Do you eat your vitamins on a daily basis?
Or do you skip out every few days because you forget?

Not gonna lie, I’m the latter.  And you probably are too.  You see… I realized that vitamins are what separate the successful people from the mediocre-ly successful ones.  Michael Jordan probably practiced on time every single morning 99.9% of the time, Jamie Foxx practices the entire movie script before the first rehearsal – so much that he even remembers the lines of his co-actors, etc. etc.

It’s the super small (deceivingly small) things like remembering to eat your vitamins every single day that shape you into a consistent, reliable, and consequently successful person versus a person that just eats them when they remember.

Do you want to be mediocre?  Or do you want to win?

Eat your vitamins for the win.  I’m starting today. How about you?

Image courtesy of ABC News

Interested in saving some money on phone bills and transforming your iPad into a phone with free calling and texting?

Well, if you fall into the following 3 categories:

1. iPad 2 owner
2. Reside in the States
3. Pay for a landline telephone or sick of paying crazy cell phone bills

Then follow the below steps to replace your home landline telephone with your iPad 2 — free of charge.  And even better: you can even text message free from your iPad.  Note: If you have a 3G plan for your iPad, you could go mobile too, but not 100% sure about the stability of the phone reception when you’re on the go.

As you may know, Google released its Google Voice platform earlier this year.  This service allows Google account owners inside the USA to acquire a free telephone number and have all your phone numbers forwarded to this number (or act as a standalone number).  Well, with a little hack sense, you can download an app called ‘Talkatone‘ on your iPad and get your number set up for free on your iPad.  Just follow these two simple steps:

1. Register for a free Google Voice number by logging into your Google account.
2. Download Talkatone on your iPad 2 and input your Google Voice phone number and other info (yes, it’s an iPhone app but works fine on iPad).

Now close your iPad and try calling your new number from a new number that’s not linked up to your Google Voice phone number.

Wala!  You just replaced your landline!

If you are interested in a more aesthetic iPad-esque interface, you can check out this article to download GV Connect and sync it with Talkatone –although I think it’s not necessary.

Photo courtesy of SexyGadgets

I’ve recently been reading books about success, efficiency, and productivity and discovered a very interesting topic with varying opinions:

How much information should you digest on a daily basis?

While some believe absorbing excess information is unhealthy and unnecessary, others vouch that reading the news everyday and staying on top of current events is crucial to one’s ability to succeed.  Tim Ferriss, for instance, writes about information diet and how he hasn’t read the newspaper in years and only reads Inc. magazine to stay on top of his game (purposefully exaggerated IMO).  Others like actor James Franco are knowledge whores and keep their minds exercising and moving at all times with new information, from Wikipedia:

“Having received permission to take as many as 62 course credits per quarter compared to the normal limit of 19 while continuing to act, he received his undergraduate degree in June 2008 with a GPA over 3.5.  He moved to New York to simultaneously attend graduate school at Columbia University‘s MFA writing program, New York University‘s Tisch School of the Arts for filmmaking (NYU), and Brooklyn College for fiction writing, while occasionally commuting to North Carolina‘s Warren Wilson College for poetry. He received his MFA from Columbia in 2010. Franco is a Ph.D. student in English at Yale University and will also attend the Rhode Island School of Design.”

OK James Franco is an extreme case lol.  Of course it also depends on one’s definition of ‘too much’ information.  I personally have made it a habit to read the news everyday (almost every hour actually) and find that it helps keep a social conversation flowing (though that’s not the reason why I follow the news).

What are your thoughts?  Minimalist or Know it all?

Free up your time and focus on what you love to do and the more important things by hiring a virtual assistant to take care of the other stuff.

I took a look at my daily tasks recently and realized that I was spending wasting some time everyday on trivial tasks that my imaginary kid brother could accomplish under intoxication.  Something needed to change.

After recently reading books like Tim Ferriss’s 4 Hour Workweek and other motivational reads,  I decided recently to hire a virtual assistant to help me take care of errands and research that I’d rather not waste time on.  It’s been a week now and I’m quite satisfied with the results.  Here are some tasks that my assistant has taken care of in only the last week:

• Posting craigslist ads
• Researching whether the ‘How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying’ musical is worth watching (and best prices)
• Finding the top 3 sites (traffic-wise) to post used books
• Contacting a few websites with miscellaneous inquiries
• Hiring and communicating with other contractors to work on coding jobs

My assistant works in India, has perfect English capability, and has exceeded my expectations and performed on time and with quality results so far. He works from 9PM to 9AM PST and basically takes care of my work while I am asleep.  He has saved me at least 10 hours of time (and hassles) in the last week at the cost of only $5 an hour.  In my opinion, money well spent.

