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Motivation: Jerry Seinfeld's productivity secret

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 23:35:46 GMT

Years ago when Seinfeld was a new television show, Jerry Seinfeld was still a touring comic. At the time, I was hanging around clubs doing open mic nights and trying to learn the ropes. One night I was in the club where Seinfeld was working, and before he went on stage, I saw my chance. I had to ask Seinfeld if he had any tips for a young comic. What he told me was something that would benefit me a lifetime...

He said the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes was to write every day. But his advice was better than that. He had a gem of a leverage technique he used on himself and you can use it to motivate yourself - even when you don't feel like it.

He then revealed a unique calendar system he was using pressure himself to write.

Here's how it worked.

He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker.

He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. "After a few days you'll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You'll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain."

"Don't break the chain." He said again for emphasis.

Over the years I've used his technique in many different areas. I've used it for exercise, to learn programming, to learn network administration, to build successful websites and build successful businesses.

It works because it isn't the one-shot pushes that get us where we want to go, it is the consistent daily action that builds extraordinary outcomes. You may have heard "inch by inch anything's a cinch." Inch by inch does work if you can move an inch every day.

Daily action builds habits. It gives you practice and will make you an expert in a short time. If you don't break the chain, you'll start to spot opportunities you otherwise wouldn't. Small improvements accumulate into large improvements rapidly because daily action provides "compounding interest."

Skipping one day makes it easier to skip the next.

I've often said I'd rather have someone who will take action - even if small - every day as opposed to someone who swings hard once or twice a week. Seinfeld understands that daily action yields greater benefits than sitting down and trying to knock out 1000 jokes in one day.

Think for a moment about what action would make the most profound impact on your life if you worked it every day. That is the action I recommend you put on your Seinfeld calendar. Start today and earn your big red X. And from here on out...

Don't break the chain!

Isaih Washington TR Knight gay faggot slur video OMG

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 01:50:21 GMT

Isaiah Washington controversy

In October, 2006 as season 3 began, the show's actors attracted media attention when Washington was alleged to have referred to another cast member as a "faggot" during an on-set altercation with Patrick Dempsey. This cast member transpired to be T.R. Knight who came out about his sexual orientation following media speculation. While Washington denied using the word, he issued a public statement apologizing for his "unfortunate use of words." The controversy later reignited at the 2007 Golden Globe Awards. After the show won for Best Drama Series, the cast and crew appeared in the pressroom to answer reporters' questions. While creator Shonda Rhimes was being asked about the incident, Washington unexpectedly stepped in front of the microphone and stated: "No, I did not call T.R. a faggot." (The Hollywood Foreign Press Association placed the footage on their website) Afterwards, in an interview with Access Hollywood, Katherine Heigl criticised Washington for revisiting the incident publicly and using the slur in the pressroom, and said "he needs to just not speak in public. Period." Later that week, Knight appeared on Ellen DeGeneres' daytime talkshow and said he and others had heard Washington use the slur during the October incident. LGBT group GLAAD then called on Washington to apologize.[20] Network executives went on to reprimand Washington, who then agreed to undergo counseling and issued a statement saying: "I can neither defend nor explain my behavior...I can also no longer deny to myself that there are issues I obviously need to examine within my own soul, and I've asked for help." In an effort to try to come clean with the viewers, Washington surprisingly checked into a residential treatment facility to undergo a psychological assessment for the slur.

However, on June 7, ABC announced they had decided not to renew Washington's contract, and that he would be dropped from the show. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore," Washington said in a statement released by his publicist.

Kids, you might want to reconsider that bareback rear-end double penetration you've been contemplating

Fri, 25 May 2007 01:52:12 GMT

Perching on the edge of a bed in her ex-boyfriend's apartment above a used appliance shop on Papineau, native Montrealer Lara Roxx contemplates the possibility that the moment she became infected with HIV could become part of an upcoming porn movie.

"It's pretty creepy. I mean, are you going to sell the sex scene where Lara Roxx caught HIV? It's like you're only thinking about money. It's disgusting. Don't use it, I don't care if I signed the release, don't use it."

Throughout the interview, Roxx's cell phone rings a ludicrously loud funky tone. Her first call prompts her to grab a fat marker, which she uses to write down a list of homeless shelters welcoming the HIV-positive. Just weeks ago the 21-year-old Montrealer was spending the ample earnings of 15 locally-shot sex scenes. But on March 24, Roxx - a stage name that combines reference to Lara Croft and a taste for jewellery - was infected with HIV in Los Angeles by Darren James in a condom-free double anal scene in which she was simultaneously sodomized by James and Marc Anthony. Now she's homeless, broke and HIV-positive.

