Master Po: [after easily defeating the boy in combat] Ha, ha, never assume because a man has no eyes he cannot see. Close your eyes. What do you hear?
Young Caine: I hear the water, I hear the birds.
Master Po: Do you hear your own heartbeat?
Young Caine: No.
Master Po: Do you hear the grasshopper that is at your feet?
Young Caine: [looking down and seeing the insect] Old man, how is it that you hear these things?
Master Po: Young man, how is it that you do not?

(Kung Fu)

(Lisa thinks I’m ugly in this photo; I don’t care if I look ugly, as long as you like me anyway).

I’ve finished reading “Evil Plans”, by Hugh McLeod. Bought in Singapore last Sunday for 30.10 USD (38.47 SGD), twice as much as you pay in the US, which says a lot about my love for Hugh and my impelling desire to read this book. Yes, interesting book, I should say!
So interesting that I decided to spend some hours to write a detailed, hopefully-not-so-boring review of it.

(this is me, thinking about many Evil Plans at the Bookstore)

The first part is a summary of what Hugh says.
The second part is my opinion on what Hugh discusses in the book.
You need some time to read through it. Make sure you have it, then sit, relax, and enjoy the read :)

First Part: An ugly summary of “Evil Plans” in seven minutes

Thanks to the internet, it has never been easier to have an Evil Plan, a plan to escape the rat race and unify work and love.
In year 2000, Hugh had tough times, searching for “islands of security”. However, gigs never lasted.
He just wanted “10,000 people giving me money every year”, thinking that it would be a solution for his problems.
He wasn’t satisfied by his corporate jobs. Instead, “As long as you feel inspired your life is being well spent”.
That’s “the Hunger” to do something creative, amazing, to change the world.
He then wrote the Hughtrain Manifesto: “The market for something to believe in is infinite”.
He wanted to “Make a dent in the universe”, or to know “why you are totally frickin’ amazing”.
It’s not what you make, that counts. It’s what you believe in.
In short, he was ready to leave the corporate world and enter into a new dimension of work.
Page 16, a nice cartoon: “I don’t need religion. I’ve got an iPhone.”
Hugh went on to create his own “global microbrand”, which is easier with the Internet.
Everyone in the big city seems really stressed out. Alcohol as a temporary fix, high prices for everything. “Urban threadmill”.
It’s better to keep it simple, like the “Chappel Hill Meat Market & Cafè“, silently and simply selling superb meat in a small little village to passbyers that are aware of it, 3.5 tons of meat per week.
It’s time to join the overextended class, where you can have even TEN different jobs at the same time.
That’s when “Cartoons drawn on the back of business cards” was born.
For a great evil plan, you also need a world class product: that’s the story of Thomas Mahon, tailor, one of the best tailors in the world. Hugh convinced him to write a blog about his activity, and thanks to englishcut.com he drastically improved sales.
It’s important to “Make art every day“.

(Dear Lisa: Make Art Every Day)

