You Java Be Kidding Me?!

Alright, not the best pun title, but it makes me smile. Tomorrow is May 1, and part of my rebuilding plan is to cut back on my coffee consumption. I’ve decided that first day of May would be the beginning of the end of my coffee addiction. I typically drink a minimum of 40oz of coffee per day, which is the equivalent of 2 venti (Starbucks) or extra-large (Tim Hortons) coffees. Each coffee tends to carry about 400-200 mg of caffeine. I don’t know why Starbucks has higher caffeine levels in their coffee, but whatever.

Now, 2 coffees is my minimum. My usual is more like 4-5 which is 80-100 oz of coffee a day. I love my coffee, but it is clear that I am addicted to the caffeine and on a typical day, I am consuming over 1,200 mg of caffeine. That just doesn’t sound healthy. In fact, some studies found that more that 500mg of coffee per day cause addiction, panic attacks, and even hallucinations.

There are a multitude of studies out there that convey both the benefits and the dangers of consuming coffee and I’ve pretty much read them all. I do love my coffee but I also love my health and I am realizing that I should find a better balance. I’ll never give up my coffee, but I can certainly try to moderate my intake.

Caffeine is one of the most widely used stimulants in the world. Most of us are addicted to coffee and other caffeinated beverages to some degree. It’s a drug that has real chemical effects on the human body. Most of which, are probably not beneficial any more when you drink the amount that I drink.

So starting tomorrow, I’ll be cutting back to a maximum intake of 32oz of coffee per day. That’s the equivalent of 2 Grande from Starbucks or 2 Mediums from Tim Hortons.

I expect that I’ll be a little irritable for a while, but I am going to be trying alternatives to coffee for both the energy boosts and for the habit of drinking a hot beverage, such as eating more fruit, and drinking herbal teas.

Small, incremental steps accumulate to long term big changes. I am a little scared of cutting coffee out of my routine, but also excited at the challenge.

Where Have All The Good Ties Gone?

I spent the day in downtown Toronto today and came across a very shocking discovery. Men are no longer wearing ties when they dress up. I saw dozens of nicely dressed gentlemen going about their business in what is arguably the fashion centre of Canada, all missing what I feel is an essential part of the male wardrobe.

I am actually concerned about this. Has our society slipped so far into the “Business Casual” mindset that ties are actually becoming unfashionable?

No. I refuse to accept that. A suit, or even a dress shirt, just isn’t complete without a neck tie. It is a finishing piece that has been used for hundreds of years to class up any outfit. I can understand fashion trends moving between styles of ties, ascots, scarves, cravats, and the like, but to do without them altogether? No thank you.

Gentleman, you go right ahead and stop wearing your ties. I am going to keep wearing mine and stand out that much more.

Getting Back At It

It has been far too long since I wrote my last post on this blog. I’ve been distracted with a lot of other things over the past 6 months and I’ve been focusing my writing on a few other blogging projects. But things are getting organized and I feel like I can start writing under my own name again. Writing has always been theraputic for me and helped me figure a lot of things out. There is just something about sitting in front of a blank screen, with unlimited potential to express all my thoughts and feelings through words. Writing is a beautiful process and although it is difficult sometimes, I love it and everything it can accomplish.

It will be a little slow going at first, but I hope to commit to writing a post every other day on this blog. Let’s do this!

How Committed Are You?

Today I did something I haven’t done in a very long time. Something I should have been doing for a while now, but I haven’t had the courage or foresight to follow through with it. Something that has an incredible impact on my life not just now, but well into the future.

Today I said “No.”

As you probably know by now, I love getting involved in community initiatives, it is by far one of my biggest passions in life. It is also one of my biggest addictions. My name is Robb Farago, and I am an over-committer.

I get an incredible feeling of satisfaction when I know I was a part of something that made a real impact. Whether I was a full blown organizer, or a minor task volunteer, any involvement is great involvement. And I try to get involved as much as possible. For the most part this can be done with little or no sacrifice. Little or no sacrifice if I don’t mind forgoing a social life or sleep. But for a long time, it seemed like a decent price to pay because I was meeting a lot of amazing people, working with fun and dynamic new teams and gaining an incredible amount of experience.

But eventually you hit a wall.