Roxx says she feels fine so far except for her nerves. "I have anxiety crises, I go through headaches and stomach pains when people argue with me," she says.

She says she has focused her life on starting a home for HIV-positive people. "Emotionally I've been doing my own therapy by planning a foundation. Talking about it helps me feel really good."

The Lara Roxx Foundation would welcome "people under 25 who are broke financially and emotionally, who are mentally stable and HIV-positive. If your family is rejecting you, it will be like the Ronald McDonald mansion, but for people who have HIV." Roxx also provides a wish list for her camp, which includes boating and horseback riding. She'd also live there.

Lured by lucre

Roxx started in the world of adult entertainment as a dancer in clubs like SuperSexe, where she'd earn "$400 or $500 a day." But the lure of more money beckoned. "I thought that the money I was making with 10 customers, I could make that with one guy." Her first film experience, on January 10, was with local producer Bruno B. "I was managing myself back then, and at first it went well. He was really nice, and we spoke for 45 minutes before he told me stuff like exactly how big his penis was. He had the condom but he came on my face, which was really disgusting. But I felt I had to get used to that if I was going to be in porn for two or three years."

Roxx found herself pulling in $2,000 for a few hours' work a week, and spending much of the loot on consumer goods. "I decorated my room and bought a lot of nice clothes, I bought CDs, a CD player - no, actually that was my father's gift - and these super Koss speakers. It's a real nice room now but I'm not allowed on that property because my mom kind of kicked me out with the assistance of the cops. If I go back there I could get arrested."

Initially Roxx says she had her mother's blessings to have hardcore sex on camera. "My mom doesn't approve of me being HIV-positive. But at the time, she thought that if you feel comfortable with what you're doing, it's okay. I wasn't comfortable but I thought I was, and I was convincing myself that I was. But I wasn't on drugs to have to do it. It was me talking to myself, like, ‘Come on, you can do it.'

"I felt that it was safe. I have a friend doing it and she has a baby and is still with her man and everything is going well for them. I thought everything would go well for me too."

Condom problems

Roxx hooked up with professional management when her ex-boyfriend, photographer Denis Lefebvre, introduced her to manager Daniel Perreault. "Perreault really convinced me that it wasn't worth it for him to represent me or for me to waste my time waiting on contracts if I insisted on doing condoms only."

At Perreault's home studio at Belanger and 26th Avenue in Rosemount, Roxx filmed her first-ever anal scene with Darren James on February 10. Roxx says she and producer Marc Anthony got along well. "He was being all friendly but James really didn't like me. I thought he was really ugly and I didn't want to do it with him. I'm attracted to black men but not Darren James, he's just not cute and he has an ugly face. We did the scene and it just got worse. I was trying to take my time to relax and feel safe about it and he was just trying to get it done, in and out."

Although Roxx filmed 15 scenes in 10 weeks, she felt she could earn more in Los Angeles, so after making her way down there she found that Marc Anthony wanted her for another film starring James. "I was like, ‘Oh my God, we worked together and [James] hated me and now we're going to have to work with each other again.' And then I was actually happy because I thought they were never going to hire me again."

Upon arriving on the set she was told that she'd have to do a double anal or else not get the scene. Her resistance was worn down fast. "I felt like I was doing something wrong, that they were the professionals and I was the rookie and I'm not supposed to be asking all these questions before the shoot. Maybe I'm just supposed to open my legs and that's all they want in this industry. That's one of the things I intend to change. I want to change it so the girl gets more respect than that."

Says her lawyer, Daniel Lighter: "She went to L.A. because it is supposedly the most professional and sophisticated place in the world for people to do this type of work. She left as a perfectly healthy girl and came back with a death sentence."

Lighter says there is no doubt that she got the infection from James, and that recent viral load tests have shown James has had the infection longer than her. He adds that he is considering legal action in California against "the actors, agents and corporations who shot or oversaw the shooting of the scene."

Domain name disputed

Several funds have been set up to help her and two other actresses - Jessica Dee and Miss Arroyo - who contracted HIV via James, but Roxx says she has not yet received a cent. She also complains that purportedly sympathetic porn industry managers have snatched up the rights to her Web site, www.lararoxx.com, which she wants to use to as a tool to start her foundation. She says that in the days following the breaking of her story, millions went to the site only to be redirected to porn sites. The site now redirects - as she has requested - to an AIDS awareness site.

Later during the afternoon of our interview Roxx starts on a flurry of calls inquiring about any funds that may have been raised. She leaves messages. She's also hoping for some progress on incorporating a charitable foundation and begs generous souls to send cheques for The Lara Roxx Foundation to her lawyer at: Daniel Lighter In Trust, 500 Place d'Armes, Suite 2350, Montreal, H2Y 2W2.