You need to fill in the narrative gaps: have a story, a damn good one. Like Andrew, bartender, who then went into personalized porn to make a hit in the film industry. But that’s not true, he made up the story, because he needed an interesting story to tell. “Human beings need to tell stories”. Remember who you really are: focus on what you want to be, not just money. They call it “The white pebble” with your name, the person that God thinks you are. Always think about who you really are.
Treat your passion, your activity like an adventure worth sharing, an act of futility.
Success is more complex than failure.
Sleep rough: the story of the band “We should be dead” and how they did it the hard way, bar after bar, pub after pub, sleeping rough on their musical tour, until they reached some good success at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas.
“What people say they want, and what they’re willing to work their ass off to get, are two different things.”
Create “social”, see how Boingboing.com offers “sociality” opportunities to its readers.
Create snowballs: evil plans require “random acts of traction”, or RAOT. Doc Searls says that you should create snowballs, some of them will have a snowball effect and become huge, but you don’t know which one.
Avoid Dinosaurspeak. Talk like a human being, not like one of Stalin’s apparatchiks.
Have you hugged your client today?
Brilliant cartoon: “this cartoon was “co-created” by a useless committee of third-rate, political hacks. This explains the dumb cat (there is a dumb cat on the bottom right).
Find your moment: Simon Thornhill, owner of Troubadour in Earl’s court, London, former army official; “The moment”, for example, is when a young official starts to “lead”, even in front of older and more veteran soldiers. The moment for Hugh: the Chinese girl bartender, she did a mistake and Hugh decided to take the hit, because otherwise it would have been deducted from her pay.
Embrace “crofting”: doing different things every day.
“Entrepreneurs are aspiring entrepreneurs”.
The TAO of undersupply: if something is scarce, people would compete to get it.
(Simone’s note: I should tell Hugh about Enzo Ferrari: at Ferrari, they always make one car less than the market size. The cartoon on page 87 seems Enzo Ferrari indeed).
Don’t be “middle seat guy”. Middle seats are very uncomfortable. Don’t offer middle seats to your customers. Jetblue doesn’t have middle seats.
There is now cheap, easy global media: the revolution is already here, and it’s permanent.
“The twenty”: control the conversation by improving the conversation. The twenty people that matter the most in your space. Markets are conversations.
The “creative life” is now the only option we’ve got.
What entrepreneurs can learn from artists, and vice versa: it’s wrong. Entrepreneur = artist.
No, you can’t have it all. Example of Michelob Lite beer, trying to be too many things.
Brilliant cartoon: “Mediocrity loves slavery”.
If your boss won’t let you articulate your evil plan during company hours, quit. “I once had a boss who didn’t like the fact that I had a blog”.
Monsieur Bovary “offended no more than he pleased”, therefore he was uninspiring.
Instead, get other people to hate you: the haters are a sign that you’re doing something right.
Steal time, every day. Napoleon: I can always regain lost territory. A single second, never.
The pressure to “not be shit” is there forever. Even if you already proved yourself. This is what David Mackenzie says about his job.
A good customer base is the best marketing plan there is. A good example is the band Grateful Dead and the “deadheads” fans.
Continuity is key. Hazel Dooney, young female australian artist, says so. Woody Allen: “90% of success is just showing up”.
Create expressive capital, a tool to express meaning, purpose. Not all products can have expressive capital.
Good news! You don’t die. Instead, people love to imagine worst-case scenario.
The story of Cindi, she went on a “mission” to get the job she wanted, and she did get it, while her friends were just focused on going out and having fun.
Brilliant cartoon: Whining is NOT an exit strategy.
“This is it”. Mark Morris, dancer in NY, calls it “The zone”, when you’re at the top, and there’s nothing else better. You want to see a specific attitude on people dancing with you at the top dancing school.
Take the cream off the top, leave the rest behind. Jerry Colonna, former VC, now business coach because that’s what he liked the most about being a VC: coaching people.
Cartoon: The secret sauce is: there is no secret sauce.

(Hugh McLeod)

Live in the market, not in the spreadsheet, to really understand your customers. That’s what Cheryl McKinnon says. When Starbucks was faced with the decision, raise prices or reduce coffee quality, they raised the prices but informed their customers why they did it. Great move.
Don’t worry if you don’t know absolutely everything before starting out. Don’t postpone your evil plan. Google didn’t.
That’s what you need to focus on for your Evil Plan:
a. You might be an outsider with too much insider knowledge, therefore you do common mistakes. Don’t try to get too much insider knowledge.
b. Events, dear boy, events, that’s what can disrupt a government. It means that you should try to manage what you can control, not what you can’t control.
c. Interesting destinies rarely come from just reading the instructions.
d. Sometimes paranoia is just having all the facts. The world will ALWAYS conspire to make you less than you are. Forget about Paranoia, and start working on your Evil Plan.
Bill Gates: “Don’t do what I did. That money’s already been made by me.”
Death by stuff. Fancy cars, nice houses in suburbs, all this “stuff” doesn’t help you live a better life. People say they have no choice. Is that true?
Everything begins with the act of gift-giving, therefore:
a. Figure out what your gift is, give it to people.
b. Make sure it’s a gift, not an ad.
c. Where does your trail of breadcrumbs lead back to? That’s how your gift is going to pay you back.
Be a Waker: you let others feel that they’re alive.
Human beings don’t scale. Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, doesn’t have more time than I do.
Evil plans are not products. Evil plans are gifts.
I hated a job because it never allowed me to give ENOUGH to the world.

Second Part: My opinion of “Evil Plans”

I already told you, this is a great book. And its purpose is not to teach you anything, but to start a conversation.
Not everything that Hugh says is right, or applicable to everyone and everywhere.
What about a 50-years-old white collar, on the same job since childhood? Would he be able to drop it and execute his Evil Plan? I doubt so.
What about these people that work in sectors where Internet is not important, and therefore its benefits are not easy to grasp? Same thing.
Or, what about people that don’t live in the US, but somewhere else where it’s not easy to change, to “unify work and love”.
And again: what about my mom Sandra, she’s sixty, she works for the city hall in a small town in Italy, and she looks after her two old and sick grandparents. What can she do? As of now, nothing. Perhaps, when her parents will say goodbye to this world and she will retire, she might have enough time to follow her passions. Perhaps.
My point here is: very few people will be able to plan and execute their Evil Plans. Period. This book is not for everybody.

(Reading Evil Plans, and taking notes, at the Botanic Garden in Singapore, after a long day of work)

What almost everybody can learn from this book, however, is that we should always be awake, trying to understand the world and how it works.
We should not passively accept the corporate world, but instead try to minimize its negative effects as much as we can.
We should love having a conversation on Evil Plans with our colleagues and friends, even if we’re not going to execute them.
And, there should be BIG Evil Plans, and SMALL Evil Plans.
Perhaps I can’t change everything, or I simply don’t have the guts to do it, or the “white pebble” says that I’m just an ordinary guy, with average skill set and nowhere else to go other than my cubicle. Well, at least I can save some money, buy a motorbike, and explore the world on weekends. Or take two weeks off and embark on an adventurous trip by myself, something like The Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (great book, by the way). Why not?
Maybe you dream of a real adventure, like the Long Way Round, but if you can’t afford two months away from your job, or a great BMW motorbike like Ewan McGregor (one of my favourite actors, who does a lot of Charity work) does, you should settle for something smaller, but still valuable.
Which brings us to the negative side of Evil Plans or similar books.
Yes, this is something that I literally HATE about most American writers, and Hugh is no exception: these people preach the BIG change, so big that almost nobody is going to do it. And they don’t mention this. They’re bold, they’re optimistic, but they don’t face the fact that they live in close contact with an elite of cultured Americans or Westerners.
And even them, the elite, they’re not quite ready to go for it. Only a few do, only a few really need and are capable of making their Evil Plans real.
Take J P Rangaswami, a brilliant technologist at BT, based in London, originally from Calcutta, India. He says “I wish Hugh did work here!”, but I’m sure he will not quit his corporate job and move back to Calcutta. At least, not now. We, as human beings, get used to things, to the company we work for, and it’s more and more difficult to embrace change, especially a disruptive one.
I would have preferred a more humble, gentle approach to these things. Anyway, Hugh doesn’t pretend to teach you how to be rich, or that you can work only 4 hours per week and be happy and rich. Yes, I hate that book by Tim Ferriss, it’s simply a pile of bullshit, but it’s good for the fact that starts a conversation on the topic, at least.
Back to Evil Plans.
I like Hugh’s cartoons. Sometimes he’s able to compress a concept in just a sigle sketch, with a few words. That’s great.
Let me give you an example: “I don’t need religion. I’ve got an iPhone”.
With this one, in a single sentence, Hugh says many things: that Apple has been insanely great at creating a “cult” for its products; that people’s need for religion is not limited to religions, but it can be extended to objects or companies or brands as well. And then, it let your brain depart from the cartoon and think about many other things. It stimulates you. That’s good.
I also like that Hugh brings few, simple and powerful concepts on stage, and brings them together. He gives you a recipe, but it’s not the usual, dumb, point by point list of things to do in order to get rich or whatever. It’s a simpler approach, one that works.
I literally, literally LOVE that he uses a lot of stories. He’s a storyteller. The book is never boring. Never. He’s right: we humans need to tell, or listen to, stories.

However, I still think that few people can be lucky and bold and successful as Hugh. And I’m a natural optimistic. Just look around you: the power of Consumerism is stronger and stronger, and there is no clear alternative that seems to get traction. As much as I love Tara Hunt‘s work, there is no Whuffie factor strong enough to change the world. At least, not yet.
Therefore, most of us, I’d even say more and more of us, are being trapped in the rat race, with no hopes to escape without serious damage.
That’s the sad part. And, despite the great conversation that can sparkle from Evil Plans, I didn’t see anybody really able to change this.
We’re stuck.

Third Part: My own Evil Plans!

Oh yes, I have a lot of Evil Plans.
Since I was a little kid, I should say!

(some of my many Evil Plans)

Examples?
1) Living for a few months on Jose Ignacio Beach, in Uruguay. That might happen.
2) Being part of the Long Way Up with Ewan and Charley, riding a motorcycle through South America, all the way up. Difficult, because I don’t even know them, and I don’t know why they should be interested. I’m not attracted by them as famous people, I just love THAT type of adventure, mixed with charity work, and I think they are interesting people to know.
3) Study and graduate at the MAPP, Master of Applied Positive Psychology with Martin Seligman, and gain a better understanding of Happiness.
4) Do something good with Acumen Fund.
5) Buy a luxury apartment in Manila, Philippines, and rent it out while I go for a long trip around the world… And possibly, discovering that it doubled its value while I was away :)
6) Change the world, at least a little.
And many others.
Yes, these are Evil Plans. Some are small, some are bigger.
In reality, most of these plans will never happen.
Why? Because changing things is difficult. And don’t forget, I’m the one that was able to go for a BIG change. I’m optimistic, I believe in our ability to do wonders… But I’m also realistic. I look around me, that’s what I see.
Because we’re stuck, somehow.
We are afraid of letting go.
However, I’m still optimistic, and I agree that the Internet has brought some interesting changes.
We’ll see what happens.

I hope you liked my “review” and my opinions.
I want to thank Hugh for writing this book, and for inspiring me (not just with the book).
I also want to thank you, reader, for the patience of going through my rants, and investing (or wasting?) at least twenty minutes of your time. I appreciate that.
Like Hugh said, I want to start the conversation. Well, what do you have to say about the above? :)

Let’s take a look at airports: most people would agree that airports suck, big time.

Some of them suck less, because they are beautiful, well organized, and treat you very well during your wait for the flight. Such as Changi airport in Singapore, voted world’s best airport for several years in a row. But they still suck.
They suck for the occasional traveler; they suck much more for people like me, frequent traveler.

I took 60 flights in 2008. 102 flights in 2009. 106 flights in 2010, and 9 so far in 2011.
Half of these are intercontinental flights.
I’ve seen about 60 different airports, in four continents.
So, even if my expertise is technology, I can humbly state that I know something about air transportation as well.
Then, let me tell you the real reason why airports suck, for travelers, but are a gold mine for the companies owning them.

