www.duanemathes.com is the fruit of my labor. Please check it out at your convinience.

You might be wondering: why go through all this effort? The answer is simple: I’m damn near 30. As such, I realize that, being almost an old man,  I’ve got about one more shot to really follow my dreams. Of course, those dreams have fishtailed a bit as I’ve grown up, butI’m pretty sure I know what I want. I’m an awesome artist. I want to do awesome art.

The plan is, tentatively, to return to America and focus hard on creating great, sellable fine art, perhaps Alaskan art, moose, salmon, bear, etc. ala Bev Doolittle. I love that style of work, and i think I could be really good at it.

In any case, if this plan moves forward, I will be joining with the masonic lodge up in Alaska, so that should be interesting. Does anyone know what tests I’d have to go through to do that? In my lodge, we’re only required to memorize the obligation and the grip sequence. I know there is a LOT more, do other lodges require this? If so, I’d better get studying!!

The Master of our lodge obviously thinks I’m the right choice, I hope I can live up to his expectations. One of our brothers told me that our Master thinks I’m special (yeah, I ride the short bus) and wants me to be on my way at a younger age so I can do more good when I am older.

I know that I will have to attend many functions, travel to other lodges in SE Asia, and for the most part “be on my best behavior.” Hopefully I can make the grade! I’m a little nervous, but I’m sure I’ll get over it. Hell, it’s a year away! The question is, can my liver handle it?

Does anyone reading this have any experience becoming master of a lodge, perhaps at a young age? (I’m 28) I would love to hear some experiences and advice from you, please comment!

This is the logical continuation of my previous post $1200/yr with No Effort Whatsoever. I have been following my own advice and saving every 1NT coin that I can. After my first 2.5 months, I saved NT8,000 ($258). I am at the end of my 4th month, and I now have NT28,000 ($875) of genuine savings! Did I knock over a video arcade? No! Then where did this money come from?

I must admit, not all of this was change. In fact, I really think that 90% of it was attitude, and the other 10% was actually getting my ass to the bank.

I was walking to the bank with Nick, our Operations Manager here at ili Design. Nick is an extremely pragmatic guy who has been pinching every penny since birth. When he saw my tray of carefully separated change, he said (not unsarcastically), “Stupid. Why don’t you just make a savings plan?”

That would have been wonderful advice for someone who’s been budgeting since the womb, but this is me we’re talking about. “Guess how many deposits I’ve made since I opened this account.” Of course, he couldn’t answer. I could, right off the top of my head.

“Two,” I said. “Last month and this.” In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that it is the least stupid thing I’ve done in a long time. If playing the game of saving a handful of change every day just to see how much you can get by the end of the month will get you to the bank, it’s an awesome start. People don’t get rich (and stay rich) from windfalls like inheritance or winning the lottery, they get rich from having a saving and accruing interest over the long term. Check out “The Millionaire Next Door,” you’ll see. Anyone can do it. That means you. And me.

As an added bonus, once I got my mind into the mode of saving, I have found it easier to scrape together a few more thousand here and there to add to the pot. Now it has become a personal challenge to me, and if you have read any of my previous posts, you know that I’m a beast (actually a 40ft mechanized locomoto-beast) in the self discipline department.

It’s a good thing too, because my salary just dropped 60%. It’s a good thing I’ve been practicing. Now I can ONLY save change!

This is probably going to turn out to be the shortest blog post ever. I’m doing little better than hunting and pecking, you see. I have decided to take on yet another challenge - learning the Dvorak keyboard layout! If you have never heard of it, don’t worry, you’re not alone. For an amazingly well developed explanation, check out dvzine.org.

Basically, the original QWERTY layout (just look at your keyboard, you’ll see why it’s called that) was actually developed to be as inefficient as possible. See, to avoid jams, the typewriter was designed to literally slow down its user. In today’s world (ever since the 1930s in fact), keyboards don’t jam (at least, mine doesn’t). With everyone typing as inefficiently as possible, fatigue became a problem. In 1936 a professor of ergonomics named Dvorak developed and patented a keyboard designed specifically for comfort and efficiency.

Sadly, because so many had already learned QWERTY, Dvorak was never accepted by the typewriter companies, and fell into obscurity. Despite the world land-speed typing record (212 wpm!!) being set with none other than Dvorak, most people have never heard of it. Unfortunate, since by reducing hand movement, it greatly lessens the risk of repetitive motion injury (which I need to be very careful with!)