Time is finite, and we can only cram so much into those 168 hours every week. I realized that my schedule was in control of my life and I could no longer be spontaneous or social the way I liked to be. I had more commitments than I had time for, and the worst part was that it was all my own doing. I finally understood what it means to be busy.

There are so many incredible individuals around with amazing ideas, and their passion and energy is so infectious that you want to be a part of it all. But each event or project comes with a more than just an event date. There are recurring meetings, tight schedules, task lists, and late night crises that all come with each project and you can never really gauge how much involvement is required until you jump in.

I like my life and everything I do, and I want to make sure that I can do a great job with everything it is that I am involved with. But in order to do so, I realize that I need to start saying no and limit my involvement to a select group of projects.

So here we go!

How many things do you commit to? Do you feel like you’re too busy?

This realization was inspired by a few different people and situations, but most mostly by this particular presentation by Brendan Sheehan at Ignite Charity Waterloo on being “Busy”

Smiles and Second Chances

I’ve been distracted for a very long time. Life has been, for lack of a better word, crazy. Over the past year there has been a lot weighing on my mind and its caused more than its own share of issues. But yesterday, like some magic spell, everything that has been holding me back, keeping me preoccupied, finally came to a head. My family has been struggling with some heavy things, and yesterday, we received very good news and Life can move forward. I am elated and ready to take on the world again!

We can often forget that every day is a gift. Life can suddenly change, or end, and we really don’t have much control over that. We live our lives day in day out and take for granted all of the things that make life really worth living, worth smiling about. And when things are at their worst, we seem to ignore these things the most.

A bit over a month ago, I came across something known as The Smile Epidemic. It is a social research project that is creating a world-wide shared digital gratitude journal. Basically, people think of something that they are grateful for in life. Something that keeps them going through the day, something that makes them smile, then they post a picture to the Smile Epidemic blog for the world to see. It is beautiful in its simplicity in that all it takes is recognition of something small that is already happening in your life. Something you probably experience every day, but have put little thought in to how it affects you. These are the things that make life worth living, and The Smile Epidemic helps you to remember what is truly important.

When I saw the smiles start to spread across the world using this method, I started reflecting on my own life. Things were about as difficult as they could possibly ever be and it was difficult to think of anything else, let a lone smile about something. But I tried it one day. Just took a moment to recognize when I actually smiled during the day and what caused it. Despite everything that was going on, I realized that I had a moment of happiness. A moment where everything was okay. It was an incredible feeling. I started doing this as often as possible. Trying to recognize each and every moment where I smiled or was grateful for something. You know what I found? That in a typical day I could easily come up with 10-20 things that would make me smile, even for just a moment. It is what inspired me to take on the 30 Days of Happiness Challenge. Where I publically share to the world one thing that’s made me smile that day. I’ve been participating for 11 days now, and life has never felt better.

There are so many things in this life that are worth smiling about, we should recognize them. Because life is all about being happy. And if you don’t take the time to recognize those moments that make you happy, are you really living?

Don’t Be A Jerk

It has been a little while since I’ve written in this blog. There has been a lot of different things happening so like most people, the blog is the first to go.

Regardless, of what has been happening or how busy I’ve been lately with new projects, I’ve missed writing in my blog and feel like I need to start regularly contributing again. I feel I owe it to the 4 people that actually registered to my blog…

Anyway, as you might have read in my last posting, there has been a lot going on. I’d never actually put the details of what’s been happening on my blog itself, but there’s been a lot and I feel that now things are finally settling down and I can move on. Allowing me to once again concentrate on writing.

Tonight, I feel it is time to write about a topic that has been on my mind for quite some time. Something that affects pretty much anyone, either in the virtual world or the real world. Being a jerk. It is really, really, really, easy to be a jerk these days. But the worst part of it, is that you might be acting like a jerk without even knowing it.

I, my friends, feel like I am guilty of such a thing. We all get wrapped up in our own lives, which is just fine. We can only live with ourselves, so why not focus on our own well being. But there comes a time, when you need to spend a little more attention on those that matter outside of the selfish circle that we’ve created for ourselves.

It doesn’t take much to be a jerk. Being self serving, self indulgent, and just plain selfish pretty much applies. When you interact with someone, what are you thinking? Are you listening to what is being said, or are you just waiting to say your piece after? What is your priority? Is it wrong to say that “I” am the most important priority?

