Tag Archives: advice

Advice to a younger me

My youngest daughter turns 18 today. She graduates high school in June.

I’m writing this in the same living room my wife and I sat in before taking her to the hospital for my daughters delivery. The same living where that happened for my older daughter who is now 20. The furniture has changed, our cars have changed, my hairline has changed. Our kids have grown up. I feel relatively the same.

Sure my aches and pains take longer to heal. I have memories that have faded. I see lines in my face that were not there before. I seem to have lost certain memories. But I feel the same. I feel like less time has passed. I feel like two decades have raced by.

Have you ever wondered, if you could go back in time and tell yourself something, what would you say? What would you say to the younger version of you?

I’d say, “Commit both time and attention to things at the same time.”

That’s all. I wouldn’t want to say anything else other than ‘be more present’. Of course this is advice I could and should take now. After all, if the last two decades blinked by, that’s a pretty strong suggestion that the next two might go just as quick, or faster.

Dear me, take my advice, it’s free!

I’ve been writing my daily posts for over 6 months now and some of them come off as if I’m writing some sort of advice column… like yesterday’s post on Undermining Self-Sabotage.

I say things like,

It’s the small thing that you can do today that move you to a bigger goal. Small, repeatable things that become habits. These small things undermine self-sabotage. When you surround yourself with small positive, incremental changes, your trajectory changes, and the people around you notice.

But despite addressing the writing to you, admittedly, I’m talking to myself. The book I shared in yesterday’s post, Atomic Habits by James Clear, was very influential to me. I read it at a time when I was making some really positive changes in some areas of my life, but not in others. I still have more work to do.

If I come off as preachy, or like I’m sharing some sagely advice, please know that I’m doing it from a position where I’m trying to take my own advice too. Atomic Habits is one of many great books I listened to last year. If I don’t actively reflect and write about what I’m learning, I won’t really have learned anything. And if I change the pronouns in the quote above to I/me/myself then to me my writing sounds self-centered, and even pretentious.

By the very nature of writing a public journal, I find myself talking to you, the reader, and you get to share my journey. So, when I give it, please feel free to take my advice, or to take my advice with a grain of salt. In reality, I’m talking to myself, and sharing it in the open. Free advice from me, to me, and as it turns out, for you too… if you find it useful.

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Oh, and by the way, if you think some of the things I say are full of crap, please let me know! It’s bound to happen. When I’m trying to pump out a different idea every day, at some point(s) I’ll be deluding myself in some way, but I’m probably too close to the idea to see the error in my thinking. That’s when I would most appreciate a comment or a question to help me learn and grow.

I’ll leave you with one last quote from James Clear,

“I didn’t start out as a writer. I became one through my habits“

Thank you for joining me in the practice of this daily habit.

Free advice

I just read some advice for CEO’s, and this is what the 3 tips boiled down to:

1. Don’t risk bankrupting the company.

2. Don’t do something you’ll regret.

3. Make choices that will better society.

I usually site my sources, but there is absolutely nothing here to give credit for.

Let me give the same advice to anyone, making any decision, in any situation, but I’ll do so in two bullets:

1. Don’t be an idiot.

2. Make good choices.

Feel free to not give me credit for this ‘profound’ advice.

We are constantly exposed to tips and tricks given in list formats:

• 3 things to remember when…

• 5 ways to get…

• 6 reasons not to have a list with 6 points. (Ever notice lists never seem to total 6, 8 or 11?)

• 7 tips to help you…

• 10 videos that will change the way you think about…

• 12 lists that help you make better lists. 😜

To see some of these lists, shared online, you need to click ‘next’ to get to the next tip, so that the website can maximize the advertising revenue after the list’s click-bait title draws you in.

So, let me give you some free advice on taking advice. But first, I encourage you to ask yourself what you are hoping to gain when you click on advice lists. (Yes, the irony of that statement is not lost on me.)

