Do you remember the great scene from The Matrix, when Neo meets a little kid who’s bending spoons?

A couple of weeks ago, some friends of mine had gone for a spoon bending class  here (Singapore) and they came back to show off their spoons. At that point I started believing that if they could do it, I could too!

And this morning I got an email from Pete that we will be doing spoon-bending at the next coach training. I expect to be elsewhere during that time, so I figured let me bend spoons this morning!

I’m not new to energy & self-hypnosis … but I am relatively new to meditation. So when I googled “spoon bending”, I was hoping to find some sleight of hand or trick for doing this.

Instead, I stumbled upon this site … and the instructions seemed easy enough. And then I saw this video - that really got me pumped up! It was the first hour of my awakening in the morning, so I decided that today … instead of meditation, I’m going to bend spoons!

I’ve read reports that people weren’t able to do it without the company of other “believing’ people … but I guess it’s all about belief. I’m really pumped up and pretty sure I can do it … and after meditating for about 30 seconds and mentally chanting “Bend Bend Bend”, I was able to bend the spoons!

(Although I haven’t yet tried it in front of other disbelieving people … that’s an experiment for another day!).

Like someone in the forums said, the spoon didn’t bend by itself. I still had to put force to bend it … but it was easy … it became softer (like rubber) for a few seconds.

It was only first time, so I started with two spoons - one thin and one thick. When I started, I could only bend the thin one about 90 degrees. The second time, when I had fine-tuned my bending routineI hadn’t been able to bend it without meditation. It definitely did feel much softer, like it wasn’t steel but something else.

My Strategy for spoon bending is as follows:

My strategy is only slightly different from the one at mind-energy.net … I guess I customized it knowing myself. But I’m pretty sure it will work for you.

• Take a bunch of spoons and “feel” which ones will bend (Yeah, I know it sounds cooky, but I did it anyway. I don’t think it made a huge difference, I could’ve bent any one of them).
• Before you begin, try to bend the spoon by brute force. You won’t be able to do much (unless its a really skinny spoon). This is important so that you can be amazed by your own power later.
• Make sure you watch the video above, so you know what happens to the spoon. That will help form the visualization pictures in your head.
• Gently have a conversation with the spoon - and say “You Will Bend For Me”. Really believe it (shouldn’t be that hard to believe after the video).
• Start meditating/deep breathing. As you breathe in, imagine the energy from the universe going through you and collecting in the form of a golden ball on the top of your head.
• Breathe deeper. Start rubbing the spoon at the point you want to bend it (best to start with the point between the handle and valley).
• With every breath, continue to imagine the golden ball growing and say to the spoon - You will bend for me.
• Continue this deep breathing for about 30 deep breaths. Make them faster and more energetic towards the final 15.
• Then stop for a second. Look away. Look back at the point you’ve chosen. Imagine the golden ball of energy shooting in a straight line to the point you’ve chosen.
• Say out loud “Bend! Bend! Bend!” and start bending the spoon. It will become softer like rubber.
• It really will be softer, it’s okay to use force to bend it, remember to be in an energetic trance state and command the spoon to bend.
• If it’s your first spoon, it will probably just bend a little bit. That’s okay, you bent a spoon! Now do it again and twist it this time.

Here are the pictures from my first time:

If anyone reading this decides to try this … or has something to say, please leave a comment!

• Leave a comment...

Here’s a very simple test to see if you’re using your right brain more … or your left brain. I found the awesome graphic at news.com.au here …

Look at the image below - is the dancer turning clockwise? or anti-clockwise?

As the link says, people who see the dancer turning clockwise are using more of their right brain. If you’re using the dancer turning anti-clockwise, you’re using more of the left brain.

You can make a conscious effort to change the direction of the dancer (I closed my eyes and imagined the dancer going the other direction … when I opened my eyes, the dancer changed direction to anti-clockwise) … but the first instinct of the dancer’s direction is probably a good bet.

So, what does it mean if you’re right brain or left brain?

Both sides of the brain control different sides of our personality. If you have to narrow it down - Right brain is creativity … Left brain is logic.

If you wanna break it down … this graphic should explain things for you …

Using this knowledge in real life …

I first learnt the concept of right-brain and left-brain while spending time with Adam Khoo … here’s a guy who learnt this concept of whole-brain-learning, mind maps and speed reading and applied it all through his life.

And so I learnt that our left brain is the one that control logic and analytics. And all through our life and education system (school, college), we focus on building our skills for the left brain.

But our right brain is the “holistic” learning centre. It is in charge of creativity, feeling, fantasy, possibility … and we need to make an extra effort to train it in order to get the most out of our lives.

