KenjiCrosland

What culture is that? I'm curious.

I'd like to hear more about this tension you speak about so that I better address what you have to say. I've personally wrestled with mindfulness vs. action and one of the reasons I continue to practice mindfulness meditation is: 1. It's one of the most accessible types of meditation (in terms of finding a teacher) in the West. 2. Mindfulness and being grounded in the present moment has influenced the quality of my day-to-day action. While I won't go into detail, I feel as though my day to day actions have been guided by an increased sense of purpose and compassion.

I suppose I didn't make it clear enough in my post, but the practice over the year has led to a significant increase in well-being for me. Emotions, though they may be felt more strongly, also pass more quickly. Instead of a unsustainable happiness or Euphoria, it's more like a pervading sense of peace. I don't think I could have kept it up if this wasn't the case!

Love the discussion here and I'd be happy to add a few thoughts when I set aside some time to. Just wanted to point out that there's a much higher quality version of the video than the one I originally linked to in the post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCwC7XBQq9o

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested" -Bacon

Unfortunately, most of what's out there on the blogs are only meant to be tasted...if that. Direct experience is valuable, but direct experience guided by an informed authority can be even more valuable.

I'm not a neuroscientist so I won't argue that point. I think as far as self-improvement and personal growth is concerned, however it seems that at least on a surface level that people can alter their behavior. Again, whether they are hard-wired to do so because of brain structure I don't know.

MRI scans of accomplished meditators have shown significant changes in brain structure, as do players of certain video games. People do change--whether or not that's a matter of free will is a discussion you'll never reach the end of.

I used to read a lot of self-help but I don't anymore. It's not that many books don't provide good advice but that the advice is really just common sense. Read a list of proverbs and you've basically got what most self-help books and blogs say covered.

A few years ago I bought into a lot of the self-help stuff. I read many books, and by the time I realized I was pretty much reading the same thing over and over again, I stopped. There were of course some esoteric Neuro-Linguistic-Programming Techniques I could try, but to me that seemed a lot like being a "cargo-cult" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_programming) programmer--introducing behavior patterns that are meant to be a stand alone module when you don't know how they might interact the code that is already there (i.e. your current behavioral conditioning).

To me, I think that reading self-help can be a necessary and important stage in personal growth. Necessary and important, but intermediate. The moment you graduate from self-help, is the moment you start creating your own path for growth that is meaningful for you.

Cool. What's the company name?

I'm guessing there are plenty more but this is what we could find through initial research. If you know of any more please let me know at kenji -at- evenues dot com and I'll add it plus a mention for the hat tip if you want. Thanks!

I like the idea of using hashtags to amplify one's grievances with a company on twitter. Is there a good way to research appropriate ones, I wonder?

Good tips. I've seen a lot of the same myself. With all the brilliant engineers around, it's amazing no one considers simple problems like this.

Thanks Jack. Had to get creative, ya know?

Yeah, it might work if you only started in one city, just to test the product though.

That's pretty cool, kind of like a reverse auction. Only one person gets to buy the item though?

A lot of game companies get around this hurdle with virtual currency, although this might get a little over-complicated for your average deals site user. You're probably right though.

I would have never posted this on HN myself because I'm not a frequent user. I really have to thank Kirill for posting this. I've already gotten emails from three CEOs :D. HN is amazing!

I'd say that the link "builder" is dead. "Earning" links however, could be a different story. If content gets a lot of tweets, fb shares etc and non-manipulative links (not just 100 links with the same anchor text), then Google should still reward the site that earns those links. That was the direction that I was trying to go after the 24th. That said, it was more difficult to do that for a directory site, which is what TeachStreet was.