go back to betting 1 unit and start over again.

You start by betting the minimum at the table for the first hand you play (let’s say it’s $5 for this example). If you win the hand, you’ll get $5 from the dealer, plus you’ll get to keep your original $5. If you win the hand, on the next hand you’ll bet two chips ($10), or if you lose, you’ll stay at the minimum $5 bet. The magic here is that on that second hand, you’re still only betting your original $5, but you’ve now added the house’s $5 as well.

Can you guess what happens next? If you lost the second hand, you’ll just go back to betting the minimum. If you won the second hand, the dealer gave you $10, and you got to keep your original $10. Now it gets fun. Up your bet to 3 chips ($15). At this point, you’re only playing with the house’s money! The $15 you have down on the table for this hand is only the money you’ve won, and the original $5 you bet is back in your hot little hand. Regardless of whether you win or lose the $15 hand, you’ll go back to the “1″ in our 1-2-3 system.

The good news is that if you win all three hands in a row, you’ve pocketed 6 times your original bet, playing with only the casino’s money! While a betting system won’t guarantee that you’ll come out ahead, it will still let you play for a lot longer.

• 20 Most Popular Sites for Bargain Hunters - I’m a web shopping fiend, so for me, this is a dangerously delightful list of the best places to find bargains on the web.
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I have to admit that every year when the Oscar nominations are announced, I usually haven’t seen most of the movies. What I’ll also admit, however, is that I generally use the Oscar nominations to figure out what can’t-miss movies I have to get out there and see.

Did you know that the world of podcasts has its own Oscar awards? The Third Annual People’s Choice Podcast Awards are currently in the voting phase at PodcastAwards.com, and while you can vote for your favorite shows if you’re a podcast junkie, you can also find lots of great new shows that you might have missed.

The awards are split into categories like Comedy, Business, Education, Gaming, Technology & Science, along with many more, so you’re likely to find an award-nominated podcast to fall in love with.

The best part is that all of the nominations and awards come from individual votes on the site, so you won’t just find podcasts with a lot of downloads — you’ll find podcasts with dedicated audiences who love these shows enough to nominate them and vote daily. The awards site also provides direct RSS feed links to each show, so you don’t have to spend time tracking them down.

Link: 2007 People’s Choice Podcast Awards

It seems that a great deal of personal improvement programs spend time trying to encourage people that self-confidence is just about the most important thing you can hope to attain. My experience is that this “feel-good-about-yourself” attitude doesn’t always have the intended positive effect, especially when applied to the things we do in our everyday lives.

First, what is “self-confidence” anyway? When you’re self-confident about a task that you’re performing, you have faith in its value. If you’re writing a novel, you have a gut feeling that what your story is compelling. If you’re painting, you might look at your portrait and reflect on how beautifully it portrays a bowl of fruit. Whatever the task, approaching it with self-confidence means that you will inherently appreciate what you create because you have confidence in your own abilities.

As positive as this approach sounds, I would argue that it can be incredibly destructive. When it comes to being successful at the things you do, self-confidence is merely a code-phrase for ego. Bear in mind that self-confidence is different from self-esteem. Self-esteem is a belief in your value as a person. Being confident, especially overly so, about your work means that you believe that the things you produce have inherent value. The important question is this: What’s your frame of reference?

It’s important to believe in the value of what you do, but it’s far more important to build the proper frame of reference for that confidence. The secret is to approach everything you produce with a healthy dose of skepticism. If you begin with a skepticism of the inherent value of your work, your next step will be instinctively to seek feedback. Feedback leads to a refinement of ideas, which ultimately leads to the most successful outcome possible for your project.

The natural next question is, How do you transform your way of thinking to take advantage of the vast benefits of self-skepticism? There are really only three steps to the process:

1. Release your ego

If you’re an artist, you’re probably extremely sensitive about your work. If you write code for a living, like me, you probably feel something similar. In fact, if you create anything in your daily life, you probably are deeply attached to it on some level because the things we create are often extensions of ourselves.