Since the time I learnt about this concept, I have been training both sides of my brain and I must say I’m more satisfied with my thinking now. When I need to be analytical, I’m much better at making strategies. When I need to be creative, I’m much better at feeling and dreaming possibilities.

In fact, this last weekend I was coaching the Patterns of Excellence program … and I noticed how much better participants learnt because we stimulated both sides of the brain (with activities, self-learning, pictures etc). I’ve also seen it before at kids education programs where whole-brain learning is encouraged.

(By the way, if anyone is interested in improving the productivity of your career and holistic life … or for getting your children better at studying and performing in school/university … then contact me for details. I have been organizing these kind of programs for a while now and give you more details).

Anyway, the moral of the story is that you have to train both sides of your brain. The next time you need to study better, stop staring at the words - draw pictures and doodle - they’ll help your learning. Or the next you need a solution for a problem, stimulate your right-brain with some activities to invoke thought!

Take care of both your brain

• Leave a comment...

I’m a little heart-broken.

For the past 4 years I’ve been having an on-and-off affair.

There are moments when I’m attracted to her. (It’s usually when things are going bad with my regular love … then we experiment for a while and give “us” a shot).

Initially, she manages to dazzle me. Every time, she comes across with some new bells & whistles …

But after a while, I start noticing the flaws.

• Like how it is to understand her …
• She never likes to try out new things …
• Always has to be different from my alternatives …

After four years, I’m ready to call it quits …

It’s not a girl on my mind.

It’s not a boy either (seriously you guys, you have to think of better jokes in your head … no no, the other head ).

It’s something that’s a lot closer to my heart … my computer’s operating system.

I’ve been using some form of Windows since 1991 … that 15 year relationship can really give you moments when you wonder - “Do I deserve better than this?”

And those are the moments, when Linux steps in and offers something more attractive looking.

• Linux is free!! (Never underestimate the pain of parting with $200 for buying a new copy of Windoze …)
• Linux is geeky … being a tech entrepreneur, writer and geekhead … there’s a certain charm in getting to conquer the geekiest of operation systems …
• I’ve been testing it for years, and it’s gotten easier and easier to set up …
• The new Ubuntu Linux is probably the best looking Operating System out there … in my view, nicer than Mac OS X and Windows Vista …

A particular dire set of circumstances, started the affair this time …

A few months ago, my desktop died. I don’t really know why … I even had some chap at Sim Lim cheat me out out of $150 to diagnose and fix a non-existent problem. In any case, I couldn’t quite figure it out.

So I bought a new hard disk. Slotted it in. Bought a new graphics card. Slotted it in. The photo below is me trying to get my hardware to work (not that kind of hardware … I meant computer hardware … you naughty naughty girl).

Then I couldn’t find my original windows CD. I couldn’t even find the pirated CDs I used to keep in college.

So my choice was two-fold:

1. Spend $200 to get a copy of Vista from Sim Lim
2. Test my luck with Linux

Usually I lean towards buying Windows and getting it over with. I’ve tried Linux every now and then … and it’s just too painful to start using.

But in this case, coincidentally, my laptop was undergoing some bad spyware/virus issues. And I was exceedingly pissed because even after spending $75 a year on OneCare Live - Microsoft’s lame attempt at an anti-virus + anti-spyware … my computer had been infected.

So, to refuse handing over my S$200 to Bill Gates’ wealth, I decided to spend $0 and all my patience in trying to make Linux work.

Like I Said … Things With Ubuntu Linux Started Out Real Well …

I popped in the Ubuntu Live CD … and I booted my computer. And wallah! it worked!

(Actually things weren’t that smooth. My new hard disk was SATA and my old hard disk was IDE. And I had to play with my BIOS for several days … to bring a climax to the problem. Yeah, it sounds real kinky. But I’ll save you the technical details and skip to the fun part).

Nevertheless, so Ubuntu Linux booted up … looking clean, gorgeous and fast.

I immediately liked what I saw:

• Most major applications I needed were already there (OpenOffice, Mozilla Firefox, a basic media player, automatic updates)
• It automatically recognized my external hard disk! In the past, “mounting” external devices was a pain in Linux (yes, I’m aware of the sexual connotations of the phrase)
• Networking automatically worked. For my desktop, it worked with Internet almost immediately. For my laptop (in the past), it had worked with wireless quite seamlessly too.
• With Mozilla and OpenOffice installed - I could do my most critical tasks - check mail, read news and edit presentations.
• It looked pretty damn nice. I love the “human” theme … (apparently that’s what the word Ubuntu means in Swahili, the south African language)

So, I thanked the heavens that I was back in touch with the world (over the virtual web, of course).

