Posts tagged growth
The closest thing to seeing the face of God
The closest thing to seeing the face of God

We were just about to leave for Christmas celebration this past Saturday, when my soon to be 4-year-old son shouts out “Wait dad!” and runs off back into the house to our two Labrador retrievers. First the old one got a big hug and a “Merry Christmas Gibson!” and then the 2nd dog got an equally big hug and a “Merry Christmas Jussi!”. And then he tells me “Dad, we must give chewing bones to the dogs because it is Christmas eve, and they should also get gifts.” I was so surprised by this spontaneous display of love and couldn’t stop laughing and smiling because it was one of the cutest things I have ever seen. It was so nice of him, and I was not expecting it at all. But he had it all figured out. That’s one of the coolest (and scariest) things with kids. They are always at least one step ahead of you. I.e., they always understand a lot more than what you think.

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Diary, Philosophy, ParentingRikard Öqvistchildren, love, parenting, growthComment
The snowball effect
The snowball effect

We are now (hopefully) in our last two week of renovations. Our houses have been in dire need of not just upkeep, but improvement. On the top of my head, I can think of two reasons why everything seemed to break down at once. Some of the broken stuff should have been fixed last year, but much of the schedule had to be postponed due to a little baby boy. That’s the obvious one. The not so obvious one is that we might have started a momentum of fixing things, that is hard to stop once you get it in motion.

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Diary, Habits, PhilosophyRikard Öqvisthouse, renovation, diy, momentum, incremental improvement, growth, progressComment
Tread your steps carefully
Tread your steps carefully

I will never forget the final couple of months when I was finalizing my PhD thesis for the print. Several years of extremely focused work was reaching its conclusion. And the thing I remember best is that feeling of “I understand this topic now!”, that you can only get when you are close to the finish line. Everything kind of snaps into place and it feels like you can write the perfect thesis. However, when you finally reach that stage, the time is almost up, so you will only be able to write a fraction of all your ideas. It’s a wonderful and frustrating paradox.

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EngineeringRikard Öqvistwork, health, burnout, iceland, growth, wisdom, learningComment
A beginner’s mind with an advanced toolkit
A beginner’s mind with an advanced toolkit

Yesterday I listened to a Podcast with Bret Weinstein (DarkHorse) on the topic of how to think like a Nobel Prize winner. The key takeaway is the same title is this blog post. The message resonated very strongly with me because I have used a similar approach for the past decade in various endeavors. The beginner sees a lot of options but has very few tools to use. The expert on the other hand, tends to see few solutions to a given problem, and has many different tools to solve them. To take the best of both worlds would indeed be a lot of options and many ways to approach the problem.

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Education, PhilosophyRikard Öqvistmentorship, growth, Nobel prize, musicComment
Progress is like a puzzle
Progress is like a puzzle

When laying a puzzle, I usually start with the edges and create the frame. Those parts are the easiest to identify and combine, because it is obvious where they should go. After the frame is completed, I then pick out some key part of the motive. A couple of years ago me and my wife built some geography puzzles of a world map, and one such key part could have been to “let´s build Africa”. And then the other components. Finally, we laid down the oceans, which are all blue and thus by far the most difficult. That’s why they came last. Because without a framework it is almost impossible to place them at all. A very interesting fact about puzzles is that the closer you get to the goal, the speed of the building process accelerates. Just think about how quick you will lay down the final three pieces compared to the first three!

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Habits, MusicRikard Öqvistmeshuggah, bleed, puzzle, progess, growth, habits, 15 minutesComment
Creative starvation
Creative starvation

Isn’t it paradoxical that to stimulate the creative process, you need to increase the difficulty and make it harder for yourself? Time constraints are especially useful in this regard and works very well for me. I.e. unconditionally write and publish a blog post in 30 minutes max. Like I just did with this one. Whatever you do, do not choose the “When it’s done”-approach. Because if you choose that road, the probability increases that you will remain stationary.

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Art, HabitsRikard Öqvistwriting, video, blogging, vlogging, creativity, routine, habits, growthComment
When is the optimal time to practice?
When is the optimal time to practice?