However, if you truly want to be a master at what you do, you’re going to have to let go of the ego associated with your work. The things you create may reflect you, but they are not you. If you believe that your work is an extension of you, you will never truly be able to achieve your maximum potential, because any negative feedback will hurt you on a deep level.

It’s pretty common to hear about famous actors and actresses that don’t read reviews of the movies that they star in. Although you won’t hear them admit it, this is usually because of a fear of rejection. If you attach your ego to your creative output, you’ll never improve, because it’s a natural human instinct to avoid the pain of rejection.

If you can detach your ego from your work, rejection won’t even be an issue, because someone not being fond or appreciative of your work won’t feel like a personal attack to you, but instead a piece of potentially valuable (or not so valuable) feedback.

2. Use the resources around you

Once you successfully put your ego aside, you’ve opened the door to being able to more easily perfect your craft, because now you can seek out feedback from the people around you without being hurt if you don’t get the answer that you’re hoping for.

As a web engineer, I deal with this on an almost daily basis. A lot of my time is spent writing code, and sometimes it’s very easy to fall into the trap of working in a vacuum, without the input of the people around me. It’s easy to sometimes forget that I’m surrounded by more than 30 other engineers that are extremely talented, oftentimes in areas of expertise different from my own.

The way I utilize my coworkers as resources is simple. I’m not an expert at writing database queries, so when I have to write one, I’ll run it by someone who is. I’m not an interaction designer, so if I have to build a user interface, I’ll run it by our resident expert. The result is that the final product becomes a far more sophisticated, well-executed project, without any sign of my own weaknesses.

Even if you’re not a web developer, you can easily apply this tactic in whatever you do. This technique is often referred to as “modeling excellence”. Find someone who is successful at doing whatever it is that you do, and seek their advice and feedback. If you model your approach after someone who is already successful, your results will be far greater than they ever could have been had you worked with complete independence.

3. Build up your confidence with a frame of reference

The most pleasant side effect of seeking the advice of experts is that you will ultimately build up your confidence in your work. You might be saying at this point, “Wait! You told me not to be confident!” That’s not entirely true. Having a healthy amount of self-doubt is different from lacking self-confidence altogether.

The good news is that as you continue your craft and begin to integrate external input into your work for the sake of modeling excellence, you’ll begin to get better results, and the amount of positive feedback you receive will increase dramatically. Effectively, you’ll become a knowledge sponge, taking the feedback of those around you and integrating it into your creative process.

The caveat of this increased confidence is that it may create in you the tendency to stop seeking feedback. Avoid this trap at all costs! Albert Einstein famously said, “The more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know.” This should be your mantra. Even though you’ll undoubtedly be thrilled by the level of success that you’ll succeed, you must remember that your knowledge sponge will never reach maximum saturation.

There’s always room for improvement. Motivational expert Tony Robbins refers to this as “CANI” — constant and never-ending improvement. If you take this philosophy to heart and let it guide your work, the results you’ll see will be staggering.

All it takes is enough self-doubt to realize that no matter how great you are, you can always do better.

One of my favorite organization blogs, Unclutterer, just splashed a bit of cold water on my face:

A gadget addict may have a problem if they constantly drool over the next best thing, but most of us can control our consumer frenzy and be happy with our two-year-old cell phones that doesn’t have internet access. When your time becomes cluttered with gadget envy and the continuous pursuit of the end-all of gadgetry, then you may want to think of why you pursue them so aggressively.

Ouch! It’s tough when a blog post seems to know you better than you know yourself. I can’t help that I like the fanciest new technology — for me, well-designed gadgets are a way to improve life, and for the most part I don’t regret the buying choices I make.

As many of you know from one of my other recent posts, I’ve decided to hold off on buying the coveted iPhone because it doesn’t meet my standards for what an iPod and a mobile phone should do. I’m not sure that this exempts me from the classification of “gadget addict” but I try to appreciate small victories where I can find them.

I suppose that you could argue that my time is “cluttered with gadget envy” due to the 100+ blog posts I read at Engadget and Gizmodo on a daily basis, but I like to think that it’s harmless fun. After all, an addiction doesn’t really become a problem until you stop eating in order to feed it, right?