But slowly, it dawned upon me … that many of my needs weren’t being met

• None of my movies or music would work. Apparently mp3, wma, divx, avi are all protected file formats … so installing codecs would be illegal. Took me hours to find and download the right codecs to play my 200GB of movies!
• I couldn’t use so many of my fancy hardware devices - my windows mobile PDA-phone, my portable scanner, my external sound card etc etc
• Software installation is quite a pain. There’s a known repository of software that will install the windows way (download setup files and then install) … for everything else, there’s a whole bunch of command line tweaking required.
• The damn thing can’t recognize screen resolution properly. On my laptop, it stretched a 1024×768 resolution on my widescreen. On my desktop, I had to go find custom drivers by ATi (my graphics card manufacturer) to enable my 1280×1024 resolution on my LCD.
• All my regular Internet Marketing applications wouldn’t work! My web design, graphic design, adwords editor, email client etc etc … and that’s really mission critical to me …

The above screenshot shows the kind of web design and graphic design work I have to do in windows … and when you’ve spent 3-4 years getting used to the interface of one application … switching over is real hard.

But those same applications don’t seem to work in Linux. Now, I’m a resilient guy and so I thought I’d make do with open source alternatives instead …

• Instead of Adobe Dreamweaver, I decided to try Nvu. Actually I’ve used it before … it’s okay, but no match for Dreamweaver
• I thought I’d try GIMPshop (a copy of Photoshop) … instead of Adobe Fireworks, my regular graphics design app.
• I tried to use OpenOffice Presentation to replace MS Office Powerpoint … but OpenOffice is no match there (on the other hand, the OpenOffice word document can stack up very well against MS Word)
• I didn’t know which BitTorrent client to use. And because Linux downloads everything from their servers, their servers are super slow … so half the applications wouldn’t install.
• I even tried this thing called Wine - it’s a way of running windows applications on Linux. I got some of my appz to install properly … but they didn’t run right.
• Somebody on a forum recommended that I install Windows as a virtual desktop … great idea jackass … if I’m spending $200 on buying windows, then I’d want to use it properly. Not spend my efforts getting used to Linux.

But those open source applications just don’t do all that I need … I am working on a new product that is a series of educational videos. So, the content for the product had to be done in presentation format.

I tried switching over to OpenOffice … but it’s just too hard to use. Instead, when I moved back to MS Powerpoint, life seemed easy again … simple things like text resizing and font setup are a lot more intuitive here.

Then, the final straw came when even Linux started throwing the blue-screen of death at me.

In the middle of things, it would hang and die. In all fairness, I probably don’t know how to configure it right. Or it could be the fault of my hardware. But I don’t care … all I want from an Operating system is an easy learning curve.

Ubuntu Linux is a commendable step forward …

I’ve seen Linux over the years, and it has matured tremendously. For home users, who only need to see movies, browse the web and check email … it’s as good as Windows.

I particularly love the Ubuntu distribution of Linux … it looks beautiful … and it has a Live CD (so you can run the OS off the CD without messing up your existing installations) … and it can even install as a software inside of
Windows (try Wubi … it’s a risk free way of trying Linux without messing up windows).

But it’s not good enough for Advanced Users …

But it won’t do it for advanced users. If Dell sold a desktop bundled with Ubuntu, I’d feel confident giving it to my grandma. But the learning curve to do important things is just too much for me.

So if you need to pick up a new skill (let’s say photo editing, web design), then try an open source alternative. If you can learn them on one platform, you can use them anywhere …

• Use Mozilla Firefox for browsing the web. It looks the same across Windows, Mac & Linux
• Use OpenOffice for office applications. The Word processor is awesome. The Powerpoint & Excel alternatives are just OK. But its FREE.
• Use Nvu for web editing. If you’re just beginning, it may be good enough for you and its cross-platform.
• Use GIMPshop for photo editing.
• Use Inkscape for vector & graphic editing.
• Use Ubuntu as a secondary operation system. Install it within windows and get used to it … before you switch.

For working professionals, who focus on something special … don’t bother unless you have a lot of patience and free time. Test these software on a secondary computer in your free time … they have the potential to mess up my livelihood.

So, my advice to anyone who’s very comfortable with Windows - don’t switch.

Yes, it costs extra money to buy Windows, Office, Dreamweaver, Photoshop etc … But if you’re already adept at using those things, those extra 1000 dollars are well worth it. They will save hundreds of hours of re-learning and frustration later on.

• Leave a comment...