I always practice a musical instrument 15 minutes per day and have been doing it every day for the past seven years. In these years I have been experimenting with the optimal practice time, and I have tried all of them. What I have found, is that a habit like this works best first thing in the morning. When you open your eyes after a night’s sleep, your mind is fresh and feels like a blank slate. As the day goes on, more and more ideas enter your mind. And at the end of the day, the mind is so full of thoughts and ideas that a night’s sleep is needed to crystalize them, so that the process can start over the next day. That’s why I have found the morning hours to work best, but there are also other factors to consider.

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Habits, MusicRikard Öqvistpractice, consistency, focus, growth, routine, habits, writing Comments
Never stop learning
Never stop learning

Throughout May, I have been teaching Building Physics in the course at Umeå University with the same name. The three topics included in the course are acoustics, heat transfer and moisture transfer. I know acoustics by heart and can teach it on autopilot by now. Heat transfer and Moisture transfer on the other hand, is a completely different story. I did not know anything about those topics before this course. And here I am now, teaching the topics that were as new to me as to the students. Can this actually work? Teaching and lecturing in a topic that you are not familiar with is about as scary as it gets.

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Education, EngineeringRikard Öqvistbuilding physics, teaching, education, growth, studyComment
The Catch-22 of drumming
The Catch-22 of drumming

I started playing the drums in July 2019 and am in my second year now of daily practice. First and foremost, I would consider myself a guitar player because I have played for more hours on the axe than on any other instrument. If you already know one instrument, it will be easier for you to learn a second, even easier to learn your third and so on. Mastery on multiple instruments is comparable to polyglots who speak several languages. It gets easier and easier to acquire a new one, the more you already know. In this post, I will focus on how some important lessons I have learned in my drumming. Some techniques translate well from the guitar, and others do not translate at all.

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Acoustics, Engineering, MusicRikard Öqvistdrums, guitar, practice, consistency, growth, analogyComment
An amazing mistake
An amazing mistake

My greatest weakness is that I am a perfectionist. My whole life I have been obsessed with quality and it is a big advantage as a scientist/engineer. But it is also a curse. If the world were run by engineers, I don’t think anything would ever be accomplished. We would be too busy tweaking our products to improve it beyond that 99th percentile. Luckily, since a couple of years I have constantly challenged myself to produce content with low quality and instead go for quantity. This week I made an amazing discovery, which proves that I am now on a much better path.

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HabitsRikard Öqvisthabits, productivity, progressnotperfection, growth Comments
When the tables are turned for a recording engineer
When the tables are turned for a recording engineer

Yesterday I spent a day in a recording studio for the first time – As a client. I have been working in studio environments probably for thousands of hours and have recorded hundreds of songs. But I have always been the one in control of the recording process. A sound engineer recording himself as a musician is a completely different thing than a sound engineer being recorded as a musician, by another sound engineer. By entering the role of a client for just one day, I learned some lessons that aren’t apparent from the perspective of the sound engineer. This is an invaluable experience which can be applied in any domain, not just music.

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Acoustics, Music, EngineeringRikard Öqviststudio, recording, music, guitar, growth, acoustics, musician
Should you diversify or focus?
Should you diversify or focus?

For the past 216 days I have created a painting/sketch every day. For the first months I used a timer set at 60 seconds, no more, no less. In the beginning I tried out some different techniques and tools, and I quickly settled with Autodesk Sketchbook on the iPad pro. Simplicity was the key. You can just fire up the iPad, grab the Apple pencil, choose an object to draw and then you do it. Indeed, extremely fast, and simple. But there is a drawback: When you are travelling, the iPad is too cumbersome. That’s why I went to Panduro and bought a small artist sketchbook, some graphite pens, an eraser and a sharpener. As an artist, my kit is perhaps as portable as it gets, considering the infinite possibilities on offer. I was planning to use it only when travelling and go back to my iPad when I got home. As it turns out, I haven’t used my iPad for weeks now. I stayed with the pen and paper.

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Education, Habits, PhilosophyRikard Öqvistlearning, painting, sketching, art, graphite, apple, ipad, growth, focus, openness, creativity, schoolComment
One year and 52 blogs later
One year and 52 blogs later

Today is a one-year anniversary! This is my 52nd weekly blog post. A year goes by quickly. It is amazing how much easier the writing process is now, compared to the first one or two months. The friction is all but gone now. Writing is an incredibly useful and valuable skill, and I am glad I started this habit. I have now reached a point where I can decide to sit down, write a blog post, and publish it. Even if I start from scratch and no idea what to write about, I can produce something. And that is often enough. Something always beat Nothing.