Depending on your workload, you could be saving yourself much more than 10 hours a week.  I found my current virtual assistant through Elance but there are many other options like Brickwork (not recommended, the quote they gave me was totally overpriced).  I may hire more assistants in different disciplines overtime as workload increases.

Do you have a virtual assistant?  Please share your thoughts.

I recently traveled from Taiwan to Los Angeles for a brief visit and now to New York.  Many colleagues ask me:

“How do you plan to pay off your daily and travel expenses while traveling without working?”

It’s a great question and I’d be asking the same thing if I met someone in a similar position.  Well, the simple answer is the Internet is going to be paying for everything.  Yes, the Internet is my bank account.

As you may have figured out, doing business on the Internet allows you the freedom to be 100% mobile as long as you have a computer and Internet access.  Obviously, you need to have a little tech geek savvy and some street skills.  But it’s truly a beautiful thing.  If you are interested in having the freedom to do business online, here are a few ways the Internet pays me:

100% Online Design Business

I say “100%” because so far literally all my clients have been only through online referrals and interactions.  I started my company Geekwhat Design earlier this year, we specialize in designing all types of web and print graphics for clients from London to Seattle.  So far, we’ve spent basically $0 on marketing/advertising our services and make anywhere from $800-$2000 a month.  I spend about 15-30 hours a week creating designs for clients and managing this business.  I can only imagine the scaling should we start to spend some $$ on marketing.

Blogging

This blog, Geekwhat.com, has existed for around 4 years on the web.  Back in 2007-2008, I worked hard to increase the visibility of the blog and raised its income to average $90-$110 per month through ads and well… some more ads.  Unfortunately, my server was cut off in 2008 after forgetting to pay the bill ontime.  I lost all my earlier blog articles and backlinks and had to start over again.  Lesson learned.  I am now making about $20-$30 per month and intend to increase that amount with the new blog design/layout and increased blog articles.  I’m intending to commit to about 1 hour/article at about 3 articles/week, so about 3-4 hours a week on this.

Selling Products Online

This one is a bit tougher because there is overhead involved and physical shipping of products.  However, I’ve learned recently of the process of automating everything from warehouse shipping to customer service.  In the past few months, I experimented with some  hip products and was profiting about $700-900 a month in my best months, but ran into some problems with sites where I was posting.  I’m contemplating going the solo route with an isolated online store and spending some money on advertising to get the word out online.  Clearly my products were selling well when viewed by the right eyeballs.   Before the automation kicks in, I’d say I would spend about 10-20 hours a week on this.

So, to sum up… based on these three methods, the Internet was paying me about $2000-$3000 a month on good months and $1000-$1500 on slow months.  Amount of time spent on these activities = 40-45 hours per week — and nearly zero marketing.  I’m in the process of outsourcing and automating a lot of my tasks to minimize my number of work hours so I can focus on marketing and increase my bottom line.  My goal: Have the Internet pay me around $5000-$8000 per month by the end of this year (with the majority of the income being passive i.e. automated/outsourced), this would be ideal.

More to come about automating and outsourcing.

Internet money image courtesy of http://www.taramagazine.com

Yum…. Pho. The popular Vietnamese bowl of transparent noodles with a satisfying soup base and the perfect combination of peripheral sauces and vegetables. The beauty of Pho is that it makes the very thought of Vietnamese food so clear and focused in a foreigner’s mind. When you walk by a pho place, chances are the restaurant name has ‘Pho’ in it. You know exactly what you’re going to get if you go in and sit down. It’s the perfect business lesson — focused, clear, and give the customer what they are expecting.

In comparison, the food served at Korean or Chinese restaurants (for example) is generally more vague. You aren’t clear right off the bat what you’ll be eating should you enter. If you place a Korean restaurant next to a Pho restaurant, a hungry passing foreigner would at least know right off the bat what they’ll be served if they enter the Pho restaurant. Whether he chooses it or not is another story, but just the clarity of the business is a win right away IMHO.

I think you’ve become successful when an average Joe can name what you do within 3 seconds after hearing your brand. Try the following:

Apple = iPhone. GOOD.
Samsung = … tv … tablet … phones… BAD.

Eminem = angry white guy. GOOD.
Kid Rock = … had that one rock-ish/rap hit…. BAD.

IKEA = home stuff. GOOD.
Sears = … appliances … clothes… BAD.

Caltech = engineering. GOOD.
UCLA = …. bruins … white racist chick … poly sci? BAD.

Simpler = win. Complicated = mediocre. Your thoughts?