Even so, this is clearly a sensitive topic. Just read the comments in response to this Unclutterer post for proof:

This criticism of the iPhone in a blog on clutter seems misplaced to me. I would understand recommending against buying lots of high-tech junk that you don’t use very much and which just sits around taking up space. But I don’t understand calling an item which I will use productively every day, and which makes it possible for me to travel without lugging my laptop along with me “clutter”. There are so many more deserving items of your scorn.

Again, ouch. I think that the article is merely responding to the extreme amount of hype surrounding the iPhone’s release, and questioning why owning the next fancy gadget is such an indicator of social status for some people. Perhaps the defensiveness in response to the article stems from the possibility that people who read Unclutterer are deeply conflicted about their state of disorganization. I, for one, know that I am.

Russian news site Pravda.ru examines the problem of gadget addiction from a medical and psychological perspective in an article from 2004:

Gadget-addicted people have a bouquet of psychological symptoms, such as: euphoria and ecstasy from buying a new gadget, inability to stay away from appliances for long, the feeling of emptiness and depression that develops when a person does not purchase gadgets on a regular basis, disregard for family members and friends. Gadget mania can be harmful to health too: addicts suffer from dryness in the eyes, headaches and sleeping disorder.

Maybe I’m going about this all wrong. It’s clearly time for me to enroll in a 12-step program. I wonder if there’s a web-based version, or an audio-book version for my iPod!

Unclutterer: Gadgetry clutter
New modern phenomenon of gadget addiction ruins families - Pravda.Ru

So you’ve already got a successful website or business and you’ve spent a ton of time (and potentially lots of money) building an audience. Taking your site to the next level can be really tough, but one option you may not have considered is podcasting.

Why podcast? It gives you a chance to be directly in the ears of your site’s audience just about anywhere — on the train, in the shower, in the car, on the treadmill — and if you’ve ever listened to talk radio, you know that the connection a host can make with his or her audience is powerful. There’s nothing more intimate than directly speaking into someone’s ears.

Obviously, you need some content — whether it’s general content about your site’s subject matter, an update on what your company is up to, a behind-the-scenes look at what you do — I’ll leave the ideas up to you. But the real barrier to creating a good podcast is professional production.

You could pay a podcast production company lots of money to work with you, but who wants to do that? There are plenty of great podcast production resources out there that can help you get from podcast rookie to podcast production engineer in a jiffy.

Podcast Production Inspiration - Stuff That Sounds Good

Before you jump into producing your own podcast, you should get some inspiration by listening to some of the most popular podcasts to find a few that have the sound you’re looking for.

iTunes Top Podcasts - These are usually the best of the best in terms of podcast production. Downloading a few of these to observe what podcast listeners respond well to will make a huge difference.
Feast of Fools Podcast - With one of the most frequently updated podcasts (5x per week), host Fausto Fernos has set the bar high for podcast production with this comedy variety show.
This American Life - Although this is a popular syndicated radio show, the podcast has been #1 on iTunes for quite some time, and is a great model for good podcast production value.

Podcast Production Guides - Tips to Get You Started

There are a lot of great resources out there for those looking for an all-inclusive introduction to podcast production. These guides will help you get started by summarizing the finer points of podcasting.

iLounge Beginner’s Guide to Podcast Creation - iLounge, one of the top iPod news resources, has a thorough guide to getting started with podcast production, from equipment, to software and distribution.
Apple’s Podcast Creation Guide - If you use a Mac, Apple has a great guide on how to get started with podcast production using the software that comes with your Mac.
Producing a Podcast With the Gear You Own Today - This article takes a minimalist approach to podcast production and shows you how you can use free software and the tools you already have to get started.

Podcast Production Equipment - Capturing Your Voice

Your podcast won’t build an audience if you sound like you’re talking into a tin can. Using a crappy microphone is podcast production mistake #1. There are a lot of other cool gadgets you can buy, but at the core of every good podcast production is a good microphone, and you don’t have to spend a fortune.

