Better Productivity Through Freedom from Unexpected Addictions

Dr. Sam El Gbouri

1/1/2022

Productivity is a mindset that doesn’t go well Consumeritis this is not Consumerism which is defined in Investopedia.com as  “the idea that increasing the consumption of goods and services purchased in the market is always a desirable goal and that a person's wellbeing and happiness depend fundamentally on obtaining consumer goods and material possessions.”

I call is Consumeritis because it is now a sickness, an infection, and even a contagious endemic, and lets define the difference between endemic and pandemic, pandemic is something we fight off, and we eradicate, an endemic on the other hand is something we can’t eradicate, we learn to live with it and we learn to survive it by periodic vaccinations and such.

Why starting like this? Well simply so you can draw the line between consuming and productivity. Which characteristic do you want to more dominant in your character a consumer being, or a productive creative? I for one, know my goal to be productive, learn as much as possible, and share the knowledge.

By the way the same article that defined consumerism above shared: “consumerism has been widely criticized for its economic, social, environmental, and psychological consequences.”

Lets look at what we consume to understand the forces driving this acquired behavior that have become more like an addiction, and led to a number of other addictions. We will outline what we consume, then the drivers of our consumptions and their enablers, then the addictions created from this idea of the consumerism being a good thing. It is time to revert the meaning and shift our goals from consumers to creators and sell to the world.

What we consume:

·         Sustenance: that is foods and liquids. The most sold books are about the arts of food consumptions. And the quasi-foods, such as powders, and supplements, and other chemicals tested and untested, legal and illegal.

·         Household Items: the needed, the not needed, and the good to have, and finally the flat out stupid to own, this may drive some people crazy, and they may say I am free to own whatever I want, it is my money, I do with it whatever I want, they are right, and that would definitely not exclude some items to be stupid to own.

·         Toys: Drivable and non-drivable: cars, motorcycles, boats, airplanes, and computers, electronics, home theaters and such

·         Properties: real-estate, land, mobile such as RVs and Large Boats

Who pushes us to consume and how:

·         Businesses: they want profit, sometimes they profit from resolving serious problems for consumers, but sometimes they create products and push for false narratives supported by other entities (including Governments and media), to simply create a need and consumer demand for new products and thus sell more.

·         Governments: if businesses are happy the country is happy, no longer the case since the rich and the pour live now in different stratospheres. The pour will always pay the major prices, where the rich will simply get richer no matter the situation of the national consumerism. Sadly, in some governments, a population deep in its addiction to owning items and property is a population easy to manage and control, since controlling the markets allows control of the population, thus the fabricated fears driving sales of billions of items useless otherwise.

·         Macro-economists (look into the Keynesian Macro-economics) they want the easiest way to economic Growth regardless the price. It is true that the circulation of currency and the exchange of currency between hands and entities creates a dynamic financial engine that leads to economic growth, but the theories of Micro-economics prove the opposite, since in these theories society is considered, human behaviors are investigated, and impacts are identified more accurately.

·         Micro-Economy: Economist Thorstein Veblen talked about the concept is conspicuous Consumption, that is the buying of expansive items for the economic status they will reveal about the owner not because they are useful in any different way from the cheaper similar items. This is particularly era driven especially with the abondance of ways a person can share that new economic status by simply posting a picture of the new bag or the new clothing purchased item.

The Addictions:

The question now is why I am mentioning all this? Simply to make you aware. You want to be productive, know the system, and know where you want to be in that system, the blind consumer, or the meticulous producer. The addicted or the ethical business owner providing solutions to prevalent problems? The addictions we have been accustomed to are:

·         Food consumptions

·         Media ingurgitations

·         Electronic dependencies

·         Rudeness and bullying are a norm

·         Disconnections is the new connections (the fault of the Media)

·         Trivializing Education

·         Distrusting Science

·         Idolizing the non-idolizable Villain, Loser, or Offender

·         And more importantly: Ignoring the trustworthy, and trusting the liars

If you are addicted to any of these, find a way to free yourself, if you believe in freedom of choice, try to do this, you will find out that you have been conditioned to few things you can’t avoid: unhealthy foods, useless buys, fake Media, cumbersome social media. Reclaim your freedom, avoid some of these randomly from time to time, you will see the value and learn that you can only be productive and master of your destiny if you are truly free. Good luck.

From storyteller To writer: the ten things you need in orders to write and sell your first book

Sam Borgui PhD. / Dec 2021

When I was 8 years old, I had a friend who was much better than I in reading French, since French was our second language, learning it as early as possible would make a big difference. Why this story is important to mention here? Well, it was that competition with this friend that led me to become obsessed with languages at a very young age, and to this date, I am still learning and growing. I had to ask my father, who didn’t speak a word of French, to help me get ahead in this specific endeavor. My friend had his sister helping him. Since she was in med school and was way more advanced in her studies that her little brother was picking up on words, it would probably have taken me a long time before I could understand their meanings.

My father talked to a neighbor, and he agreed to ask his daughter, who was an outstanding student and was over a decade older than me. She was pleased to accept helping me. For an entire year, and without skipping a day, even Saturdays and Sundays, I went to this girl’s house across the street and helped me read for 1 hour after school.

Many years later, these efforts to learn French culminated by passing my high school degree with the highest scores in the French National Test. The school I was part of (which was already a prestigious military school already) was so proud of that achievement they broadcasted the news any time they had the chance. So, what are the lessons from this story?

No matter the skill you need to learn, it is only a matter of commitment, dedication, and putting in the work. If you can’t do it, find those who can help you get better at it. In our day and age, this is extremely workable. These series of blogs are a way for me to pay back. I will share the things I have learned to help you overcome your fears, your doubts and your low morale, and capitalize on your high highs of creativity so you can produce what you want and be happy with it, so buckle up, and get ready for the ride of your life, the process is long, tedious, but rewarding, but if you are doing this to get rich stop right now and go make some money somewhere else, writers and painters only make money after their deaths.

1.  How do you know you have the hidden needed talent?

If you can say it, you can write it, you may hear from others that writing is hard, that only few can do it. But you probably will never hear that no matter what they tell you, hear it here from me: if you have things to say about anything, then you can put in written words what you can say in spoken words. You may need to find the proper spelling, you may have to learn grammar, you may have to learn how to form coherent thoughts, but all that can be learned. The biggest problem is the ideas to share, and how to develop on them. This skill takes the longest to develop, but it is achievable.

2.  Commit to advancing your skills.

Writing is a skill. No one is questioning that, but it is a skill that has several sub-skills that must be mastered. If what you really want is writing, then you should commit to learning this skill and all its sub skills. And if you don’t have this commitment, you will surely find reasons to give it up and focus your attention on something you believe to be worthier. We keep hearing we need to commit, but what does it really mean? Committing is to follow a passion regardless of the cost and effort needed to enjoy it. Many have explained passion easily: the way to prove yourself writing is one of your passions is to ask yourself: if you knew writing will never make you any money, would you still pursue it?

3.  Put in the time and effort.

Once you are convinced that writing is a serious passion of yours, and not a passing interest, time would be then of the essence to produce some work and keep at it to perfect it. Commitment means you will invest time and effort into mastering it to produce the best viable products.

4.  Practice, practice, and practice.

5.  Know yourself, but don’t lie to yourself.

6.  Test your products by reading them aloud.

7.  Get feedbacks.

8.  Sharpen your skills some more.

9.  Test the waters, complete your product by yourself and self-publish.

10.  External help.

What these blogs can help you with

a.   Your outline Chose a number, and you will have an outline based on the numbers you choose.

b.  Your book formatting.

c.   Your book tittle.

d.  Your book-cover.

e.   Your book blurb.

f.        Your front-matter.

g.  Your back-matter.

h.  Your selling lines.

·         The hook beginning

·         The first line of each chapter

·         The inside graphics or pictures

·         The amazon book blurb

i.        Your reviews.

j.        Your book marketing.

Book Covers: The Secrets

Sam Borgui PhD. / SEP Publishing / Feb 2020

You have completed and are in the process of completing your book, but before you can self-publish it you will need few more things like your book blurb for the platform where it will be published, and the book cover, which is by all measures the most important marketing tool you have to sell your book. So how do you get your book cover, do you have some ideas that you need to translate into a book cover, or do you have no preference and want to rely fully on some book cover designer to help you.

Either way, you will have to do a lot of research, and you will have to carefully study all your options, and particularly the cost in time and money. No matter what you will learn from the present blog know that solutions and costs change by the minute, so take this knowledge and run with it, but make sure you do your research and always try out things yourself before giving up and paying for it.

Do it yourself or pay for it?

So how do you decide to create your book cover yourself or pay for it? Only you would know the answer, but to help you consider the following particularities:

-          If you are planning to write a lot more books and you know you have in you to produce many more books, then it would be beneficial to learn the skill of book cover creations, as you will see later making a book cover is not really something of the realm of the impossible for a beginner, but like any creative work the quality of a work done by a professional will almost always outdo the work of a beginner, but a beginner could very well complete a work that will answer the requirements of a book cover and with limited effort.

-          If your time is too valuable and you are making considerable income, then do not spend your expensive time learning a skill you can pay for, a simple book cover will probably run you between $200 to a few thousand dollars.

-          If you have the time and you don’t mind learning a skill that could be very valuable to your career later even if you have the money to pay for your books, then I personally advise learning the creation of book covers. Most self-published authors create their own book covers.

If you want to pay for it:

You did your research and you find out you can afford to get your book cover done by skilled book cover designers, so what do you do next? The best way is to do it via platforms that specialize in the type of work you want to be done. Two types of platforms always come to mind: Professional and Semi-Professional.

-          Professional: are companies with their own army of designers, they offer jobs of all types from simple book covers the entire process of editing, marketing and publishing the book. This type of company will be the most expensive, but their work is rarely questioned.

-          Semi-Professional: with this type of platforms you could test your luck, either you will meet a book designer that will blow your mind with the work quality and timeframes for a mere $300, or you will experience the worst luck and spend few thousands for a work that doesn’t rise to your expectations. It is risky but worth the try if you have the money and willing to try your luck. Few platforms for this type of work are Freelancer.com and UpWork.com, of course, there are many others, but these are the most famous.

If you want to do it yourself:

You decided you are willing to test your creativity in making book covers yourself. So where do you start? Here I can help you, if you are willing to pay few hundreds of dollars to pay for some sophisticated software and spend some more dollars trying to learn it, or paying for the training then I advise to simply forget about it and just pay a freelancer to make your book cover. But if you want it done free, then you probably would want free software, and the software you will need should be a good photo editing software, where you can mix, and create layers, merge pictures and backgrounds, in other words, unlimited creative possibilities.

This is the moment I will share with you what I have learned in my day job (Cyber Security Professional and Academic): DO NOT DOWNLOAD FREE SOFTWARE FROM SHADY WEBSITES, if you find that some software actually costs money and you found it for free somewhere else than know, my friend, that there is nothing free in this world. That free software is probably loaded with malware, if you want your computer to be victim of a ransomware, or don’t care about your written book of your private document and identity being sold to the highest bidder then go ahead and download that awesome free software, but if you are careful then you better get a trial from the official website of that software and delete it before the trial runs out.

I took the liberty of showing you below two of my projects from the beginning to their final state (used Gimp, which is a free open source software, to make these book covers, see below the tools I wanted to share with you so you can experience yourself, but I should tell you, I personally like Gimp because of its simplicity and the abundance of tutorials in YouTube that show you how to use it)

Get open-source software:

JT Pennington wrote an article on opensource.com about the best open source photo editing software, and he outlined the following 14 photography editing tools, each one of these tools names is hyperlinked, check it out

1. Gimp

2. darktable

3. LightZone

4. Shotwell

5. Raw Therapee

6. digiKam

7. Photovito

8. UFRaw

9. Fotoxx

10. Rapid Photo Downloader

11. F-Spot

12. Photoflow

13. Pixls

14. Hugin

But again, do your research