This is from a talk by Kent something, announced on the BayXP mailing list.

Message: having Ease at Work means I'm not wasting energy feeling
uncomfortable and thus I will likely accomplish more, but even if I
don't I will certainly have a better life.

Inspirational quote #1: "Why do I have to turn off parts of myself to
work here?"

Inspirational quote #2: " I got tired of riding the genius/shithead
roller coaster."

Ease != Easy

Ease is:
  * a state of comfort
  * freedom from worry, pain or agitation.
  * readiness in performance. facility.

He talked about Fun vs Joy, something I've also heard as Pleasure vs. Enjoyment.

Source of discomfort: the difference between awesome powers to change
the world and the limitation that this doesn't matter if other people
don't also do their part. "Can I learn to be ok with both the power
and the limitation?"

When feeling discomfort likely to do things like play "schedule
chicken", overwork, hide information, live with the fear of being
found out.

Things that came up during questions:

  * Hero/martyr syndrome is organizationally addictive. People who buy
into this behavior get rewarded. How do you maintain ease in an
environment that not only doesn't value it but sees it as weakness?

  * This view of the programmer as wizard is related to the societal
view of software as mysterious.  At one time phones were mysterious...
will that view of programmers as wizards go away when computers are no
longer technological innovation but just a fact of life, as unexciting
as the phone on your wall?

  * audience member (you are on this list and you know who you are)
story paraphrased:  "when I'm at ease I tend to be honest in my
estimates and not overcommit, not get in over my head. but sometimes
getting myself in trouble was useful. I miss that useful trouble."

From: http://entrepreneurs.about.com/od/gettingstarted/a/guykawasaki_p.htm

Guy Kawasaki -- The Art of the Start

Guy Kawasaki: The Art of the Start

From Scott Allen,Your Guide to Entrepreneurs.

Top Ten Tips for Anyone Starting Anything

Guy Kawasaki made a name for himself at Apple in the 1980s as the evangelist who helped launch the Macintosh computer. As founder and CEO of Garage Technology Ventures, he has tested and proven his ideas with dozens of startup companies. He is the author of over half a dozen business books, including Rules for Revolutionaries, Selling the Dream and How to Drive Your Competition Crazy.

I had the privilege recently of attending a presentation by Mr. Kawasaki on his latest book, The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything. He's a tremendously entertaining speaker - funny, irreverent, and above all, insightful. He built his presentation around his top ten tips for anyone starting anything - entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, non-profit ventures. I share them with you here, along with a few of his choice quips that you won't find in the book.

1. Make Meaning

Focus on making meaning, not money. If your vision for your company is to grow it just to flip it to a large company or to take it public and cash out, "you're doomed". Kawasaki says that great companies are built around one of three kinds of meaning:

1. Increase the quality of life. Make people more productive or their lives easier or more enjoyable.
2. Right a wrong. A variant on the above. Be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.
3. Prevent the end of something good. Preserve something classic or historical. Save the whales.

2. Make Mantra

Kawasaki took a jab at corporate mission statements by showing Wendy's mission statement:

Our guiding mission is to deliver superior quality products and services for our customers and communities through leadership, innovation and partnerships

"I love Wendy's," he said, "but I had no idea that every time I eat there I'm participating in all of that." He says if you want to create a generic mission statement, you can save yourself tens of thousands of dollars for a retreat, facilitators, etc., with the Dilbert Mission Statement Generator.

Instead, Kawasaki recommends coming up with a simple mantra, preferably three words or less, that succinctly describes your core values. Some examples he gave:

• Wendy's: "Healthy fast food"
• FedEx: "Peace of mind"
• Nike: "Authentic athletic performance"
• Guy Kawasaki: "Empower entrepreneurs"

3. Jump to the next curve

Great companies aren't created when a book retailer says, "We're going to change the way books are sold. Instead of carrying 250,000 titles, we're going to carry 275,000." Great companies are created when you say, "Instead of 250,000 titles, we're going to carry 2.5 million." Then you have Amazon.

He offers three tips for how to do this:

1. Reboot your brain. You have to break old patterns of behavior in order to adopt new ones.
2. Kill the cash cows. The obvious ones are the external ones - the dominant competitors in the space. If you beat them, you beat everybody else, too. The not-so-obvious ones, though, are the internal ones. This mainly applies when launching a new product within an existing company. For example, Apple had to kill the Apple II in order to make way for the Macintosh. They could have continued milking it, but they would have eventually gotten passed up by everybody else. Clear away the old to make room for the new.
3. Polarize people. You can't please everyone. It's better to have a small, fiercely loyal customer base than to create a mediocre product that fades quickly into obscurity. Some examples he gave were the Macintosh, Harley-Davidson, Tivo, and the Scion XP (People under 25 look at it and say, "Hey, cool car!" People over 25 look at it and say, "It must have been designed by someone who got fired from Volvo.")

4. Get going.

Don't get caught in "analysis paralysis". Some tips to keep you moving forward:

• Don't type, prototype. There are two kinds of entrepreneurs, he says. One kind thinks that Microsoft Office is the killer app for entrepreneurs. You write your business plan, you create forecasting spreadsheets, you build PowerPoint presentations for clients and investors, etc. The other kind uses AutoCAD to design the product, a compiler to write the code, etc. -- whatever it takes to start actually making the product.
• Don't worry, be crappy. Voltaire once said, "The best is the enemy of the good." If companies waited to completely perfect a product before releasing it, they would never get anything out. It's OK if your 1.0 release is a little rough around the edges, so long as it still creates value for customers. Of course, he says, "This doesn't apply if you're developing medical equipment."
• Find soulmates. "Every young visionary needs adult supervision," he jokes. Behind every Bill Gates is a Steve Ballmer. Behind Steve Jobs is a Steve Wozniak. Build a management team that shares your vision and your enthusiasm, but complements your weaknesses with their strengths.

5. Niche thyself.

Ideally, you create something that is both of high value to customers and that few others are doing. If you consider uniqueness and value creation as the two parameters, you have four quadrants:

• High value, low uniqueness - You compete on price.
• Low value, high uniqueness - This is what he refers to as the "stupid" quadrant. It doesn't matter if you have no competition if no one wants to buy your product.
• Low value, low uniqueness - The "dotcom" quadrant. At one point, someone said, "We're going to change how people buy dog food. We're going to sell it online. We'll cut out the middleman and people will be able to buy it cheaper." But they forgot one thing: dog food is heavy. The money saved was offset by high shipping costs. The crazy thing is not that a company didn't realize this, but that at one point, 16 companies were selling dog food online. Of course, most of them are no longer in business - no great surprise.
• High value, high uniqueness - This is where you make money, margins and meaning.

6. Let a hundred flowers blossom.

Your best customers may not be who you expect them to be, and no matter how good you are, no matter how much market research you do, you can't perfectly predict what will happen in the real world. Kawasaki suggests the following:

• Sow fields, not window boxes. Niche positioning is critical, but spread your message far and wide, as much as your budget will allow. Narrowcast your marketing message too much and you may miss out on a market you didn't even realize existed.
• Look for agnostics, not atheists. Everyone wants to have those "marquee customers", but large corporations are usually resistant to those ideas that "jump the curve". Find the early adopters who are open to new ideas and save the big fish for later.
• Don't be proud. Don't be surprised when the people who are buying your product aren't your intended target market. Instead find out why they're buying it and capitalize on your newfound good fortune.

7. Follow the 10/20/30 rule.

When making presentations to clients or investors, use:

• 10 slides - Not 50 as most people do
• 20 minutes - You may have an hour, but some people will be late, others may leave early, and you want plenty of time for Q&A.
• 30 point font - If you use a small font, it usually means you're trying to use a lot of text, which implies that you're a lousy speaker (which most tech company CEOs are, he says). Why? Because they don't practice.

(If you do a lot of presentations, be sure to check out The Seven Deadly Sins of Powerpoint Presentations)

8. Hire infected people.

Hire people who are as passionate about your product as you are (or at least close to it).