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HabitsRikard Öqvistblogging, writing, consistency, growth, anniversaryComment
Practice mind control with livestreaming
Practice mind control with livestreaming

The last week, I have been experimenting with livestreaming instead of vlogging. I have played various musical instruments on FB live. When I play music on a livestream, I have noticed that my mind runs the same program as when I am playing a concert in front of an audience. Time stops. I am so hyper-focused that I am not aware of my surroundings anymore. The best example is when I did a livestream and decided to play Bleed in the original tempo (230 bpm). Bleed is arguably one of the most difficult songs there is. I have been practicing the song for over a year on drums and now guitar, so I knew it well, but I have never been able to play it in the proper speed, only slower. I started the livestream and just played. And I got through the whole song with only minor mistakes. I was NOT expecting that! But because I did it as a livestream, I activated the “live concert program” in my mind which gave me access to untapped potential. I can still hardly grasp that I managed to pull that off.

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Philosophy, HabitsRikard Öqvistmind control, mindset, focus, growth, productivity, trance, hypnosis, livestreaming, musicComment
Embrace your weakness
Embrace your weakness

Last week I bought a secondhand computer monitor for the home studio that I am creating. It is a huge Philips 43-inch 4k monster display, one of the very best on the market. I had been looking for a computer monitor for a long time when this behemoth showed up in my feed, close to where I live, for a fraction of the sticker price. However, the ad stated that the previous owner had damaged it by dropping a tool when installing it, which resulted in a big bright dead pixel with white light in the middle of the screen. Here’s the catch: I find dead pixels extremely annoying! My eyes are drawn to that sucker constantly. Even though the price was a bargain, the dead pixel disturbed me so much that it was a no-brainer to walk away. And that is precisely the reason that I bought it.

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Engineering, PhilosophyRikard Öqvistperfection, focus, productivity, it, growth, mindset, engineer, 4kComment
The one-minute method
The one-minute method

A New Year’s resolution is a good example of a (commonly) failed commitment. Many people promise that they are going to do this and that on a daily basis, and then they do it a couple of times and then they give up. I believe the problem is that they set the bar too high. The solution is to define a daily activity and set your bar so low – I mean extremely low – that you cannot find an excuse not to do the daily activity, no matter what happens. Read that last sentence again. The habit must be performed Every. Single. Day. Because the moment you stop doing it, it is not a habit anymore. And if the bar is too high, the habit forming can be very difficult, because we all have bad days.

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Art, Habits, PhilosophyRikard Öqvistconsistency, habits, discipline, progressnotperfection, growth, routineComment
What “less is more” really means
What “less is more” really means

I believe that the most effective way to achieve massive change in any domain is by incremental improvement. By doing a little every day, you will do a lot in one week, as my grandmother says. There is a lot of wisdom in these words. I am currently in my seventh year of learning new musical instruments, using my own motto: 15 minutes per day. The results of consistent practice every day have been stunning. Other musicians have told me they use the same technique with equally powerful results. A common recommendation seems to be that you should practice for at least 15 minutes every day, never less than that, and if you are in the zone, you can keep going. I am currently conducting an experiment to see if I can go even lower, and learn to draw with only one minute (60 seconds) of practice per day for a year. I want to know what effect the upper time restriction has. Some days ago, I discovered something that will change my life, if it is true.

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Philosophy, Habits, ArtRikard Öqvisthypnosis, trance, incremental improvement, growth, discipline, consistencyComment
Failure is not allowed
Failure is not allowed

How would you rate yourself on your ability to drive a car on a scale from 1 to 10 where 10 is the best? There are two ways to answer this question and the answer is determined by your reference points. If you accept the doctrine that failure is not allowed, you should use Lewis Hamilton, Ayrton Senna or Michael Schumacher as the reference. Consequently, your driving ability is 1, no matter who you are. Expect the same result if you compare your singing skill to Pavarotti, your cooking skill to Gordon Ramsay or your scientific ability to Einstein. The elite, unfortunately, seems to be the most common reference point. The other way to answer this question – the one I prefer – is to compare yourself to everyone else, not just the elite.

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Habits, PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistgrowthComment