A Fool-Proof Way to Achieve Any Goal - And Thats a Promise

A Fool-Proof Way to Achieve Any Goal - And Thats a Promise The Temptation of Giving Up A friend of mine set out to make croissants for the first time. For those of you unfamiliar with the art of French baking, these pastries require several stages of preparation over 2-3 days. On the second day of his first attempt, when the batter got too thin and sticky, my friend got frustrated and threw the dough into a bread pan instead of finishing the croissant-making process. I protested that he was giving up too soon, but to no avail. He ended up with some cross between biscuits and croissants, and a learning experience for the next attempt. The Art of Perseverance – A Lesson from Mouse Tales My tendency is not to give up on almost anything until absolutely all options have been exhausted. Part of that philosophy was hammered into me as a child through multiple readings of the book Mouse Tales, by Arnold Lobel. I did not realize it at the time, but I think I learned some of my most important life lessons from that book. In one story, The Journey, a mouse ventures out in his car on a road trip to his mother’s house. After driving for some time, he encounters a slight problem: The car, sadly, falls apart. But, thankfully, just at the right moment, there is someone selling roller skates at the side of the road. The mouse purchases a pair and rolls and rolls until, guess what? The wheels fall off of the roller skates. As luck would have it, there is a person selling boots at the side of the road! The mouse wears through the soles of the boots, and then through a pair of sneakers, and then, would you believe, though a pair of feet. When his feet get too tired to walk, amazingly enough, there is a person by the side of the road selling feet! The mouse makes it to his mother’s house wearing his brand new pair of feet. Excuses, Excuses Many of us in the mouse’s situation would never have made it to our mother’s house with all these breakdowns. Do any of these laments sound familiar? My car broke down! Now I have to take it to the shop. Sorry mom. I tried! I even tried getting there on roller skates! But everything just keeps falling apart. It wasn’t meant to be. My hands are tied. Bad things are always happening to me. No one is there to help me. I have to do everything alone! I can’t let my mother know that my car is so old and broken down. I don’t have time for this. These excuses keep us from being creative, from keeping our eye on the prize, and from noticing that person who shows up just at the right time to help us. They keep us from prioritizing our relationships. And they have us tossing in the towel long before the game is truly over. The Magic Formula for Achieving Any Goal Setting aside all judgment about how important our mother would feel if we gave up on our journey, what this Mouse Tale has to teach us is something about persistence and perseverance. This mouse was not about to give up no matter what. He understood that his commitment to his goal was beyond any limitation on how he would achieve it. And at every juncture where he could have thrown up his paws and said â€Å"I can’t† or â€Å"It’s impossible† or â€Å"It’s too hard,† he found an alternative and went with it. My friend Seth and I, some time ago, identified a surefire and quite simple way to reliably achieve any goal: â€Å"Don’t give up until you achieve it.† You will either achieve that goal or you will die trying. Whether it’s making croissants, getting a new job, or making a visit to mom, the rule always applies. That’s the rule the mouse followed. He reached his goal, he could feel proud of himself, and his mother was very very happy. [By the way, my croissant-making friend did try again. Things did not go perfectly the second time either, but he pressed on until actual croissants, albeit dense ones, came out of the oven. Perhaps the third time will be the charm.]

Find an Antipode on the Opposite Side of Earth

Find an Antipode on the Opposite Side of Earth An antipode is the point on the opposite side of the Earth from another point - the place youd end up if you were able to dig directly through the Earth. Unfortunately, if you try to dig to China from most places in the U.S., you would end up in the Indian Ocean as the Indian Ocean contains most of the antipodes for the United States. How to Find an Antipode When locating your antipode, recognize that youll be flipping hemispheres in two directions. If youre in the Northern Hemisphere then your antipode will be in the Southern Hemisphere. And, if youre in the Western Hemisphere then your antipode will be in the Eastern Hemisphere.   Here are some steps to manually compute an antipode.   Take the  latitude  of the place for which you want to find the antipode and convert it to the opposite hemisphere. Well use Memphis as an example. Memphis is located at approximately 35 ° North latitude. The antipode of Memphis will be at 35 ° South latitude.Take the  longitude  of the place for which you want to find the antipode and subtract the longitude from 180. Antipodes are always 180 ° of longitude away. Memphis is located at approximately 90 ° West longitude, so we take 180-9090. This new 90 ° we convert to degrees East (from the Western Hemisphere to the Eastern Hemisphere, from degrees west of Greenwich to degrees east of Greenwich) and we have our location of Memphis antipode - 35 °S 90 °E, which is in the Indian Ocean far to the west of Australia. Digging Through the Earth From China So where exactly are the antipodes of China? Well, lets compute the antipode of Beijing. Beijing is located at approximately 40 ° North and 117 ° East. So with step one above, we are looking for an antipode that is 40 ° South (converting from Northern Hemisphere to Southern Hemisphere). For step two we want to move from the Eastern Hemisphere to the Western Hemisphere and subtract 117 ° East from 180 and the result is 63 ° West. Therefore, the antipode of Beijing is located in South America, near Bahia Blanca, Argentina. Antipodes of Australia   How about Australia? Lets take an interestingly named place right in the middle of Australia - Oodnadatta, South Australia. It is the home of the highest recorded temperature on the continent. Its located near 27.5 ° South and 135.5 ° East. So were converting from Southern Hemisphere to Northern Hemisphere and Eastern Hemisphere to Western Hemisphere. From step one above we turn 27.5 ° South to 27.5 ° North and take 180-135.544.5 ° West. Therefore the antipode of Oodnadatta is located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Tropical Antipode The antipode of  Honolulu, Hawaii, located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is located in Africa. Honolulu is located near 21 ° North and 158 ° West. Thus the antipode of Honolulu is located at 21 ° South and (180-158) 22 ° East. That antipode of 158 ° West and 22 ° East is in the middle of Botswana. Both locations are within the tropics but Honolulu is located near the Tropic of Cancer while Botswana lies along the Tropic of Capricorn.   Polar Antipodes Finally, the antipode of the North Pole is the South Pole and vice-versa. Those antipodes are the easiest on the Earth to determine. Dont want to do the math yourself? Check out​ this  Antipodes Map.