Where do we draw the line? Where do you draw the line between looking after others and looking after yourself?

My Journey as a Community Supporter

If you didn’t know already, this past Friday was the third Steel Rails Sessions in Waterloo. It’s one of those events that is talked about all year because of just how awesome it is. I hope you are fortunate enough to have attended at least one. If not, do what you can to attend next year, you will certainly not regret it.

For me, I have been fortunate enough to attend the Steel Rails Sessions every year now, and although each one has been an incredible experience in its own right, the passing of each Steel Rails event holds for myself particular meaning and inflection.

In June of 2010, my life was very different than it is right now. I was still in University and kept my network focused on academics and student involvement. I wasn’t even aware of most of the goings on in KWAwesome at that point. When I attended the first Steel Rails that summer I was exposed to a world I didn’t know existed. There were so many amazing people doing so many amazing things. I met people that impressed the hell out of me because they were doing what they loved and what they loved was making the community better.

It was at Steel Rails One that I realized that anyone, as long as they meant it, could make a difference in their community. I got to know a lot of the people who were community and business leaders in their own right. Some of these people were casual acquaintances, some became very good friends of mine, but all of them were mentors to me. And it was because of them, that I decided that I wanted to make a difference and started to get involved myself.

The next year was a complete whirlwind, I involved myself in a variety of projects around the community and this passion for change also permeated into my academic involvement, carrying me to heights I never thought were possible, to where I was the head of two National Organizations. I say this not to gloat, but to recognize that the passionate people in this city changed me to the point where I realized that I could always do more. And these friends and mentors pushed me to achieve something I never thought was possible for myself.

By the time Steel Rails Two came out in June of 2011, I was travelling in the same community circles as many of those I knew only by name or reputation just one year previous. I was now working along side my heroes and actually becoming good friends with them all. I couldn’t believe what just one year of following your passion could do. It was at Steel Rails Two that I discovered that I was starting to become someone that people recognized and admired for my efforts in the community, and I couldn’t believe it. At Steel Rails Two I met even more amazing people, and some of these people became the closest of friends that I’ve ever had in my life.

This past year from 2011 to 2012 has been another incredible year. I’ve moved forward from working on community projects as a team member, to actually leading teams and events myself now. The confidence to make the jump came from knowing that all of the amazing people in the community would be supportive of me and my efforts and its only escalated my craving to get involved further.

This past year has also differed a bit from the last two. For the past two years my life had been on a steady incline with nothing but great things happening to me all around. It was, for lack of a better word, perfect. I was striving, achieving, and exceeding every goal I was setting out for myself and things were only getting better and better in every aspect of my life.

The past 6 months, things have not been going so well. There have been a lot of personal challenges I was not prepared to deal with at this stage in my life. I will not go into any detail here, but I will admit that the past 6 months have been the most difficult time of my life. The worst part of it is, no one knew. I hadn’t shared anything with anyone and kept everything locked away. I had been raised to always keep my best face forward even when things were at their darkest. And as I got older, I became quite good at it. The issues themselves were one thing, the worst part was not opening up to people when it became something that affected them. It is one thing to keep your best face forward and have a positive image, but sometimes your actions in life cannot coincide with the visage.

Things were starting to happen in my life where my priorities would need to suddenly change because of something like a poorly timed phone call. My ability to get involved suffered dramatically. And because I wasn’t telling people why I did things like cancelling team meetings, people’s perceptions started to change. My own perceptions of myself started to change. I still had a passion to get involved and would take on as much as I possibly could, but because life was unpredictable,  I wasn’t able to contribute the way I intended to, and it hurt. It hurt me, and it hurt others.

Despite everything that has happened, my biggest regret is not letting people in when I should have. All of these amazing people who I think the world of would certainly have been understanding and supportive if I had just said something more about what was going on.

Moving back to Steel Rails Three, this particular event has again been a point in my life where I’ve realized something about myself and about others in this community. We may live in a region with over 500,000 people, but this is still by far one of the warmest and kindest places on earth, with people that would do anything for others. At Steel Rails Three I realized that despite everything that has happened, despite everything I have put some people through,people are always willing to rebuild and move forward.