After purchasing and using my new iPad 2 for a week, I’m here to share a few tidbits about the good and the bad. The version I got is a black 16GB Wi-fi only iPad 2. In my opinion, those who should be considering get an iPad should fall in the following categories:

a) don’t own a decent laptop
b) don’t own an iPhone 4
c) want something to take on the road for emailing, word processing, and surfing the web
d) bored with a lot of $$$ to spend

If you don’t fall into any of those categories, the iPad may become redundant and somewhat useless to you. In my situation, I spilled hot coffee on my Macbook Pro (2 years old) keyboard a few weeks back and now certain keys don’t work and the laptop fails to go to sleep. So basically for the time being (until I get to replacing the non-functional parts), I have a desktop laptop with an external keyboard and mouse.

I had originally planned on getting a 13″ Macbook Air 1.86GHz with 4GB RAM but after chancing upon this iPad 2 (that I am typing this post on now) at Walmart, I knew that I had to grab this opportunity and buy the damn thing — even if I end up just selling the guy on craigslist. Well, temptation struck after the third day of staring at the package and I opened the sucker. Now let’s get into the review.

Speed-wise, the iPad 2 is super fast, no complaints there. I intend to use my iPad 2 for the following tasks:

1. Facebook
2. Browsing web, blogging
3. Reading magazines, books, news
4. Replying e-mails (I have online businesses, so replying clients = everyday)
5. Casual entertainment (games, watching TV shows)

Basically everything besides heavy duty tasks like designing with Photoshop/Illustrator and recording music. I do those taks on my handicapped Macbook Pro at home. For the five tasks I mentioned above, the iPad 2 is totally adequate. Facebook via an app like Friendly or MyPad is awesome, you can do status updates, reply comments, etc. easily. Even upload a photo you took with the iPad 2 within 30 seconds time. Safari is super fast so browsing the web is simple. You can watch youtube videos (I recommend through Safari rather than through the slow Youtube app supplied) and shop online seamlessly. I check my favorite news sources through Flipboard, a sweet app with awesome layout design. You can also use Pulse or other RSS readers for customizing your reading experience. Replying e-mails = quick and painless. Games are endless on the iPad 2, some awesome ones like Maelstorm or Infinite Blade (sp?). I use an app called AirPlay to watch a bunch of video files (movies, TV shows, etc.) on my 1 TB external hard drive at home via Wi-fi. So I’m not using any space on my 16GB drive on the iPad 2. The output of the video files on the iPad 2 = awesome.

Oh, forgot to add that I bought a Zagg Logitech keyboard/case:

This guy uber helps with typing blog posts like this and replying e-mails quickly. In terms of Wi-fi versus 3G model, you can find tons of articles debating this topic. I went with Wi-fi because.. well because it was the only one of its kind left. Black versus white? You decide, again check the plethora of articles online debating this matter.

iPad 2 = victory if you fall in one of the 4 categories above and are looking to use it for the 5 categories in list 2. Feel free to add your thoughts and/or refute me hehe

Take a look at this image… do you have yellow fever? For list of symptoms see here.

In my last entry, I talked about the beginning of mainstream presence for Asians worldwide. And as many of you know, I have a band called Cool Silly. Well, we decided to make use of our production and writing skills and pen up a track about this very topic (video below).

The song we wrote is called ‘Yellow Fever’, our video features all your favorite Asian characters in a fun light: Jackie Chan, Maggie Q, Jin the MC, YaoMing, etc.

Here’s the music video for our song:

What is this so-called ‘Yellow Fever’?

Well, let’s take a look at a few definitions in Urban Dictionary for this term:

1. A mental disease that afflicts the Wapanese, the fanboys, and the otaku. Symptoms of this condition are;

(a) A sexual obsession towards females of Asian descent.
(b) An obsession towards Asian media and entertainment, primarily anime, hentai, manga, and other Japanese media.
(c) A sudden urge to imitate anything from Asia. For instance, learning Japanese and eating sushi just for the sheer sake of trying to be “Asian”.
(d) Thinking that one knows more about Japan than the Japanese themselves, despite never setting foot in that country or at lest reading about it.

2. Sexual obsession felt by a non-asian (Usually white, usually male) towards asians of the opposite gender. Symptoms of yellow fever include stalking, halfhearted attempts to learn Japanese/Mandarin/Cantonese/Korean and whacking off to Sailor Moon video’s.

3. The best infliction to have ever hit caucasians. Signs of having contracted yellow fever includes extreme attraction and affection towards Asians of the opposite sex.

Genius definitions if you ask me. Needless to say, this track is about the recent influx of Asians and Asian Americans in mainstream media and entertainment.  Enjoy and remember: sharing is caring!

Question: do YOU have yellow fever?