Amazon - Amazon is a great resource for looking for a microphone in your price range, because there are so many useful customer reviews that can help you decide whether a microphone is right for podcasting.
Creating a Podcast - Equipment - Peachpit Press has a detailed article on equipment for podcast production, along with some links to specific hardware recommendations.
Upgrade Your Podcast for Under $200 - Jake Ludington has a piece for those willing to spend a tiny bit more to take their podcast production value to the next level.

Podcast Production Software - Slicing, Dicing, and Splicing

Believe it or not, you don’t have to spend a lot of money on software for editing your podcast. Your podcast production suite can even consist of free software of software you already have installed on your computer!

Audacity - Perhaps the most popular free audio editing suite, especially for podcast production. It’s cross-platform, meaning that you can use it on your PC or Mac, or even Linux.
GarageBand - Apple’s GarageBand software for Mac OS X is included with the iLife software package, and is the podcast production suite of choice for many Mac users, especially since many Macs include GarageBand preinstalled.
Adobe Audition - My favorite podcast production software is Adobe Audition (formerly CoolEdit Pro). It’s a fantastic multi-track mixer, sequencer, and sound editor all in one. Even though it’s far more expensive than the free alternatives, it’s a great way to go pro.

Podcast Production Music - Songs to Talk Over Without Getting Sued

A podcast with no music is pretty boring. However, that doesn’t mean that you can use Madonna or Pink Floyd as your intro music, thanks to a friendly organization called the RIAA. Thankfully, plenty of sources of “podsafe” music have sprung up to help you spruce up your show.

podsafe music network - The #1 resource to find safe music for your podcast production, many bands and composers have submitted tens of thousands of tunes for podcast use at this community.
indie-music.com - Many independent artists are just *begging* for their music to get played, especially since it’s so hard to get played on the radio. This site will help you find independent bands that you can contact to get permission to play their music on your show.
Podsafe Audio - PodsafeAudio features tons of music for use in podcast production, all of which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license for use in podcasting.

Podcast Production Delivery - Getting Your Show to the Masses

Finally, you’ve got to actually get your show out there so that your adoring fans can download it. Fabulous podcast production doesn’t mean anything if no one actually gets to hear it! These are the best ways to get heard!

iTunes - Apple’s podcast directory on the iTunes Music Store is still the best way for people to find your podcast and download it for free. It will also regularly sync the podcast to your listener’s iPod to take on the road.
FeedBurner - If you have a blog or website, FeedBurner can help you set up your RSS feed so that it’s ready to get into the iTunes directory or other podcast directories, as well as track your number of subscribers listening to your show.
PodPress - Usually a blog is used as the main distribution channel for a podcast. If you use WordPress, you should get PodPress, a great plugin that allows you to easily upload and manage your podcasts and statistics. It also includes a great Flash media player so your listeners can hear your show directly in the browser.

Good luck, and happy podcasting!

I’m a shamelessly obsessed gadget freak, so naturally it wasn’t that hard for Apple to grab my attention with the announcement, hype, and long-awaited release of the iPhone. All of my friends and colleagues kept asking me if I was planning on waiting in line for what has shaped up to be an event on par with the second coming of Jesus.

Nope. Not this time.

The iPhone definitely does a good job of building on top of Apple’s reputation for designing swanky, sexy devices - but as a constantly connected, web-developing tech geek, my demands for a device are more than what the iPhone can offer (at least for now).

If any of these things are important to you, you’re probably not ready to succumb to the iPhone mania either.

1. No high-speed Internet access on iPhone - This one has me really upset. Data on the ‘net is getting larger by the minute. Watching movies and streaming audio from websites are the most common examples that you’ll hear when nerds like me try to justify the necessity of broadband, but that’s really oversimplifying the problem. Yahoo!’s homepage alone has a page weight of 491KB. So, what does this mean? EDGE, which is the technology the iPhone uses for its data service usually averages well under 200kbit/sec. In comparison, my 3G Samsung Blackjack gets a good 400kbit/sec or more.