• Ignore the irrelevant. A shared passion is far more important than education or relevant work experience. These employees will be more loyal and motivated. Kawasaki himself was working at a jeweler "counting diamonds" when he took the job at Apple. But, he says, the first time he saw the Macintosh, it put tears in his eyes. That's what made him more qualified for the job than anyone else.
• Hire better than yourself. "A" players hire "A+" players, but "B" players hire "C", "C" hire "D", etc., leading to what he calls a "bozo explosion". Hire people who make you look smart for hiring them, not by comparison to them.
• Do the shopping center test. Imagine you see a recently-interviewed candidate at a distance in the shopping mall. Do you...
  • ...walk directly over to them, tell them how great the company is, and encourage them to come on board?
  • ...figure it's a big place and maybe you'll run into them, maybe you won't?
  • ...deliberately avoid them?
  If your answer is any other than the first one, don't hire them.

9. Lower barriers to adoption.

Make it easy for people to buy and use your product:

• Flatten the learning curve. Good products should be intuitive to use without having to refer to a manual or take a class. For example, do you know how to set the clock on your VCR? Why is that even a challenge?
• Don't ask people to do something you wouldn't do. While his example of a nuclear-powered mousetrap (that you have to drive to Utah to dispose of the waste) was a bit far-fetched, his story about the Kawai Hyatt Regency hit close to him. At that hotel, there are free washing machines on every floor. People don't want to pay several dollars to wash resort clothes, especially when they're already paying $250 a night for the room!
• Embrace your evangelists. Whether they're your employees or your customers, include them in everything you do. Do everything you can to give them a voice. They are your very best marketing.

10. Don't let the bozos grind you down.

Some bozos are easy to spot. They're grumpy, cynical people who shoot down all your ideas. But beware the "successful bozo" wearing a nice suit. "People automatically equate 'rich' with 'smart'," he says. "That's a big dialectical leap." Often very successful people can't embrace the next curve.

After pointing out some famous tech industry foolishness, he told his own personal bozo story. At one point, he turned down a job interview to become the CEO of a Silicon Valley startup, saying, "It's too far to drive, and I don't see how it can be a business." The company? Yahoo. Kawasaki figures that decision cost him about $2 billion.

"I've been thinking about that for ten years," he said. "And you know what? I made the right decision. I got to spend lots of time with my wife and sons while they were young. I didn't want them to grow up, go off to college, and end up wondering who each other was."

"That explains the first billion," he quipped. "The second billion still pisses me off."

Kawasaki finished off with a Q&A session. The first question out of the chute was, "What's the next big thing?" His answer: "I'm a marketer, not a visionary. I can see the idea and tell you if it will sell or not. If I knew what the next big thing was, I'd either be doing it or funding it. And I certainly wouldn't be telling this audience."

From: http://www.onlamp.com/lpt/a/5949

ONLamp.com: Live Backups of MySQL Using Replication    
 Published on ONLamp.com (http://www.onlamp.com/)
 http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/06/16/MySQLian.html
 See this if you're having trouble printing code examples

Live Backups of MySQL Using Replication

by Russell Dyer, author of MySQL in a Nutshell
06/16/2005

One of the difficulties with a large and active MySQL database is making clean backups without having to bring the server down. Otherwise, a backup may slow down the system and there may be inconsistency with data, since related tables may be changed while another is being backed up. Taking the server down will ensure consistency of data, but it means interruption of service to users. Sometimes this is necessary and unavoidable, but daily server outages for backing up data may be unacceptable. A simple alternative method to ensure reliable backups without having to shut down the server daily is to set up replication for MySQL.

Typically, replication is a system configuration whereby the MySQL server, known in this context as a master server, houses the data and handles client requests, while another MySQL server (a slave server) contains a complete copy of the data and duplicates all SQL statements in which data is changed on the master server right after it happens. There are several uses for replication (e.g., load balancing), but the concern of this article has to do with using replication for data backups. You can set up a separate server to be a slave and then once a day turn replication off to make a clean backup. When you're done, replication can be restarted and the slave will automatically query the master for the changes to the data that it missed while it was offline. Replication is an excellent feature and it's part of MySQL. You just need to set it up.

The Replication Process

Before explaining how to set up replication, let me quickly explain the steps that MySQL goes through to maintain a replicated server. The process is different depending on the version of MySQL. For purposes of this article, my comments will be for version 4.0 or higher, since most systems now are using the later versions.

When replication is running, basically, as SQL statements are executed on the master server, MySQL records them in a binary log (bin.log) along with a log position identification number. The slave server in turn, through an IO thread, regularly and very often reads the master's binary log for any changes. If it finds a change, it copies the new statements to its relay log (relay.log). It then records the new position identification number in a file (master.info) on the slave server. The slave then goes back to checking the master binary log, using the same IO thread. When the slave server detects a change to its relay log, through an SQL thread the slave executes the new SQL statement recorded in the relay log. As a safeguard, the slave also queries the master server through the SQL thread to compare its data with the master's data. If the comparison shows inconsistency, the replication process is stopped and an error message is recorded in the slave's error log (error.log). If the results of the query match, the new log position identification number is recorded in a file on the slave (relay-log.info) and the slave waits for another change to the relay log file.

This process may seem involved and complicated at first glance, but it all occurs quickly, it isn't a significant drain on the master server, and it ensures reliable replication. Also, it's surprisingly easy to set up. It only requires a few lines of options to be added to the configuration file (i.e., my.cnf) on the master and slave servers. If you're dealing with a new server, you'll need to copy the databases on the master server to the slave to get it caught up. Then it's merely a matter of starting the slave for it to begin replicating.

The Replication User

There are only a few steps to setting up replication. The first step is to set up a user account to use only for replication. It's best not to use an existing account for security reasons. To do this, enter an SQL statement like the following on the master server, logged in as root or a user that has GRANT OPTION privileges:

GRANT REPLICATION SLAVE, REPLICATION CLIENT
    ON *.*
    TO 'replicant'@'slave_host'
    IDENTIFIED BY 'my_pwd';

In this SQL statement, the user account replicant is granted only what's needed for replication. The user name can be almost anything. The host name (or IP address) is given in quotes. You should enter this same statement on the slave server with the same user name and password, but with the master's host name or IP address. This way, if the master fails and will be down for a while, you could redirect users to the slave with DNS or by some other method. When the master is back up, you can then use replication to get it up to date by temporarily making it a slave to the former slave server. Incidentally, if you upgraded MySQL to version 4.0 recently, but didn't upgrade your mysql database, the GRANT statement above won't work because these privileges didn't exist in the earlier versions. For information on fixing this problem, see MySQL's documentation on Upgrading the Grants Tables.

Configuring the Servers

Once the replication user is set up on both servers, we will need to add some lines to the MySQL configuration file on the master and on the slave server. Depending on the type of operating system, the file will probably be called my.cnf or my.ini. On Unix-type systems, the configuration file is usually located in the /etc directory. On Windows systems, it's usually located in c:\ or in c:\Windows. Using a text editor, add the following lines to the configuration file, under the [mysqld] group heading:

server-id = 1
log-bin = /var/log/mysql/bin.log

The server identification number is an arbitrary number to identify the master server. Almost any whole number is fine. A different one should be assigned to the slave server to keep them straight. The second line above instructs MySQL to perform binary logging to the path and file given. The actual path and file name is mostly up to you. Just be sure that the directory exists and the user mysql is the owner, or at least has permission to write to the directory. Also, for the file name use the suffix of ".log" as shown here. It will be replaced automatically with an index number (e.g., ".000001") as new log files are created when the server is restarted or the logs are flushed.

For the slave server, we will need to add a few more lines to the configuration file. We'll have to provide information on connecting to the master server, as well as more log file options. We would add lines similar to the following to the slave's configuration file:

server-id = 2

master-host = mastersite.com
master-port = 3306
master-user = replicant
master-password = my_pwd

log-bin = /var/log/mysql/bin.log
log-bin-index = /var/log/mysql/log-bin.index
log-error = /var/log/mysql/error.log

relay-log = /var/log/mysql/relay.log
relay-log-info-file = /var/log/mysql/relay-log.info
relay-log-index = /var/log/mysql/relay-log.index

This may seem like a lot, but it's pretty straightforward once you pick it apart. The first line is the identification number for the slave server. If you set up more than one slave server, give them each a different number. If you're only using replication for backing up your data, though, you probably won't need more than one slave server. The next set of lines provides information on the master server: the host name as shown here, or the IP address of the master may be given. Next, the port to use is given. Port 3306 is the default port for MySQL, but another could be used for performance or security considerations. The next two lines provide the user name and password for logging into the master server.