At the end of a series of dead ends, Roxx finally gets a bit of bright news: her lawyer informs her that Entertainment Tonight will fly her to New York and pay her $3,500 (U.S.) to tape an interview. She's happy for the publicity. "I don't want to do what my mom would want, which is to hide and be sad and think bad ideas. I'd rather act. I want people to still talk about me because I want them to see that I'm doing something good in society."

Along with dreams of starting an HIV camp, Roxx - who says her physical intimacy since the moment she was infected entails a single hug - also wants to direct "horror-type films" and has a career in rap in view.

"I'd love to work with Dr. Dre and Timberlake," she says before opening up a notebook to rap an autobiographical number: "Do you think you are better than me?/I bet you are scared of my disease/You are stuck on HIV I see/You probably say Lara Roxx on TV, Lara Roxx on the rocks, you see/Only one person to be judging me, it's not you, you see, you've got problems just like me."

Woolmer called his book Inshallah Now you know why bob woolmer was killed

Tue, 01 May 2007 13:49:14 GMT

The Pakistan cricket team’s ‘descent’ into praying rather than playing because of the infiltration of an other-worldly proselytising sect of Islam called the Tableeghi Jamaat (TJ) worried their murdered coach Bob Woolmer so much he was writing a book titled 'Inshallah', TOI has learnt.

The book, due out at the end of March, had been accepted by a South African publisher. It has now been shelved.

Woolmer openly expressed his irritation at the Pakistan World Cup Squad’s pronounced TJ sympathies almost as soon as the team arrived at Montego Bay in Jamaica for the opening ceremony.

The squad’s former media manager PJ Mir confirmed on Tuesday that Woolmer told this to him and team manager Talat Ali with the wailing backdrop of a TJ CD: “While all of us are on our way to the hotel (with the team), can’t you ask them to turn it off?"

Mir said Woolmer’s irritation was sparked after a series of incidents that appeared to underline some Pakistan players’ determination to “make a political statement of their faith.”

Mir, a former Pakistan player who was part of the squad during the first World Cup in 1975, said Woolmer could hardly have failed to notice that his boys appeared to be “concentrating more on a Tableeghi CD rather than talking cricket.”

He added that it was absurd for Pakistan players to say the azaan on the aircraft to the World Cup venue because “Pakistan is a moderate nation, we have a moderate president, a modern prime minister, and it is not right to depict Pakistan like this.”

On Tuesday, Mir's concerns were echoed by Qamar Ahmed, a London-based veteran cricket correspondent, who knew Woolmer for 25 years and has travelled with the Pakistan team for decades to cover eight World Cups, 351 Tests and 667 one-day matches.

He told TOI that Woolmer personally informed him of his forthcoming book, Inshallah , last February.

“He had obviously been watching the Pakistan cricket, its culture and the religious bent. He had seen that some of the boys would call in a substitute for fielding and go off to say namaaz,” said Ahmed.

Mir, who has spent considerable time in London for the last 30 years and now presents a popular programme on the Pakistani TV channel ARY, added in a reference to former captain Rashid Lateef that he was equally “disappointed that a former Test cricketer, who has led the team, should have said there should be a fatwa on me (for saying the players were more interested in praying than playing).”

Mir’s concerns over the rising religiosity of the Pakistani team came as cricket experts and aficionados here recounted jokes that chronicled the Pakistan team’s increasing faith in prayer power rather than player power.

According to one apocryphal joke, alleged to be fact, the team’s half-baked fanaticism was best reflected by captain Inzamam-ul-Haq who responded to an English journalist’s congratulations on the birth of his son with these words: “Thanks to Allah, it’s a team effort.”

Brad Pitt to Angelina Jolie: Why don’t you love Shiloh?

Sat, 14 Apr 2007 12:06:39 GMT

Angelina Jolie has devoted herself over the past few years to helping orphaned children around the world, not only with her much-publicized adoptions but also through her work as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations.

Angie, 31, is certainly praiseworthy for these things. But at home with her partner, Brad Pitt, 43, the nurturing that Angie gives to her adopted kids — Maddox, 5, Pax, 3 and Zahara, 2 — comes at the expense of the couple's biological child, Shiloh, 10 months, insiders say.

“Angie doesn’t change Shiloh’s diapers or hold her when she cries,” one insider tells Life & Style. “One time Shiloh was having a tantrum and Angie just told Brad to quiet her down because she was upsetting the other kids.”

Brad’s rep denies that Angie shows preferential treatment. But in Life & Style’s cover story this week, multiple insiders say that she and Brad are at odds because Angie shuns Shiloh — and have fought over it to the point of Brad’s accusing her of not loving the baby.