2. No way to tether iPhone to my laptop during my commute - Ouch. For as cool as the iPhone looks, it doesn’t do the most important thing that my phone does. I can tether my phone to my laptop using Bluetooth and browse the web wirelessly while I’m on the train. The bandwidth is even good enough to use Remote Desktop to access my home or work computers. Without that capability, I’d lose a lot of productivity every day, considering that I spend at least an hour and a half on the train.

3. Not enough storage space for my media - Yeah, I’m one of those people who likes to carry around tons of media everywhere I go. I don’t even use video on my 60GB iPod, and I use almost every single byte with the 9,214 songs I currently carry in my pocket. With only 8GB of storage in the most expensive model, and more than 700MB of that space consumed by the operating system, I’d only be able to carry around roughly 10% of my collection. While simplifying might be a refreshing idea, that’s a bit too simple for me.

4. No Bluetooth headphone support for music - I have a great pair of wireless Logitech Bluetooth headphones I use with my iPod while working out. One thing that initially excited me about the iPhone was the prospect of being able to get rid of the clunky adapter dongle that I currently have to carry around and getting to have my choice of Bluetooth stereo headsets. Not so much. This is really disappointing, but maybe it will be addressed in a future software update.

5. No tactile feedback - I never realized how much I rely on the feel of the buttons on my phone and iPod until holding iPhone for the first time. Even without looking, I know exactly where to press on my phone to hang up on crazy relatives, and changing songs on my iPod is as easy as a flick of my thumb in my jacket pocket. The iPhone’s admittedly sexy multi-touch interface doesn’t give the kind of feedback I’m used to from devices, so I don’t think I could use it without looking at the screen.

6. A new iPod is probably on the horizon - I’m holding out hope that Apple will remember those of us that didn’t want a cellphone with our iPods, and release a long-overdue update to the hard drive based iPod line before the end of the year. I suspect that this iPod would have a drive larger than 100GB (due to the larger, smaller hard drive platters that have emerged since the last major iPod release), WiFi, and a major user interface overhaul ala iPhone.

If you’re one of millions of Americans with a caffeine addiction, this Starbucks drink hack should give you jolt. An insider at the company shared this little trick with me:

Instead of getting your drink “with room”, order a Tall in a Grande cup.

Depending on your part of the country, a Grande hot coffee will cost you around $1.70, whereas the Tall coffee is $1.50, which is almost 10% cheaper. If you’re like me, you like to put milk, cream, sugar, or Splenda in your coffee, or you simply don’t want the barista to overfill the cup (having it spill all over your pants while you drive to work… grrr…), so you order your drink “with room”.

If you compare the volume of a Grande “with room” and a Tall, you’ll find that they are almost identical. With this in mind, ask your barista to give you a Tall in a Grande cup. In most cases, the barista won’t waste a cup by pouring the coffee into a Tall first and then transferring it to a Grande, so you’ll ultimately end up with the same amount of coffee at a lower price.

If that tiny amount of savings doesn’t give you the shakes like your morning latte does, let’s do a little math:

The yearly cost of a Grande coffee:
50 work weeks x 5 work days x $1.70 = $425.00

The yearly cost of a Tall coffee:
50 work weeks x 5 work days x $1.50 = $375.00

That’s a difference of fifty bucks per year — enough to buy a few books, a new video game, dinner out — and all it takes is switching your order around a little bit. If you’re even more of an addict, you might even be making several trips per day to Starbucks, or going on the weekend. Adjust the math to suit your habits, and you’ll see that this seemingly tiny difference can really add up.

On a side note, if you try this with a latte instead of a boring hot coffee, you could save as much as $137 per year. For me, that’s a month of car insurance.

Do you have any other hints for saving money while getting your caffeine fix at Starbucks? Leave a comment and let me know!

When I was very young, I remember my father trying to explain to me the an easy way to clean my room. He suggested that I divide the room into a grid of squares, and clean things up one square at a time, assuring me that by the time I had cleared every square of clutter, the room would be clean.

This approach is what I’ve come to recognize as “baby steps” — breaking a large and daunting task up into smaller, digestible pieces. If only it were that simple, everyone would easily and effortlessly succeed at every single goal.