So, in an effort to keep myself challenged and out of physical therapy for carpal tunnel, I’ve switched my keyboard to Dvorak, and am struggling through the adaptation period. I am already twice as fast as yesterday!

Anyone interested in taking up the challenge with me?

Wow, what a weekend! When I arrived at the lodge on Friday afternoon, I was surprised to find it packed to the gills with white and red hats. Being (at the time), a fresh but on the level Master Mason, I didn’t realize the significance. The white-hats were 33°s, and believe me, there aren’t many of them. They had all just gathered in one place. What I also didn’t know at the time was that the Taipei body of Scottish Rite encompasses Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Thailand, as well as Taiwan, and all the top guys from those myriad countries had all come for the conferral.

After the first night of lectures and rituals, mind spinning from a high-speed download of 4°-18°, a whopping 14 years of study in the old days (and in its modern condensed form like taking a shot of foam insulation directly into the frontal lobe), I returned to the hotel expecting to read my newly acquired copy Bridge to Light. I cracked open a cold one, but as soon as my head touched the pillow I promptly lost consciousness (TKO!) and my hand somehow knocked the beer bottle over right onto the book!

In any case, the damage wasn’t too bad, and I tried to get into it the next morning, but as tedious as it is, I sort of feel like I should go directly to Albert Pike, if I’m going to pound my head against the massive tower that is masonic symbolism, I might as well go to the source. I do intend to understand it though, what’s the point otherwise?

The next morning, as I arrived at the lodge, I bumped into a really friendly brother with a purple hat, and had a short, pleasant conversation with him. Again, not realizing what’s what, I’d just met the Supreme Grand Commander, of whom there’s a massive photograph in the offices of the lodge. You see, there’s only one of those purple hats. One. At least, only one person qualified to wear it.

Our further 19°-32° rituals and lectures went by rather well, and I felt my friend Lynn did a fantastic job as Acting Master in the 32°, since he was told only the night before that he was nominated for the job.

Afterward the Supreme Grand Commander booted everyone else out and sat down with us candidates and gave us a private talk about the meaning of the Royal Secret and the real purpose of the Scottish Rite. I was really impressed with the man, and am happy to call him my brother.

Now, although the rituals and lectures can be crammed into a weekend, I’m afraid I’ll have to spend the next 32 years trying to understand them! Any brothers out there reading this willing to donate a copy of Morals and Dogma? I’ll give it back after I read it (though it will undoubtedly take me a while…)

I like to listen to audiobooks, especially those regarding personal development, or that are about new skills and new ways to see the world. Unfortunately, I find that if I listen to them while working, the drawl of the speaker not only distracts me, but often makes me feel sleepy at the desk.

I learned this trick a year or two ago listening to Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Basically, you use Media Player to increase the play speed to 2x or beyond, so that the information is presented to you more rapidly. You’d be amazed at how fast your brain can process audio information. I find that with concentration, I can listen effectively to 2.2 or higher, but really, 2x is enough. It’s like speed-reading with your ears. What’s really funny is to later return to 1x, and notice how the speaker sounds like he’s talking in slow motion.

This is an excellent time saver, and the speed seems to keep my mind a little sharper while I do my job. I use it primarily when doing right-brain tasks, like painting or designing, though I find it a little distracting when I’m writing, so I’ll usually pause the program for tasks that require a lot of direct conscious involvement.

Give it a go, it might get you to that gem of wisdom you’ve been waiting for in half the time.

This will be a short post, as I’ve just realized that somehow, an entire month has literally disappeared. I am supposed to have been preparing to be the acting master of our first degree ritual work here at Sun Moon Lodge No. 13, but with the madness at ili these days, I’ve completely spaced it! And I’ve got to do it tomorrow!

[UPDATE] Ok, so here’s what happened. I remembered all my lines, and everything went perfectly. How could it not have, after having memorized the universally dreaded Staircase Lecture a few months ago? It’s amazing, actually, how your mind adapts to memorizing massive passages of information so quickly. I mean, the Staircase was a bitch, but having participated in the the EA ritual a number of times, memorizing the Master part was no big deal. Whew.

I was originally afraid that doing it in Taichung would be strange as well, since our Grand Lodge is in Taipei, and the Temple is there, so we had to use a hotel conference room. Surprisingly, it worked rather well, and if we could get enough people, I think it wouldn’t be a problem for us to use it once in a while. Obviously having our own space would be much better (and more private, the candidates had to stand in the hall in their skivvies since we didn’t have a preparation room!) but this worked in a pinch.