Before we dig into this, let me ask you something about retail.
There are different types of retail shops: real ones, virtual ones; the ones located at very expensive locations in the City center; the others in less populated areas. Some of them are in remote locations, where you don’t have any other choice, and so they can reap you off with very high prices, because you don’t have competition, or alternative.
Ok, good so far.
What if I tell you that I invented a new type of shop?
This shop has lots of visitors per day.
People that want to kill time by visiting your shops, because there’s nothing else to do.
People with a lot of money, compared to the average person.
People that can’t compare prices easily.
People convinced that you don’t pay taxes on products, therefore you should be cheap… But in fact you aren’t.
People that would happily take a look at your advertising on the walls, because they’re bored and they don’t know what else to do.
People that can find exciting to go shopping, because there’s nothing else to do.
Would you like to sell your products in this shop? Of course you do. And you would pay a lot of money to do it.

Did you catch my hint? That’s how airports make money.
Not by letting airplanes take off and land, no. That’s about one third of the profits for airports, and it’s made of small things like: aircraft refueling, referred to as a flowage fee (normally .07 to .15 US cents per gallon of fuel), aircraft parking fees, parking garage fees, passenger facility charges (PFCs, normally $4.50 per passenger enplanement), and so on.
The other two thirds of profits come from everything else: selling advertising space, renting shops and restaurants, renting space for airline lounges and for money changers, selling parking lots, providing extra services, or taking shares of profits from third party services such as taxis or shuttles.
But wait, there’s more: what would you do to maximize the profits from these shops, so you can ask for higher rents?
Think about it for a few seconds.

Done?
1) What about telling people: you have to be at the airport three hours before your flight. I fly more than 100 times a year, and most of the time I arrive at the airport just one hour before the flight (which, by the way, it’s often late by at least 10-20 minutes), and I never lost a flight. But hey, if you tell people to come earlier, they’ll have more time to shop, right?
2) What about, making security procedures long and tedious? Yes, that’s another good idea, because then people would be convinced to be at the airport earlier, to make sure they don’t lose their flight. Even frequent traveler. Even business people. They come early, and if they have extra time they go to the airline lounge to check their email, drink a coke, perhaps have a quick meal. Ah, and yes: you can’t bring drinks inside, so you have to buy a new drink once you go through security.
Also, now that security is so stupidly organized, no one wants to go out and say: ok, forget about these measures, just step in. Do you know why? Because, if something happens, they would be blamed for having reduced security measures. Even if these security measures are just a complete waste of time. They don’t stop the real terrorists. They only bother the honest travelers.
3) What about, not providing plugs to let people use their laptops. If passengers use laptops, they don’t buy. Using laptops should be restricted as much as possible. So, no tables to sit, no electric plugs, and please go shopping!
4) What about, maximizing the distance between the entrance of the airport and the departing gate, so that passengers are exposed to as many shops as possible?
5) Since your customers, or passengers, are richer than the average person (because they can afford flying, or because they fly for business and in most cases their company covers their food&beverage costs, because when people fly they tend to bring more money with them, etc.), you can focus on luxury items (watches, gold, jewellery, high end fashion and bags, spa treatments and massages, alcohol, chocolate) or other high margin items (postcards, souvenirs, etc.). Which means, you can rent your space to companies that can make huge profits on these products. Therefore, higher rents for you.

Instead, passengers, or customers, would like to address different things, such as:
1) Can you make security procedures more straightforward? I don’t want to stay in line for half an hour, take out my shoes, be searched, take out my laptop, take out my belt and watch and phone.
2) Can you make it easier to arrive at the airport with a taxi or subway or train, and get to my gate as quick as I can? Can you make traveling time to or from the airport more predictable (maybe not with cars, but with trains and subways)?
3) Can you charge fair prices for food, beverage, etc?
4) Can you provide plugs, seats, tables, so if I really need to wait, I can wait comfortably?

Is there anything that we can do, as customers, to change this? I doubt it.
These are trans-national entities, and the only thing that would work is to stop buying stuff at airports.
But we can’t convince millions of people to do that.

This is just scrapping the surface, you know.
There is much more, and I’m sure that I am missing many other subtle things… If you have suggestions, comments, I’d be happy to hear them.