The last two stanzas above set up logging. The second to last stanza starts binary logging as we did on the master server, but this time on the slave. This is the log that can be used to allow the master and the slave to reverse roles, as mentioned earlier. The binary log index file (log-bin.index) is for recording the name of the current binary log file to use. As the server is restarted or the logs are flushed, the current log file changes and its name is recorded here. The log-error option establishes an error log. If you don't already have this set up, you should, since it's where any problems with replication will be recorded. The last stanza establishes the relay log and related files mentioned earlier. The relay log makes a copy of each entry in the master server's binary log for performance's sake, the relay-log-info-file option names the file where the slave's position in the master's binary log will be noted, and the relay log index file is for keeping track of the name of the current relay log file to use for replicating.

Copying Databases and Starting Replication

If you're setting up a new master server that doesn't contain data, then there's nothing left to do but restart the slave server. However, if you're setting up replication with an existing server that already has data on it, you will need to make an initial backup of the databases and copy it to the slave server. There are many methods to do this; for our examples, we'll use the utility mysqldump to make a backup while the server is running. However, there's still the problem with attaining consistency of data on an active server. Considering the fact that once you set up replication you may never have to shut down your server for backups again, it might be worth while at least to lock the users out this one last time to get a clean, consistent backup. To run the master server so that only root has access, we can reset the variable max_connections like so:

SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'max_connections';

+-----------------+-------+
| Variable_name   | Value |
+-----------------+-------+
| max_connections | 100   |
+-----------------+-------+

SET GLOBAL max_connections = 0;

The first SQL statement isn't necessary, but we may want to know the initial value of the max_connections variable so that we can change it back when the backup is finished. Although setting the variable to a value of 0 suggests that no connections are allowed, one connection is actually reserved for the root user. Of course, this will only prevent any new connections. To see if there are any connections still running, enter SHOW PROCESSLIST;. To terminate any active processes, you can use the KILL statement.

With exclusive access to the server, using mysqldump is usually very quick. We would enter the following from the command line on the master server:

mysqldump --user=root --password=my_pwd \
      --extended-insert --all-databases \
      --master-data  > /tmp/backup.sql  

This will create a text file containing SQL statements to create all of the databases and tables with data. The --extended-insert option will create multiple-row INSERT statements and thereby allow the backup to run faster, for the least amount of down time or drain on services. The --master-data option above locks all of the tables during the dump to prevent data from being changed, but allows users to continue reading the tables. With exclusive access, this feature isn't necessary. However, this option also adds a few lines like the following to the end of the dump file:

--
-- Position to start replication from
--

CHANGE MASTER TO MASTER_LOG_FILE='bin.000846' ;
CHANGE MASTER TO MASTER_LOG_POS=427 ;

When the dump file is executed on the slave server, these last lines will record the name of the master's binary log file and the position in the log at the time of the backup, while the tables were locked. When replication is started, it will go to this log file and execute any SQL statements recorded starting from the position given. This is meant to ensure that any data changed while setting up the slave server isn't missed. To execute the dump file to set up the databases and data on the slave server, copy the dump file to the slave server, make sure MySQL is running, then enter something like the following on the slave:

mysql --user=root --password=my_pwd < /tmp/backup.sql

This will execute all of the SQL statements in the dump file, which will include the CREATE and INSERT statements. Once the backed-up databases are loaded onto the slave server, execute the following SQL statement while logged in as root on the slave:

START SLAVE;

After this statement is run, the slave will connect to the master and get the changes it missed since the backup. From there, it will stay current by continuously checking the binary log as outlined before.

Backups with Replication

With replication running, it's an easy task to make a backup of the data. You just need to temporarily stop the slave server from replicating by entering the following SQL statement while logging onto the slave server as root or a user with SUPER privileges:

STOP SLAVE;

The slave server knows the position where it left off in the binary log of the master server. So we can take our time making a backup of the replicated databases on the slave server. We can use any backup utility or method we prefer. When the backup is finished, we would enter the following SQL statement from the slave server as root to restart replication:

START SLAVE;

After entering this statement, there should be a flurry of activity on the slave as it executes the SQL statements that occurred while it was down. In a very short period of time it should be current.

Automating Backups

If replication and the backup process are working properly, we can write a simple shell script to stop replication, back up the data on the slave server, and start the slave again. Such a shell script would look something like this:

#!/bin/sh

date = `date +%Y%m%d`

mysqladmin --user=root --password=my_pwd stop-slave

mysqldump --user=root --password=my_pwd --lock-all-tables \
      --all-databases > /backups/mysql/backup-${date}.sql

mysqladmin --user=root --password=my_pwd start-slave

In this example, we're using the mysqladmin utility to stop and start replication on the slave. On the first line, you may have noticed that we're capturing the date using the system function date and putting it into a good format (e.g., 20050615). This variable is used with mysqldump in the script for altering the name of the dump file each day. Of course, you can set the file path and the name of the dump file to your preferences. Notice that the date function and the formatting codes are enclosed in back-ticks (`), not single quotes (').

This is a simple script. You may want to write something more elaborate and allow for error checking. You probably would also want to compress the dump files to save space and write them to a removable media like a tape or CD. Once you have your script set up, test it. If it works, you can add it to your crontab or whatever scheduling utility you use on your server.

Conclusion

Replication is a useful administrative feature of MySQL. It's an excellent way to be assured of good regular backups of databases. There are more options and SQL statements available for replication than I was able to present here. I cover them individually in my book MySQL in a Nutshell. For active and large systems, you may want to set up more than one slave server for added protection of data. The configuration and concepts are the same for multiple slaves as it is for one slave. For extremely active and large databases, you might want to consider purchasing software like that offered by Emic. Their software costs a bit, but it does an excellent job of handing slave serves for backups and load balancing, especially.

In May 2005, O'Reilly Media, Inc., released MySQL in a Nutshell.

• Sample Chapter 6, "Date and Time Functions" (PDF format), is available free online.

• You can also look at the Table of Contents, the Index, and the full description of the book.

Russell Dyer is a Perl programmer, MySQL developer, and web designer living and working on a consulting basis in New Orleans.

Copyright © 2005 O'Reilly Media, Inc.

From: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18625011.900&print=true

11 steps to a better brain - Features | Print | New Scientist

11 steps to a better brain

• 28 May 2005
• NewScientist.com news service
• Kate Douglas
• Alison George
• Bob Holmes
• Graham Lawton
• John McCrone
• Alison Motluk
• Helen Phillips

It doesn't matter how brainy you are or how much education you've had - you can still improve and expand your mind. Boosting your mental faculties doesn't have to mean studying hard or becoming a reclusive book worm. There are lots of tricks, techniques and habits, as well as changes to your lifestyle, diet and behaviour that can help you flex your grey matter and get the best out of your brain cells. And here are 11 of them.

Smart drugs

Does getting old have to mean worsening memory, slower reactions and fuzzy thinking?

AROUND the age of 40, honest folks may already admit to noticing changes in their mental abilities. This is the beginning of a gradual decline that in all too many of us will culminate in full-blown dementia. If it were possible somehow to reverse it, slow it or mask it, wouldn't you?

A few drugs that might do the job, known as "cognitive enhancement", are already on the market, and a few dozen others are on the way. Perhaps the best-known is modafinil. Licensed to treat narcolepsy, the condition that causes people to suddenly fall asleep, it has notable effects in healthy people too. Modafinil can keep a person awake and alert for 90 hours straight, with none of the jitteriness and bad concentration that amphetamines or even coffee seem to produce.

In fact, with the help of modafinil, sleep-deprived people can perform even better than their well-rested, unmedicated selves. The forfeited rest doesn't even need to be made good. Military research is finding that people can stay awake for 40 hours, sleep the normal 8 hours, and then pull a few more all-nighters with no ill effects. It's an open secret that many, perhaps most, prescriptions for modafinil are written not for people who suffer from narcolepsy, but for those who simply want to stay awake. Similarly, many people are using Ritalin not because they suffer from attention deficit or any other disorder, but because they want superior concentration during exams or heavy-duty negotiations.