This region is full of nothing but good people and it is this goodness that inspires all of the the amazing things that happen everyday in the region. Everyone can and should get involved in their community to help themselves grow, and to help others around them grow as well. If you have a passion about something, get out and help make a difference. The world can only get better if you do.

How Much Tweeting is Too Much?

Twitter is a beautiful social media site. It is simplistic in its use, yet incredibly powerful in its ability to connect.  It is an ever growing conversation between the most interesting people you know or want to know. It is also incredibly addictive.

The ability to quickly and easily share your thoughts, opinions, and emotions, not to mention pictures, videos, and links to people who are genuinely interested in you, seems to put some people in an inescapable position of responsibility to their ever-growing list of followers. They want to make sure their “people” are kept up to date on the latest everything because they are the ultimate authority on everything and the world would crumble with disinformation if they were not around to spread the word.

This perception has, unfortunately, put many active Twitter users in a position where they might be using the site a little too much. Too much? What is too much you might ask? Well, pose the question to Google and you’ll be deluged with articles and tools that attempt to decide just how much is too much. However, because twitter users have complete control over who they follow, I feel it is a subjective opinion per user on just what constitutes “Too Much Tweeting”. And since this is your own behaviour that you are looking to analyze, you should not be comparing, but rather looking at yourself for an answer. Here is a list of questions you should ask yourself whenever you feel you might be tweeting too much.

1. When someone tells you that you tweet too much, do you get offended?

2. Do you occasionally poll your followers with the question “Do I tweet too much?” (Or write blog posts on the question?)

3. Have you ever felt the need to put yourself on a Tweet Timeout now and then?

4. Do you like to publically celebrate tweet milestones, both yours and others?

5. Do you tweet for more than 2 accounts?

These questions are only meant to help you analyze your own tweeting habits. If you said yes to 2 or more, I am not going to declare that you tweet to much. That is left for you to decide. So what do you think, do you tweet too much? Do you feel there is a magic number of too many tweets?

If you are one of those people who likes to put numbers to everything and see pretty graphs and such to help explain their activity, then I recommend taking a look at Tweet Stats to help analyze your twitter life.

A Lesson in Leadership

What is Leadership? Look for a definition online and you’ll find hundreds of  meanings, models, and strategies all trying to explain exactly the same thing. Leadership, it seems, is a difficult term to define. However, a quick scan though Wikipedia provides me with the following:

“Leadership has been described as the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task“.^[1]

Seems like a pretty good definition to me. Although the concept seems easy enough to understand, the actual execution of successful leadership is probably one of the most difficult skills a person can develop. Humans are complex, selfish and tricky creatures and learning what motivates and inspires them to follow someone takes an incredible understanding of human psychology.

I was fortunate enough this past week to attend the Chick-fil-A Leadercast, thanks to my local Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber of Commerce. This Leadercast is a conference based out of Atlanta, Georgia that is webcast all across the globe and connects over 125,000 leaders world-wide. The conference is meant to inspire, encourage, and provide guidance on how to improve leadership skills through a variety of presentations by world-renowned leaders.

Before attending Leadercast, I thought I knew what I was getting into. I’ve certainly attended my share of conferences and workshops, read countless books, and watched all sorts of presentations and speakers on the topic of leadership, however I was not prepared for how much I would actually be affected by the overall impact of this particular event.

The speaker list was impressive. Some I had heard of and admired, some I knew only by name or reputation, others were clouded in obscurity. However it was the overall theme of the event that really hit me. Every talk from every speaker, regardless of their background or industry, focused on one point: The Choices We Make Will Determine The Leaders that We Ultimately Become.

Although the idea seems simple enough, how many actually take this idea to heart each and every time they make a decision? Personally, I sometimes forget that my actions can have impacts beyond the original decision tree. I understand that there will always be consequences, both positive and negative, for every action, but I will sometimes neglect to see who else might be affected by those actions other than those immediately involved.

Speaker after speaker, I could feel myself becoming more and more inspired. The urge to lead and influence my community and leave the world a better place was higher than it had ever been. It was refreshing to hear new perspectives and ideas on just what Leadership was, and it was also reassuring to hear those familiar ideas on what makes a good leader.

In the end, I came out feeling like I had a much better understanding of Leadership. I have learned everything I know about leadership by following those who inspired me. Inspiration, to me, is more important than any model or theory. Any one can possess the knowledge, but only truly great leaders achieve what they achieve because they are inspired and confident to make the right choices. I am ready and eager to start putting these lessons into practice in my involvements in the community and beyond.