Take, for instance, one of those most common desires that people have — losing weight and getting in shape. There is a reason that the fitness industry makes billions of dollars each year — an inordinate amount of people are not succeeding. Experts have always said that diet and exercise are the most effective ways to lose weight, yet for some reason, most people don’t get results. The reason? One day of running on the treadmill doesn’t make your goal a reality.

The fundamental basis for this is the old “can’t see the forest for the trees” adage. A single tree doesn’t make a forest, just as a single day of exercise doesn’t give you six-pack abs. However, no one would dispute that the cumulative growth of a large number of trees eventually makes a forest. Why is it, then, that people have such a difficult time understanding the powerful cumulative effect of the decisions they make?

I believe that three simple facts may help put things in perspective:

FACT: There is a forest.

You have to believe in the existence of the outcome that you are trying to achieve. That’s not always easy, especially since change often takes time. This is where the power of intention-manifestation comes into play.

In The Power of Intention, Dr. Wayne Dyer says:

“Act as if anything you desire is already here; treat yourself as if you already are what you’d like to become.”

The importance of this cannot be overemphasized. If you’re driving to a friend’s house, how do you know when you’ve arrived? Most likely, you’ve been there before and can recognize the house when you get there. If you’ve never been there before, you probably have directions, a street address, or other identifying factors that will help you know that you’ve reached your destination.

What both of these scenarios have in common is that you never once considered that the house might not be there. Replay this scenario in your mind, but this time think of what the outcome might have been if you weren’t sure that your friend’s house even existed. Would you even get in the car? Would you waste your time speeding towards an uncertain location? Probably not. That’s what you would call a “wild goose chase”. Your destinations (or goals) in life are the same. Subconsciously, you’re unlikely to allow yourself to succeed if you secretly think you’re racing towards an impossible goal.

FACT: There would be no forest without a lot of trees.

Interest is cumulative, both in saving money, and in achieving goals. A 20-year old today who is only making $35,000 per year could potentially have over $3 million for retirement by simply saving 10% of his or her income. In fact, that might amount to only $50 per paycheck. You can imagine how easy it is to lose sight of the big picture when you’re only saving $50 per paycheck. $50 doesn’t feel like $3 million. You can’t buy a yacht with $50. The true power is in the exponential accumulation.

When you’re exercising, it’s easy to focus on a single session. Some fitness experts might even recommend this. How many times have you heard someone say, “Just take it one day at a time”? The catch is that “one day at a time” is a way to tolerate something monotonous and miserable that makes you unhappy. Instead, assert to yourself that you’re accumulating success in the area of your goal. Just as saving money can help you accumulate wealth, recognize each small contribution to your goal as an investment in the bank account of your success. And then, remember that the payout will be huge. You’re not “working out” — you’re “accumulating fitness”. Don’t forget that $50 may not look like $3 million, but if you were to travel forward in time and zoom in on that 20-year old’s bank statements for the past 45 years, your perspective would change significantly.

The whole is, in fact, greater than the sum of its parts.

FACT: The individual tree is the most important part of the forest.

If you don’t believe me, use hindsight. Imagine if you had lifted weights, run 4 miles, or practiced yoga every day for the past year. What would the outcome have been if you had seized that possibility when it was right there in front of you? Did you even know that possibility lay before you? What were you doing a year ago today? Can you even remember? With that said, what possibilities are in front of you at this very moment? Anyone who has been diligent in achieving a goal knows that their success was a culmination of a lot of tiny successes that came together to create something grand. Subtract a piece here or there, and suddenly those start to add up as well. Before you know it, the success is gone and you’re left with a mediocre result, if even that.

The key is to understand that the big picture does exist, and that the moment that you’re experiencing right now presents an opportunity for you to make a decision that will contribute a piece to that larger puzzle. Imagine your goal as the picture on the jigsaw puzzle box. If you finish the puzzle, and just one piece is missing, suddenly that piece becomes the most most important one. You may have never thought that the corner piece with nothing but grass on it would have been the most important one, but the puzzle is not complete without it. Because life is unpredictable, we must treat every piece of the puzzle as though it is the most important one — the one that makes a difference.