Next week: Scottish Rite! Hey, I’m stoked.

I know this has been covered on many sites before, but now that I’m actually doing it, it’s amazing just how well it works.

The premise is as simple as it gets. Put a box by your bed (or wherever you get naked). Empty the change from your pocket into the box when you go to bed. Repeat. At the end of the month, go to the bank and deposit the change.

Let me tell you from the experience of just a couple of months doing this system: Change adds up! I’ve been able to deposit approximately NT$8000, or about $258 in 2.5 months. Before I began doing this plan, I didn’t save anything, so for me that’s a massive increase. Granted I’m using Taiwanese change, one very handy piece of which is the 50NT coin, which works out to about $1.50. According to other sites however, it shouldn’t be hard for a person in the States to save around $100/month with this method. Multiply that by 12, and that’s $1200/year! That’s awesome, and it really feels like free money.

I used to have piles of change all around the house which would disappear, scattered to the far corners of the galaxy (or under the sofa, in the laundry machine’s catch drawer, etc.) Now, I know exactly where my change is, and I look forward to depositing it each month and seeing how much I’ve saved.

I am not sure if this is directly related to the Million Dollar Experiment that I have recently begun, but things have gone loco down at ili Design! It seems like each and every day in the last few weeks we’ve been signing new deals, and not just for a pack of business cards or a brochure, I’m talking NT$750,000 (somewhere in the neighborhood of US$25,000) for a complete branding package, fully integrated CMS website, and exhibition booth for trade shows. And not just one, no. Legions. As of last week, it is literally impossible for us to complete all the work we’ve signed. We’re going to need a beef-up in the ol’ human resources department, and fast!

There’s an adage for this, of course, and–I’ll be damned–it’s the title of this post. Fear not, clandestine clients reading this post! An army of design-minded foriegners awaits to fill our personnel needs.

Well, I wanted a million dollars (still do, really), and the company exceeding all human expectation is one way it could happen. So here I go, repeating my intention again and again. And I’m going to keep going that way until I have it. No one ever complained about too much business, and I’m not either. Just saying, the sky is beginning to turn dark with 50 hour work weeks, and it looks like it’s gonna be one hell of a storm.

Despite the naysaying of my colleagues here at ili Design, I have begun participating in Steve Pavlina’s Million Dollar Experiment. For the highest good of all, I hope some people are still doing this.

Basically, it’s a public experiment on the effectiveness of intention, and how it can (and does) manifest in our daily lives. Just sit in silence for a moment, and put forth the following intention, whether by meditation, prayer, or however you feel most comfortable:

In an easy and relaxed manner, in a healthy and positive way, in its own perfect time, for the highest good of all, I intend $1,000,000 to come into my life and into the lives of everyone who holds this intention.

All you need to do is spend a few minutes each day thinking about it, focusing on your intention. Obviously the more you focus on it, the clearer your intention is going to be to the universe. Think of it as shooting a flare up in the darkness. The universe will provide for you, especially if you tell it what you want.

I personally believe wholeheartedly that reality is a personal and subjective experience based on one’s perception. Alter your perception, and you alter your reality. You could live a happy life or a sad one, simply on your perceptions. Take my current situation for example: I haven’t received a full paycheck in as long as I can remember. When I do get a little cash, it goes to rent, personal education, and food. Money trickles in in $30 clumps.

Seems bleak, right? Well, here’s the flipside: I live in Taiwan, so I don’t NEED a whole lot of money to cover my bottom line. I co-own my own business, and am watching it grow every day. The money that I’m not taking home today is building in not only equity, but in cash that the company will dump on me when we have our next windfall (see my upcoming post When it Rains, it Freaking Pours!) I have a wonderful girlfriend and a nice place to live, and as I’m self-employed, I can take vacations whenever I want. My family is coming in a few weeks, and I’m taking 3 weeks off to travel around the island with them.

So you see, although things may look dismal on a day-to-day basis, a simple shift of perception reveals that actually, things are going my way more than ever before.

Please consider joining this experiment. It won’t cost you anything more than a minute or two a day, and you don’t even have to tell anyone you’re doing it (although I wouldn’t mind a comment or two to know someone’s doing it with me :))

Best of luck to you! I will post any results that come my way.