The pharmaceutical pipeline is clogged with promising compounds - drugs that act on the nicotinic receptors that smokers have long exploited, drugs that work on the cannabinoid system to block pot-smoking-type effects. Some drugs have also been specially designed to augment memory. Many of these look genuinely plausible: they seem to work, and without any major side effects.

So why aren't we all on cognitive enhancers already? "We need to be careful what we wish for," says Daniele Piomelli at the University of California at Irvine. He is studying the body's cannabinoid system with a view to making memories less emotionally charged in people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Tinkering with memory may have unwanted effects, he warns. "Ultimately we may end up remembering things we don't want to."

Gary Lynch, also at UC Irvine, voices a similar concern. He is the inventor of ampakines, a class of drugs that changes the rules about how a memory is encoded and how strong a memory trace is - the essence of learning (see New Scientist, 14 May, p 6). But maybe the rules have already been optimised by evolution, he suggests. What looks to be an improvement could have hidden downsides.

Still, the opportunity may be too tempting to pass up. The drug acts only in the brain, claims Lynch. It has a short half-life of hours. Ampakines have been shown to restore function to severely sleep-deprived monkeys that would otherwise perform poorly. Preliminary studies in humans are just as exciting. You could make an elderly person perform like a much younger person, he says. And who doesn't wish for that?

Food for thought

You are what you eat, and that includes your brain. So what is the ultimate mastermind diet?

YOUR brain is the greediest organ in your body, with some quite specific dietary requirements. So it is hardly surprising that what you eat can affect how you think. If you believe the dietary supplement industry, you could become the next Einstein just by popping the right combination of pills. Look closer, however, and it isn't that simple. The savvy consumer should take talk of brain-boosting diets with a pinch of low-sodium salt. But if it is possible to eat your way to genius, it must surely be worth a try.

First, go to the top of the class by eating breakfast. The brain is best fuelled by a steady supply of glucose, and many studies have shown that skipping breakfast reduces people's performance at school and at work.

But it isn't simply a matter of getting some calories down. According to research published in 2003, kids breakfasting on fizzy drinks and sugary snacks performed at the level of an average 70-year-old in tests of memory and attention. Beans on toast is a far better combination, as Barbara Stewart from the University of Ulster, UK, discovered. Toast alone boosted children's scores on a variety of cognitive tests, but when the tests got tougher, the breakfast with the high-protein beans worked best. Beans are also a good source of fibre, and other research has shown a link between a high-fibre diet and improved cognition. If you can't stomach beans before midday, wholemeal toast with Marmite makes a great alternative. The yeast extract is packed with B vitamins, whose brain-boosting powers have been demonstrated in many studies.

A smart choice for lunch is omelette and salad. Eggs are rich in choline, which your body uses to produce the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Researchers at Boston University found that when healthy young adults were given the drug scopolamine, which blocks acetylcholine receptors in the brain, it significantly reduced their ability to remember word pairs. Low levels of acetylcholine are also associated with Alzheimer's disease, and some studies suggest that boosting dietary intake may slow age-related memory loss.

A salad packed full of antioxidants, including beta-carotene and vitamins C and E, should also help keep an ageing brain in tip-top condition by helping to mop up damaging free radicals. Dwight Tapp and colleagues from the University of California at Irvine found that a diet high in antioxidants improved the cognitive skills of 39 ageing beagles - proving that you can teach an old dog new tricks.

Round off lunch with a yogurt dessert, and you should be alert and ready to face the stresses of the afternoon. That's because yogurt contains the amino acid tyrosine, needed for the production of the neurotransmitters dopamine and noradrenalin, among others. Studies by the US military indicate that tyrosine becomes depleted when we are under stress and that supplementing your intake can improve alertness and memory.

Don't forget to snaffle a snack mid-afternoon, to maintain your glucose levels. Just make sure you avoid junk food, and especially highly processed goodies such as cakes, pastries and biscuits, which contain trans-fatty acids. These not only pile on the pounds, but are implicated in a slew of serious mental disorders, from dyslexia and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) to autism. Hard evidence for this is still thin on the ground, but last year researchers at the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego, California, reported that rats and mice raised on the rodent equivalent of junk food struggled to find their way around a maze, and took longer to remember solutions to problems they had already solved.

It seems that some of the damage may be mediated through triglyceride, a cholesterol-like substance found at high levels in rodents fed on trans-fats. When the researchers gave these rats a drug to bring triglyceride levels down again, the animals' performance on the memory tasks improved.

Brains are around 60 per cent fat, so if trans-fats clog up the system, what should you eat to keep it well oiled? Evidence is mounting in favour of omega-3 fatty acids, in particular docosahexaenoic acid or DHA. In other words, your granny was right: fish is the best brain food. Not only will it feed and lubricate a developing brain, DHA also seems to help stave off dementia. Studies published last year reveal that older mice from a strain genetically altered to develop Alzheimer's had 70 per cent less of the amyloid plaques associated with the disease when fed on a high-DHA diet.

Finally, you could do worse than finish off your evening meal with strawberries and blueberries. Rats fed on these fruits have shown improved coordination, concentration and short-term memory. And even if they don't work such wonders in people, they still taste fantastic. So what have you got to lose?

The Mozart effect

Music may tune up your thinking, but you can't just crank up the volume and expect to become a genius

A DECADE ago Frances Rauscher, a psychologist now at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, and her colleagues made waves with the discovery that listening to Mozart improved people's mathematical and spatial reasoning. Even rats ran mazes faster and more accurately after hearing Mozart than after white noise or music by the minimalist composer Philip Glass. Last year, Rauscher reported that, for rats at least, a Mozart piano sonata seems to stimulate activity in three genes involved in nerve-cell signalling in the brain.

This sounds like the most harmonious way to tune up your mental faculties. But before you grab the CDs, hear this note of caution. Not everyone who has looked for the Mozart effect has found it. What's more, even its proponents tend to think that music boosts brain power simply because it makes listeners feel better - relaxed and stimulated at the same time - and that a comparable stimulus might do just as well. In fact, one study found that listening to a story gave a similar performance boost.

There is, however, one way in which music really does make you smarter, though unfortunately it requires a bit more effort than just selecting something mellow on your iPod. Music lessons are the key. Six-year-old children who were given music lessons, as opposed to drama lessons or no extra instruction, got a 2 to 3-point boost in IQ scores compared with the others. Similarly, Rauscher found that after two years of music lessons, pre-school children scored better on spatial reasoning tests than those who took computer lessons.

Maybe music lessons exercise a range of mental skills, with their requirement for delicate and precise finger movements, and listening for pitch and rhythm, all combined with an emotional dimension. Nobody knows for sure. Neither do they know whether adults can get the same mental boost as young children. But, surely, it can't hurt to try.

Bionic brains

If training and tricks seem too much like hard work, some technological short cuts can boost brain function

(See graphic, above)

Gainful employment

Put your mind to work in the right way and it could repay you with an impressive bonus

UNTIL recently, a person's IQ - a measure of all kinds of mental problem-solving abilities, including spatial skills, memory and verbal reasoning - was thought to be a fixed commodity largely determined by genetics. But recent hints suggest that a very basic brain function called working memory might underlie our general intelligence, opening up the intriguing possibility that if you improve your working memory, you could boost your IQ too.

Working memory is the brain's short-term information storage system. It's a workbench for solving mental problems. For example if you calculate 73 - 6 + 7, your working memory will store the intermediate steps necessary to work out the answer. And the amount of information that the working memory can hold is strongly related to general intelligence.

A team led by Torkel Klingberg at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, has found signs that the neural systems that underlie working memory may grow in response to training. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans, they measured the brain activity of adults before and after a working-memory training programme, which involved tasks such as memorising the positions of a series of dots on a grid. After five weeks of training, their brain activity had increased in the regions associated with this type of memory (Nature Neuroscience, vol 7, p 75).