I am looking forward to continue to write my life story. To be honest and vulnerable with who I am and build trust with those around me. To inspire and motivate people to do the things they believe in. To be humble and do what needs to be done when the situation calls for it. To be intentional in my actions and grow as a person each and every day. To be a leader, in every sense of the word.

Google Yourself

Admit it, you’ve been there, staring at that oh so familiar logo with its basic colours on an empty field of white, with that empty box able provide you with direction on where to find knowledge on absolutely anything with just a few keystrokes and a mouse click. You sit in front of your computer, wondering to yourself “What should I ask the internet about?” The sheer vastness of the World Wide Web at your finger tips, its potential is overwhelming when you think about it. Why you type in what you do at that moment you are not quite sure. You may do it because you’re curious, maybe you are questioning your own existence, or perhaps you are just plain bored and can’t think of anything else to do. Whatever the reason, you know you’ve done it. In that moment of weakness, looking into the heart of the Google search engine you type your own name. Feeling Lucky? You know you are.

Online reputation is becoming very important. Our lives revolve around the internet and social media and you can bet that most people who know or who have heard about you have Googled you at some point. Anyone can type your name into a search engine and find out more about you then you may be comfortable with.  Remember that 8th Grade play where you dressed up as Cupid and you split your heart patterned shorts onstage? Of course you do. Your hometown paper covered the story and your parents cut the article and that embarrassing picture out and put it on the fridge. You thought that was the end of the embarrassment, well it so happens that last year that local paper digitized their archives and uploaded everything to their website. It is now the 3rd item that comes up when your name is entered into Google, behind that Facebook profile picture of you chugging a bottle of vodka in university and that one blog entry you wrote in the middle of the night a few summers ago when you were a little tipsy and emotional.

In this day in age, potentially everything you have ever done in your life can be found on the internet, and the more diligent the search, the more incriminating the findings.  All of your activities, successes, failures, comments, pictures, videos, and much more, are out there just waiting for someone to find them.  Potential employers, friends, secret admirers, can all go through your dirty laundry whenever it is convenient for them.  But, all is not lost, you can still find a way to manage your online identity. By Googling your own name you have just taken the first step in managing your online reputation.

When you Google yourself, what actually comes up? This is what the entire world sees of you. Online, you are defined by the first page of a Google search. Most likely it is a random collection of social media profile pages, blogs, and newspaper articles covering past activities that may or may not actually be you depending on the commonality of your name. The question is, what do you want the world to know about you? What do you want those potential employers, friends, secret admirers and others to find when they are curious? Taking control of your online reputation is easier than you may think, you just need to know how search engines work. Although Google would never reveal how their search algorithm works, you can bet that the amount of traffic a website gets plays a big role in where a site shows up in a search.  This is why most social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn tend to come up first in a search, you access them on almost a daily basis and they are updated with new activity regularly.

That being said, the best way to start managing your online identity is through your social media profiles. Access your profiles regularly, and keep them up to date and only provide information you are willing to share with everyone. If you prefer to use some social media sites for more personal activity, then take a look at privacy settings. For example, if you don’t want random people accessing your Facebook picture albums, then make sure you change your settings accordingly. One caveat however, you can only control your own social media profiles. You can’t stop the world from accessing photos and information posted on other people’s profiles. You may have that embarrassing birthday picture locked away in your profile, but your best friend had a camera that night as well and they couldn’t care less about privacy settings.

Other actions to improve your online identity include being more active online by participating on websites that you would like to be affiliated with. Comments on articles and blogs will show up in searches. The more often you engage in online discussion, the more often your comments will appear in a search. Making poignant and educated comments will definitely improve your online image. Consider creating your own blog where you can shout to the world exactly what you would like to. The more posts you make, the more often those posts appear in a search. If you would like to have even more control on you online image, think about fully developing your personal brand. This is an online identity with consistent information and activity where ever you may appear. This should also include owning your name as a web address. Do you own yours?

You will never have absolute control over what will come up in a Google Search of your name, however by modifying your online activities slightly, you can push all of those embarrassing items further down the results list and have exactly what you want appear in the top results for the entire world to see and admire.