1. If advice is worth taking… take it. (Channeling Yogi Berra)

2. If advice is worth taking, read it out loud. Hearing yourself say the advice is better than being told the advice by others.

3. If advice is worth taking, ask yourself how to make it actionable? Thinking, ‘That’s good advice’ is not as effective as asking yourself, ‘How can I implement that into my life?’ – or asking yourself a similar question.

4. If advice isn’t perfect, change it. Tailoring advice to fit you is a possible way to make it easier advice to follow. (Note the addendum below.)

5. When taking advice, be brutally honest with yourself. For example, watch out for tip 4 above. Are you changing the advice to make it easier to avoid taking good advice, or are you changing it to make the advice more meaningfully relevant or actionable? It’s easy to disregard good advice if it is good, but isn’t easy to do.

6. If advice is stupid, make fun of it. Being critical gives you perspective, and you might be able to learn something from inserting humour.

There you have it, free advice from me. Take it, leave it, add to it, make fun of it. I don’t take my-advice-giving-self too seriously, you probably shouldn’t either. 😃

Please help me with my “Parenting in the digital age” presentation!

This is a humble request for help!

In early June of last year I created this presentation and wiki (details below). The sessions went well and now I’ve been asked to present again. This time the audience is Chinese parents and I have a translator. My slide show is heavily text based because I tried to make it work as a ‘stand-alone’ presentation to support the wiki without me presenting,
(I even added presentation notes to the slideshare if you view it on their site).

…As a result, I am feeling like I almost have to start over before getting this translated.
…Furthermore, I feel like there are definite Western biases to the things I say.
…And finally, there are things that I wanted to add to improve this anyway such as:
• More multi-cultural examples
• Links to creative work done by students (outside of school)
• Include a video of a kid while he is in the role of a World of Warcraft guild master
• More advice and strategies for dealing with kids that are addicted to (or at least highly consumed by) video games – (What strategies work to deal with this?)
Any suggestions or examples would be greatly appreciated!

Be honest, be critical, be brutal if you need to be… just please offer suggestions to help me strip this down to the essentials before I get it translated.
(I’m presenting next week Tuesday:-)
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For this presentation I created a wiki: http://raisingdigitalkids.wikispaces.com/

These were the learning intentions:
  • Examine children’s use of technology
  • Increase awareness of the potential challenges around technology use
  • Learn practical, proactive parenting strategies to maintain connections with children using the media they are using.
  • Learn how to guide children in appropriate and safe interactions on the Internet.
  • Find support and resources to better understand these issues

A key part of the presentation is the handout called ‘Engaging with kids‘.  It is made up of a series of questions based on the presentation, but not necessarily in the presentation. The point is asking questions and finding the right balance or ‘fit’ for each family rather than offering any kind of prescribed answers.

via pairadimes.davidtruss.com

Thanks in advance for your feedback and help!

Twitter EDU

UPDATE: This post has been vastly improved on, and made into an ebook.

Click here to access a free copy of Twitter EDU.

Below, you’ll find the material that just one chapter of this ebook is based on. The ebook is much more comprehensive, just as easy to read, and engages you with Twitter while you read.

Pick up your copy here. 

Update: January 8, 2017

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Some simple advice to set yourself up for success on Twitter– BEFORE you start following people:

1. Add a (tasteful) image.
2. Put something in your bio that says you are an educator.
3. Add a link. Don’t have a blog, use your district/school website, (this is the most optional of these 5 points).
4. Actually tweet a few times. Find a resource or two and share them.
5. Before following other people, add a tweet saying, “I’m an educator from (Country/City/State/University/Course/choose 1) trying to get started on Twitter.”

 

Do that and you’ll get WAY more follow-backs than if you follow someone with no details and a rookie egg image that Twitter gives you.

 

Follow me: @datruss (Do the 5 things above and you have a guaranteed follow-back from me!)

 

And follow some of these great people… I do!

 

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Related: The complete guide to building a digital footprint.