I could also write a similar post on Airlines, and their subtle mechanisms to squeeze as much money as they can from passengers.
For example, why changing the name of a passenger should cost money?
Why airlines can arbitrarily raise the cost of tickets when there’s scarcity? I once saw a flight go from the usual 500 USD to more than 12,000 USD. Yes, perhaps a few seats left… But why you should rob people with prices like that? It is the equivalent of the only water shop in front of the Egyptian pyramids, selling water at 100 USD per bottle because these people have only one other option, to die. Would you accept that?
But hey, that’s life.

This is Fredrik’s advice:
1) Repeat yourself: do few speeches, and do them often, so you get great at them.
2) Don’t offer training, it’s better to be a speaker full time.
3) Don’t do a lot of (different) speeches, specialize.
4) Don’t sell yourself, have someone else sell you, or have word-of-mouth be your main way to obtain speaking engagements.
5) Do not (always) charge: sometimes, do free talks, but beware: work for free, but don’t look cheap.
6) Do not “work”, try to have fun as much as you can.
7) Don’t speak. Talk about what you love.

A nice quote from him: “A brand is for a speaker what a band is for a singer.”. Build your brand, from graphics to fonts to everything else.
Great advice. Now I’m mumbling, trying to think how to apply this to the corporate world I’m part of.

Let me share with you this video of Fredrik:

It’s a love story. It’s a life lesson. It’s not unique, it’s not special, but it’s so beautiful and it deserves your attention. Watch it.

You can also visit their website: oftenawesome.org.

In my case, roughly half of these flights are longer than 4 hours, and involve a noticeable, but not huge, difference in time zones. In fact, since I live in Singapore, most long flights go “vertically” south to north or vice versa, and not “horizontally”. India is usually two and a half hours behind Singapore. Hong Kong is on the same Time Zone. Australia might be up to three hours of difference, and so on.
But why I mention this?

It seems that Jet Lag may cause stupidity. Part of the article says that:
Jet lag poses a serious health threat, said study coauthor Erin Gibson of the University of California, Berkeley. Studies have shown that people with work schedules that require them to frequently change their sleep patterns have higher rates of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and cancer.

I’m a little worried.
Flying around is easier than ever, and airports and planes are much more comfortable than they were ten or twenty years ago.
I always fly economy class, and never business class, with only two notable exceptions in my entire career. I think that the level of discomfort that you can experience on a long flight, sitting in economy class, might increase the negative effects of jet lags, or an unpredictable food regime, and things like that.

What’s the solution? There are many, at least to mitigate the problem. I’m not a Doctor or an expert in medicine, but I think that the following makes a lot of sense:
1) Tune up your food regime: in my case, I decided to turn vegetarian, after reading some books on the matter, and especially liking Dan Ornish’s The Spectrum.
2) Try to exercise at least two, three times a week.
3) Avoid flight food as much as you can or, if allowed, take fruit or vegetables only. (the quality of airline food is usually poor, with a few exceptions such as Singapore Airlines). When you eat, eat slowly, enjoy every single bite.
4) Rest, long enough. Don’t pack your days with too many meetings and calls, otherwise you’ll end up being poorly effective, and seriously stressed.
5) Meditate, if you know how to do it, it’s great to reduce tension even if done for only 15 minutes a day. Easy to do during flight. Music can help concentrate.
6) Reserve some nice time for you: this means, try to do things that you like and make you happy. I enjoy great espresso coffee whenever I can, because I love it. I take photographs. I talk with strangers. I occasionally play Sudoku on my phone for a few minutes a day, or chess. I read interesting books.
7) If possible, avoid checking email on your mobile every five minutes, at least during meals. Your productivity isn’t affected that much, but your stress level goes down if you silence the phone for at least twenty minutes. This should be the rule even if you don’t travel.
8) If you can, fly business class on long flights. Your blood circulation, and sleep quality, will thank you.

Well, that basically what I can say.
When I adhere to these rules, they work superbly. That’s what I suggest to people when they ask me how can I cope with the amount of travel I do.