Perhaps more significantly, when the group studied children who had completed these types of mental workouts, they saw improvement in a range of cognitive abilities not related to the training, and a leap in IQ test scores of 8 per cent (Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, vol 44, p 177). It's early days yet, but Klingberg thinks working-memory training could be a key to unlocking brain power. "Genetics determines a lot and so does the early gestation period," he says. "On top of that, there is a few per cent - we don't know how much - that can be improved by training."

Memory marvels

Mind like a sieve? Don't worry. The difference between mere mortals and memory champs is more method than mental capacity

AN AUDITORIUM is filled with 600 people. As they file out, they each tell you their name. An hour later, you are asked to recall them all. Can you do it? Most of us would balk at the idea. But in truth we're probably all up to the task. It just needs a little technique and dedication.

First, learn a trick from the "mnemonists" who routinely memorise strings of thousands of digits, entire epic poems, or hundreds of unrelated words. When Eleanor Maguire from University College London and her colleagues studied eight front runners in the annual World Memory Championships they did not find any evidence that these people have particularly high IQs or differently configured brains. But, while memorising, these people did show activity in three brain regions that become active during movements and navigation tasks but are not normally active during simple memory tests.

This may be connected to the fact that seven of them used a strategy in which they place items to be remembered along a visualised route (Nature Neuroscience, vol 6, p 90). To remember the sequence of an entire pack of playing cards for example, the champions assign each card an identity, perhaps an object or person, and as they flick through the cards they can make up a story based on a sequence of interactions between these characters and objects at sites along a well-trodden route.

Actors use a related technique: they attach emotional meaning to what they say. We always remember highly emotional moments better than less emotionally loaded ones. Professional actors also seem to link words with movement, remembering action-accompanied lines significantly better than those delivered while static, even months after a show has closed.

Helga Noice, a psychologist from Elmhurst College in Illinois, and Tony Noice, an actor, who together discovered this effect, found that non-thesps can benefit by adopting a similar technique. Students who paired their words with previously learned actions could reproduce 38 per cent of them after just 5 minutes, whereas rote learners only managed 14 per cent. The Noices believe that having two mental representations gives you a better shot at remembering what you are supposed to say.

Strategy is important in everyday life too, says Barry Gordon from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Simple things like always putting your car keys in the same place, writing things down to get them off your mind, or just deciding to pay attention, can make a big difference to how much information you retain. And if names are your downfall, try making some mental associations. Just remember to keep the derogatory ones to yourself.

Sleep on it

Never underestimate the power of a good night's rest

SKIMPING on sleep does awful things to your brain. Planning, problem-solving, learning, concentration,working memory and alertness all take a hit. IQ scores tumble. "If you have been awake for 21 hours straight, your abilities are equivalent to someone who is legally drunk," says Sean Drummond from the University of California, San Diego. And you don't need to pull an all-nighter to suffer the effects: two or three late nights and early mornings on the trot have the same effect.

Luckily, it's reversible - and more. If you let someone who isn't sleep-deprived have an extra hour or two of shut-eye, they perform much better than normal on tasks requiring sustained attention, such taking an exam. And being able to concentrate harder has knock-on benefits for overall mental performance. "Attention is the base of a mental pyramid," says Drummond. "If you boost that, you can't help boosting everything above it."

These are not the only benefits of a decent night's sleep. Sleep is when your brain processes new memories, practises and hones new skills - and even solves problems. Say you're trying to master a new video game. Instead of grinding away into the small hours, you would be better off playing for a couple of hours, then going to bed. While you are asleep your brain will reactivate the circuits it was using as you learned the game, rehearse them, and then shunt the new memories into long-term storage. When you wake up, hey presto! You will be a better player. The same applies to other skills such as playing the piano, driving a car and, some researchers claim, memorising facts and figures. Even taking a nap after training can help, says Carlyle Smith of Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario.

There is also some evidence that sleep can help produce moments of problem-solving insight. The famous story about the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev suddenly "getting" the periodic table in a dream after a day spent struggling with the problem is probably true. It seems that sleep somehow allows the brain to juggle new memories to produce flashes of creative insight. So if you want to have a eureka moment, stop racking your brains and get your head down.

Body and mind

Physical exercise can boost brain as well as brawn

IT'S a dream come true for those who hate studying. Simply walking sedately for half an hour three times a week can improve abilities such as learning, concentration and abstract reasoning by 15 per cent. The effects are particularly noticeable in older people. Senior citizens who walk regularly perform better on memory tests than their sedentary peers. What's more, over several years their scores on a variety of cognitive tests show far less decline than those of non-walkers. Every extra mile a week has measurable benefits.

It's not only oldies who benefit, however. Angela Balding from the University of Exeter, UK, has found that schoolchildren who exercise three or four times a week get higher than average exam grades at age 10 or 11. The effect is strongest in boys, and while Balding admits that the link may not be causal, she suggests that aerobic exercise may boost mental powers by getting extra oxygen to your energy-guzzling brain.

There's another reason why your brain loves physical exercise: it promotes the growth of new brain cells. Until recently, received wisdom had it that we are born with a full complement of neurons and produce no new ones during our lifetime. Fred Gage from the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, busted that myth in 2000 when he showed that even adults can grow new brain cells. He also found that exercise is one of the best ways to achieve this.

In mice, at least, the brain-building effects of exercise are strongest in the hippocampus, which is involved with learning and memory. This also happens to be the brain region that is damaged by elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol. So if you are feeling frazzled, do your brain a favour and go for a run.

Even more gentle exercise, such as yoga, can do wonders for your brain. Last year, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, reported results from a pilot study in which they considered the mood-altering ability of different yoga poses. Comparing back bends, forward bends and standing poses, they concluded that the best way to get a mental lift is to bend over backwards.

And the effect works both ways. Just as physical exercise can boost the brain, mental exercise can boost the body. In 2001, researchers at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio asked volunteers to spend just 15 minutes a day thinking about exercising their biceps. After 12 weeks, their arms were 13 per cent stronger.

Nuns on a run

If you don't want senility to interfere with your old age, perhaps you should seek some sisterly guidance

THE convent of the School Sisters of Notre Dame on Good Counsel Hill in Mankato, Minnesota, might seem an unusual place for a pioneering brain-science experiment. But a study of its 75 to 107-year-old inhabitants is revealing more about keeping the brain alive and healthy than perhaps any other to date. The "Nun study" is a unique collaboration between 678 Catholic sisters recruited in 1991 and Alzheimer's expert David Snowdon of the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging and the University of Kentucky in Lexington.

The sisters' miraculous longevity - the group boasts seven centenarians and many others well on their way - is surely in no small part attributable to their impeccable lifestyle. They do not drink or smoke, they live quietly and communally, they are spiritual and calm and they eat healthily and in moderation. Nevertheless, small differences between individual nuns could reveal the key to a healthy mind in later life.

Some of the nuns have suffered from Alzheimer's disease, but many have avoided any kind of dementia or senility. They include Sister Matthia, who was mentally fit and active from her birth in 1894 to the day she died peacefully in her sleep, aged 104. She was happy and productive, knitting mittens for the poor every day until the end of her life. A post-mortem of Sister Matthia's brain revealed no signs of excessive ageing. But in some other, remarkable cases, Snowdon has found sisters who showed no outwards signs of senility in life, yet had brains that looked as if they were ravaged by dementia.

How did Sister Matthia and the others cheat time? Snowdon's study, which includes an annual barrage of mental agility tests and detailed medical exams, has found several common denominators. The right amount of vitamin folate is one. Verbal ability early in life is another, as are positive emotions early in life, which were revealed by Snowdon's analysis of the personal autobiographical essays each woman wrote in her 20s as she took her vows. Activities, crosswords, knitting and exercising also helped to prevent senility, showing that the old adage "use it or lose it" is pertinent. And spirituality, or the positive attitude that comes from it, can't be overlooked. But individual differences also matter. To avoid dementia, your general health may be vital: metabolic problems, small strokes and head injuries seem to be common triggers of Alzheimer's dementia.

Obviously, you don't have to become a nun to stay mentally agile. We can all aspire to these kinds of improvements. As one of the sisters put it, "Think no evil, do no evil, hear no evil, and you will never write a best-selling novel."

Attention seeking

You can be smart, well-read, creative and knowledgeable, but none of it is any use if your mind isn't on the job

PAYING attention is a complex mental process, an interplay of zooming in on detail and stepping back to survey the big picture. So unfortunately there is no single remedy to enhance your concentration. But there are a few ways to improve it.

The first is to raise your arousal levels. The brain's attentional state is controlled by the neurotransmitters dopamine and noradrenalin. Dopamine encourages a persistent, goal-centred state of mind whereas noradrenalin produces an outward-looking, vigilant state. So not surprisingly, anything that raises dopamine levels can boost your powers of concentration.

One way to do this is with drugs such as amphetamines and the ADHD drug methylphenidate, better known as Ritalin. Caffeine also works. But if you prefer the drug-free approach, the best strategy is to sleep well, eat foods packed with slow-release sugars, and take lots of exercise. It also helps if you are trying to focus on something that you find interesting.

The second step is to cut down on distractions. Workplace studies have found that it takes up to 15 minutes to regain a deep state of concentration after a distraction such as a phone call. Just a few such interruptions and half the day is wasted.

Music can help as long as you listen to something familiar and soothing that serves primarily to drown out background noise. Psychologists also recommend that you avoid working near potential diversions, such as the fridge.

There are mental drills to deal with distractions. College counsellors routinely teach students to recognise when their thoughts are wandering, and catch themselves by saying "Stop! Be here now!" It sounds corny but can develop into a valuable habit. As any Zen meditator will tell you, concentration is as much a skill to be lovingly cultivated as it is a physiochemical state of the brain.

Positive feedback

Thought control is easier than you might imagine

IT SOUNDS a bit New Age, but there is a mysterious method of thought control you can learn that seems to boost brain power. No one quite knows how it works, and it is hard to describe exactly how to do it: it's not relaxation or concentration as such, more a state of mind. It's called neurofeedback. And it is slowly gaining scientific credibility.

Neurofeedback grew out of biofeedback therapy, popular in the 1960s. It works by showing people a real-time measure of some seemingly uncontrollable aspect of their physiology - heart rate, say - and encouraging them to try and change it. Astonishingly, many patients found that they could, though only rarely could they describe how they did it.

More recently, this technique has been applied to the brain - specifically to brain wave activity measured by an electroencephalogram, or EEG. The first attempts were aimed at boosting the size of the alpha wave, which crescendos when we are calm and focused. In one experiment, researchers linked the speed of a car in a computer game to the size of the alpha wave. They then asked subjects to make the car go faster using only their minds. Many managed to do so, and seemed to become more alert and focused as a result.

This early success encouraged others, and neurofeedback soon became a popular alternative therapy for ADHD. There is now good scientific evidence that it works, as well as some success in treating epilepsy, depression, tinnitus, anxiety, stroke and brain injuries.

And to keep up with the times, some experimenters have used brain scanners in place of EEGs. Scanners can allow people to see and control activity of specific parts of the brain. A team at Stanford University in California showed that people could learn to control pain by watching the activity of their pain centres (New Scientist, 1 May 2004, p 9).

But what about outside the clinic? Will neuro feedback ever allow ordinary people to boost their brain function? Possibly. John Gruzelier of Imperial College London has shown that it can improve medical students' memory and make them feel calmer before exams. He has also shown that it can improve musicians' and dancers' technique, and is testing it out on opera singers and surgeons.

Neils Birbaumer from the University of T�bingen in Germany wants to see whether neurofeedback can help psychopathic criminals control their impulsiveness. And there are hints that the method could boost creativity, enhance our orgasms, give shy people more confidence, lift low moods, alter the balance between left and right brain activity, and alter personality traits. All this by the power of thought.

From: http://www.fastcompany.com/online/66/mylife.html

Fast Company | What Should I Do With My Life?

What Should I Do With My Life?

The real meaning of success -- and how to find it

It's time to define the new era. Our faith has been shaken. We've lost confidence in our leaders and in our institutions. Our beliefs have been tested. We've discredited the notion that the Internet would change everything (and the stock market would buy us an exit strategy from the grind). Our expectations have been dashed. We've abandoned the idea that work should be a 24-hour-a-day rush and that careers should be a wild adventure. Yet we're still holding on.

We're seduced by the idea that picking up the pieces and simply tweaking the formula will get the party started again. In spite of our best thinking and most searing experience, our ideas about growth and success are mired in a boom-bust mentality. Just as LBOs gave way to IPOs, the market is primed for the next engine of wealth creation. Just as we traded in the pinstripes and monster bonuses of the Wall Street era for T-shirts and a piece of the action during the startup revolution, we're waiting to latch on to the new trappings of success. (I understand the inclination. I've surfed from one boom to the next for most of my working life -- from my early days as a bond trader to my most recent career as a writer tracking the migration of my generation from Wall Street to Silicon Valley.)

There's a way out. Instead of focusing on what's next, let's get back to what's first. The previous era of business was defined by the question, Where's the opportunity? I'm convinced that business success in the future starts with the question, What should I do with my life? Yes, that's right. The most obvious and universal question on our plates as human beings is the most urgent and pragmatic approach to sustainable success in our organizations. People don't succeed by migrating to a "hot" industry (one word: dotcom) or by adopting a particular career-guiding mantra (remember "horizontal careers"?). They thrive by focusing on the question of who they really are -- and connecting that to work that they truly love (and, in so doing, unleashing a productive and creative power that they never imagined). Companies don't grow because they represent a particular sector or adopt the latest management approach. They win because they engage the hearts and minds of individuals who are dedicated to answering that life question.

This is not a new idea. But it may be the most powerfully pressing one ever to be disrespected by the corporate world. There are far too many smart, educated, talented people operating at quarter speed, unsure of their place in the world, contributing far too little to the productive engine of modern civilization. There are far too many people who look like they have their act together but have yet to make an impact. You know who you are. It comes down to a simple gut check: You either love what you do or you don't. Period.

Those who are lit by that passion are the object of envy among their peers and the subject of intense curiosity. They are the source of good ideas. They make the extra effort. They demonstrate the commitment. They are the ones who, day by day, will rescue this drifting ship. And they will be rewarded. With money, sure, and responsibility, undoubtedly. But with something even better too: the kind of satisfaction that comes with knowing your place in the world. We are sitting on a huge potential boom in productivity -- if we could just get the square pegs out of the round holes.

Of course, addressing the question, What should I do with my life? isn't just a productivity issue: It's a moral imperative. It's how we hold ourselves accountable to the opportunity we're given. Most of us are blessed with the ultimate privilege: We get to be true to our individual nature. Our economy is so vast that we don't have to grind it out forever at jobs we hate. For the most part, we get to choose. That choice isn't about a career search so much as an identity quest. Asking The Question aspires to end the conflict between who you are and what you do. There is nothing more brave than filtering out the chatter that tells you to be someone you're not. There is nothing more genuine than breaking away from the chorus to learn the sound of your own voice. Asking The Question is nothing short of an act of courage: It requires a level of commitment and clarity that is almost foreign to our working lives.

During the past two years, I have listened to the life stories of more than 900 people who have dared to be honest with themselves. Of those, I chose 70 to spend considerable time with in order to learn how they did it. Complete strangers opened their lives and their homes to me. I slept on their couches. We went running together. They cried in my arms. We traded secrets. I met their families. I went to one's wedding. I witnessed many critical turning points.

These are ordinary people. People of all ages, classes, and professions -- from a catfish farmer in Mississippi to a toxic-waste inspector in the oil fields of Texas, from a police officer in East Los Angeles to a long-haul trucker in Pennsylvania, from a financier in Hong Kong to a minister at a church on the Oregon coast. These people don't have any resources or character traits that give them an edge in pursuing their dream. Some have succeeded; many have not. Only two have what accountants call "financial independence." Only two are so smart that they would succeed at anything they chose (though having more choices makes answering The Question that much harder). Only one, to me, is saintly. They're just people who faced up to it, armed with only their weaknesses, equipped with only their fears.

What I learned from them was far more powerful than what I had expected or assumed. The first assumption to get busted was the notion that certain jobs are inherently cool and that others are uncool. That was a big shift for me. Throughout the 1990s, my basic philosophy was this: Work=Boring, but Work+Speed+Risk=Cool. Speed and risk transformed the experience into something so stimulating, so exciting, so intense, that we began to believe that those qualities defined "good work." Now, betrayed by the reality of economic uncertainty and global instability, we're casting about for what really matters when it comes to work.

On my journey, I met people in bureaucratic organizations and bland industries who were absolutely committed to their work. That commitment sustained them through slow stretches and setbacks. They never watched the clock, never dreaded Mondays, never worried about the years passing by. They didn't wonder where they belonged in life. They were phenomenally productive and confident in their value. In places unusual and unexpected, they had found their calling, and those callings were as idiosyncratic as each individual.

And this is where the second big insight came in: Your calling isn't something you inherently "know," some kind of destiny. Far from it. Almost all of the people I interviewed found their calling after great difficulty. They had made mistakes before getting it right. For instance, the catfish farmer used to be an investment banker, the truck driver had been an entertainment lawyer, a chef had been an academic, and the police officer was a Harvard MBA. Everyone discovered latent talents that weren't in their skill sets at age 25.

Most of us don't get epiphanies. We only get a whisper -- a faint urge. That's it. That's the call. It's up to you to do the work of discovery, to connect it to an answer. Of course, there's never a single right answer. At some point, it feels right enough that you choose, and the energy formerly spent casting about is now devoted to making your choice fruitful.

This lesson in late, hard-fought discovery is good news. What it means is that today's confused can be tomorrow's dedicated. The current difficult climate serves as a form of reckoning. The tougher the times, the more clarity you gain about the difference between what really matters and what you only pretend to care about. The funny thing is that most people have good instincts about where they belong but make poor choices and waste productive years on the wrong work. Why we do this cuts to the heart of the question, What should I do with my life? These wrong turns hinge on a small number of basic assumptions that have ruled our working lives, career choices, and ambitions for the better part of two decades. I found hardly any consistencies in how the people I interviewed discovered what they love to do -- the human soul resists taxonomy -- except when it came to four misconceptions (about money, smarts, place, and attitude) that have calcified into hobbling fears. These are stumbling blocks that we need to uproot before we can find our way to where we really belong.

MONEY Doesn't Fund Dreams
Shouldn't I make money first -- to fund my dream? The notion that there's an order to your working life is an almost classic assumption: Pay your dues, and then tend to your dream. I expected to find numerous examples of the truth of this path. But I didn't find any.

Sure, I found tons of rich guys who were now giving a lot away to charity or who had bought an island. I found plenty of people who had found something meaningful and original to do after making their money. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the garden-variety fantasy: Put your calling in a lockbox, go out and make a ton of money, and then come back to the lockbox to pick up your calling where you left it.

It turns out that having the financial independence to walk away rarely triggers people to do just that. The reality is, making money is such hard work that it changes you. It takes twice as long as anyone plans for. It requires more sacrifices than anyone expects. You become so emotionally invested in that world -- and psychologically adapted to it -- that you don't really want to ditch it.

I met many people who had left the money behind. But having "enough" didn't trigger the change. It had to get personal: Something had to happen such as divorce, the death of a parent, or the recognition that the long hours were hurting one's children. (One man, Don Linn, left investment banking after he came home from a business trip and his two-year-old son didn't recognize him. )

The ruling assumption is that money is the shortest route to freedom. Absurdly, that strategy is cast as the "practical approach." But in truth, the opposite is true. The shortest route to the good life involves building the confidence that you can live happily within your means (whatever the means provided by the choices that are truly acceptable to you turn out to be). It's scary to imagine living on less. But embracing your dreams is surprisingly liberating. Instilled with a sense of purpose, your spending habits naturally reorganize, because you discover that you need less.

This is an extremely threatening conclusion. It suggests that the vast majority of us aren't just putting our dreams on ice -- we're killing them. Joe Olchefske almost lost his forever. Joe started out in life with an interest in government. In the early 1980s, he made what seemed like a minor compromise: When he graduated from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, he went into public finance. He wouldn't work in government, he'd work with government.

Joe went on to run Piper Jaffray in Seattle. By the mid-1990s, he realized that one little compromise had defined his life. "I didn't want to be a high-priced midwife," he said. "I wanted to be a mother. It was never my deal. It was my clients' deal. They were taking the risk. They were building hospitals and bridges and freeways, not me. I envied them for that."

One night, riding up the elevator of his apartment building, Joe met newly hired Seattle schools superintendent John Stanford. Soon after, Stanford offered Olchefske a job as his CFO -- and partner in turning the troubled school system around. Olchefske accepted. Stanford rallied the city around school reform and earned the nickname Prophet of Hope. Meanwhile, Olchefske slashed millions from the budget and bloodlessly fired principals, never allowing his passions to interfere with his decisions. People called him Prophet of Doom.

Then Stanford died suddenly of leukemia. It was one of the great crises in the city's history. Who could fill this void? Certainly not the green-eyeshade CFO. But Stanford's death transformed Olchefske. It broke him open, and he discovered in himself a new ability to connect with people emotionally, not just rationally. As the new superintendent, he draws on that gift more than on his private-sector skills. He puts up with a lot of bureaucrap, but he says that avoiding crap shouldn't be the objective in finding the right work. The right question is, How can I find something that moves my heart, so that the inevitable crap storm is bearable?

SMARTS Can't Answer The Question
If the lockbox fantasy is a universal and eternal stumbling block when it comes to answering The Question, the idea that smarts and intensity are the essential building blocks of success and satisfaction is a product of the past decade. A set of twin misconceptions took root during the celebration of risk and speed that was the 90s startup revolution. The first is the idea that a smart, motivated individual with a great idea can accomplish anything. The corollary is that work should be fun, a thrill ride full of constant challenge and change.

Those assumptions are getting people into trouble. So what if your destiny doesn't stalk you like a lion? Can you think your way to the answer? That's what Lori Gottlieb thought. She considered her years as a rising television executive in Hollywood to be a big mistake. She became successful but felt like a fraud. So she quit and gave herself three years to analyze which profession would engage her brain the most. She literally attacked the question. She dug out her diaries from childhood. She took classes in photography and figure drawing. She interviewed others who had left Hollywood. She broke down every job by skill set and laid that over a grid of her innate talents. She filled out every exercise in What Color Is Your Parachute?

Eventually, she arrived at the following logic: Her big brain loved puzzles. Who solves puzzles? Doctors solve health puzzles. Therefore, become a doctor. She enrolled in premed classes at Pepperdine. Her med-school applications were so persuasive that every school wanted her. And then -- can you see where this is headed? -- Lori dropped out of Stanford Medical School after only two and a half months. Why? She realized that she didn't like hanging around sick people all day.

The point is, being smarter doesn't make answering The Question easier. Using the brain to solve this problem usually only leads to answers that make the brain happy and jobs that provide what I call "brain candy." Intense mental stimulation. But it's just that: candy. A synthetic substitute for other types of gratification that can be ultimately more rewarding and enduring. As the cop in East L.A. said of his years in management at Rockwell, "It was like cheap wood that burns too fast."

I struggled with this myself, but not until I had listened to hundreds of others did the pattern make itself shockingly clear. What am I good at? is the wrong starting point. People who attempt to deduce an answer usually end up mistaking intensity for passion. To the heart, they are vastly different. Intensity comes across as a pale busyness, while passion is meaningful and fulfilling. A simple test: Is your choice something that will stimulate you for a year or something that you can be passionate about for 10 years?

This test is tougher than it seems on paper. In the past decade, the work world has become a battleground for the struggle between the boring and the stimulating. The emphasis on intensity has seeped into our value system. We still cling to the idea that work should not only be challenging and meaningful -- but also invigorating and entertaining. But really, work should be like life: sometimes fun, sometimes moving, often frustrating, and defined by meaningful events. Those who have found their place don't talk about how exciting and challenging and stimulating their work is. Their language invokes a different troika: meaningful, significant, fulfilling. And they rarely ever talk about work without weaving in their personal history.

PLACE Defines You
Every industry has a culture. And every culture is driven by a value system. In Hollywood, where praise is given too easily and thus has been devalued, the only honest metric is box-office receipts. So box-office receipts are all-important. In Washington, DC, some very powerful politicians are paid middling salaries, so power and money are not equal. Power is measured by the size of your staff and by how many people you can influence. In police work, you learn to be suspicious of ordinary people driving cars and walking down the street.

One of the most common mistakes is not recognizing how these value systems will shape you. People think that they can insulate themselves, that they're different. They're not. The relevant question in looking at a job is not What will I do? but Who will I become? What belief system will you adopt, and what will take on heightened importance in your life? Because once you're rooted in a particular system -- whether it's medicine, New York City, Microsoft, or a startup -- it's often agonizingly difficult to unravel yourself from its values, practices, and rewards. Your money is good anywhere, but respect and status are only a local currency. They get heavily discounted when taken elsewhere. If you're successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and opportunity can lock you in forever.

Don Linn, the investment banker who took over the catfish farm in Mississippi, learned this lesson the hard way. After years as a star at PaineWebber and First Boston, he dropped out when he could no longer bring himself to push deals on his clients that he knew wouldn't work. His life change smacked of foolish originality: 5.5 million catfish on 1,500 water acres. His first day, he had to clip the wings of a flock of geese. Covered in goose shit and blood, he wondered what he had gotten himself into. But he figured it out and grew his business into a $16 million operation with five side businesses. More important, the work reset his moral compass. In farming, success doesn't come at another farmer's expense. You learn to cooperate, sharing processing plants, feed mills, and pesticide-flying services.

Like Don, you'll be a lot happier if you aren't fighting the value system around you. Find one that enforces a set of beliefs that you can really get behind. There's a powerful transformative effect when you surround yourself with like-minded people. Peer pressure is a great thing when it helps you accomplish your goals instead of distracting you from them.

Carl Kurlander wrote the movie St. Elmo's Fire when he was 24. For years afterward, he lived in Beverly Hills. He wanted to move back to Pittsburgh, where he grew up, to write books, but he was always stopped by the doubt, Would it really make any difference to write from Pittsburgh instead of from Beverly Hills? His books went unwritten. Last year, when a looming Hollywood writers' strike coincided with a job opening in the creative-writing department at Pitt, he finally summoned the courage to move. He says that being in academia is like "bathing in altruism." Under its influence, he wrote his first book, a biography of the comic Louie Anderson.

ATTITUDE Is the Biggest Obstacle
Environment matters, but in the end, when it comes to tackling the question, What should I do with my life? it really is all in your head. The first psychological stumbling block that keeps people from finding themselves is that they feel guilty for simply taking the quest seriously. They think that it's a self-indulgent privilege of the educated upper class. Working-class people manage to be happy without trying to "find themselves," or so the myth goes.

But I found that just about anybody can find this question important. It's not just for free agents, knowledge workers, and serial entrepreneurs. I met many working-class people who found this question essential. They might have fewer choices, but they still care. Take Bart Handford. He went from working the graveyard shift at a Kimberley-Clark baby-wipes plant in Arkansas to running the Department of Agriculture's rural-development program. He didn't do this by just pulling up his bootstraps. His breakthrough came when his car was hit by a train, and he spent six months in bed exploring The Question.

Probably the most debilitating obstacle to taking on The Question is the fear that making a choice is a one-way ride, that starting down a path means closing a door forever.

"Keeping your doors open" is a trap. It's an excuse to stay uninvolved. I call the people who have the hardest time closing doors Phi Beta Slackers. They hop between esteemed grad schools, fat corporate gigs, and prestigious fellowships, looking as if they have their act together but still feeling like observers, feeling as if they haven't come close to living up to their potential.

Leela de Souza almost got lost in that trap. At age 15, Leela knew exactly what she wanted to be when she grew up: a dancer. She pursued that dream, supplementing her meager dancer's pay with work as a runway model. But she soon began to feel that she had left her intellect behind. So, in her early twenties, with several good years left on her legs, she took the SATs and applied to college. She paid for a $100,000 education at the University of Chicago with the money that she had earned from modeling and during the next seven years made a series of seemingly smart decisions: a year in Spain, Harvard Business School, McKinsey & Co., a White House Fellowship, high-tech PR. But she never got any closer to making a real choice.

Like most Phi Beta Slackers, she was cursed with tremendous ability and infinite choices. Figuring out what to do with her life was constantly on her mind. But then she figured something else out: Her need to look brilliant was what was keeping her from truly answering The Question. When she let go of that, she was able to shift gears from asking "What do I do next?" to making strides toward answering "To what can I devote my life?"

Asking "What Should I Do With My Life?" is the modern, secular version of the great timeless questions about our identity. Asking The Question aspires to end the conflict between who you are and what you do. Answering The Question is the way to protect yourself from being lathed into someone you're not. What is freedom for if not the chance to define for yourself who you are?

I have spent the better part of the past two years in the company of people who have dared to confront where they belong. They didn't always find an ultimate answer, but taking the question seriously helped get them closer. We are all writing the story of our own life. It's not a story of conquest. It's a story of discovery. Through trial and error, we learn what gifts we have to offer the world and are pushed to greater recognition about what we really need. The Big Bold Leap turns out to be only the first step.

Sidebar: One Size Does Not Fit All

Two different answers to one ultimate question

Organization Man

Of the 900 people who I talked to, only one has had the same employer for his entire adult life. His name is Russell Carpenter, he's 35, and he's an aerospace engineer at NASA Goddard. We can all learn from him. Russell began working at NASA during college. In exchange for his summers, they paid for his tuition and, later, financed his PhD. Russell is a GS-14, stuck to government pay scales. The money is okay, but it's never the reason to stay. He's building a guidance system for the newest type of satellite.

The halls and offices at NASA are quiet. These engineers are content with slowly pushing toward a solution. Which I took as Extractable Lesson number one: time frame. At NASA, Russell has found an intermediate time frame where he can accomplish the high-minded objectives that his division is charged with, but he's not under absurd pressure to do it all in 90 days.

Aerospace engineers are obsessed with redundancy and backup systems. Russell knows that metals give, that gears slip, and that motors overheat, and he plans for that in his designs. Not everything has to go right in order for it to work. And that way of thinking shows up in every aspect of his life, including how he achieves his ambitions. Which I took as Extractable Lesson number two: His backup plans do not lead to different destinations, such as "If I don't get into business school, I'll be a schoolteacher." His backup plans lead to the same destination, and if he has to arrive late by a back road, that's fine.

Later, Russell and I went to a baseball game, which clued me in to Extractable Lesson number three: Russell doesn't let himself get burned out. He doesn't think it's a big deal that he's only had one employer. His method is his secret, but it's no secret.

"So what do you do?" For five years, Marcela Widrig had a dream job that compensated her well, let her live in Barcelona, and paid for her frequent travel throughout Southern Europe. She sold modems for a big modem manufacturer. Modems were her means to her ends: money, travel, human connection.

When her company moved her to San Francisco, she suffered culture shock. The Internet was destroying everything that she loved about sales. The new ethos was speed. Get the deal done in a day! Don't even fly -- email makes it so easy! The human contact was gone.

The worst part was constantly being asked The Inevitable Cocktail-Party Question: "What do you do?" Marcela had been away long enough to have forgotten about this disgusting American custom. She found it degrading and reductive and mercenary. I too used to think that The Inevitable Cocktail-Party Question was a scourge on our society. But I'm starting to see that it is really about freedom to choose. A status system has evolved that values being unique and true even more than it values being financially successful.

In other words, if you don't like The Inevitable Cocktail-Party Question, maybe it's partly because you don't like your answer.

Marcela no longer liked her answer. She endured migraines and insomnia. After flying all the way to Hong Kong for a meeting that didn't even last one hour, she vowed, "I cannot sell one more modem." But she didn't quit for two more years. On her vacations, she flew to Switzerland to train in a school for deep-tissue massage. It was her way to move toward genuine human contact. The day she returned from one of her Switzerland trips, the modem company went under, and she was forced into her new life.

It took her about a year to drop the business-suit persona and truly embrace her new profession. The Inevitable Cocktail-Party Question no longer bothers her. "I do body work," she says. "I love what I do, and I think that comes across."

Po Bronson is the author of three best-selling books. This article is adapted from his new book, What Should I Do with My Life? The True Story of People Who Answered the Ultimate Question (Random House, January 2003). Contact him by email (pobronson@pobronson.com).

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