Tag Archives: personal development

Updating my book reviews again…sigh

The PolyBlog
February 10 2019

Soooo, about my book reviews on my website. I tweaked and played about five major times with layout, format, etc. between 2005 and 2015. It has come up enough that my wife’s reaction to ANOTHER change was basically that I was always fiddling with it, wasn’t I? Not quite, but it obviously seems like it to her.

Early on, it was just by email. Then I had a website, and I tried multiple layouts and even some plugins. I was posting the reviews on Amazon, and even had some inkling that maybe some day I could be a top reviewer for them. Lots of people do 10-20 reviews and stop, and back when I was starting, even 500 reviews would have put you in the top 50. Then Amazon exploded and their affiliate program grew too, so now people review EVERYTHING. So I expanded my reviews to post them elsewhere too — Indigo, Google, Barnes and Noble, GoodReads, Ottawa Public Library, LibraryThing, etc.

But other than that, the major changes have been a result of something external:

  1. Changing servers — Each time I’ve moved from one host to another, it has almost always broken some aspect of my site because the config was different on the new host, and I therefore had to go in and modify something in my reviews…that’s happened four separate times in total;
  2. Amazon changed their policy on disclosure — Amazon added a requirement to all reviews that they had to disclose if the writer had received a free book or anything in exchange for the review or knew the author. An extra paragraph for the reviews, and as consistency is one of the hobgoblins in my little mind, I added that section during one of the updates;
  3. A plugin I used changed — I was using one plugin that would do the link, and it changed the way it worked, requiring me to go in and manually adjust a bunch of reviews…to avoid the gremlins with that, I switched plugins and used a paid plugin with more firepower behind it. Again, it required a revamp and update to the reviews, including for layout as to how the images showed around the text; and,
  4. I became an Amazon affiliate — this happened in the midst of all this so that if someone read a review on my site, then clicked through to Amazon, I’d get a few pennies on the referral if they subsequently bought something.

Here’s the thing though…If you want people to click through, and get the money, it only works well if they see the Amazon logo and button to buy, etc. I hate that layout. It messes up my theme, in part, but it is also really crass and commercial. I could also make money selling advertising on my site, small banners here and there, maybe even enough to pay for my monthly web bill. And more. But I have ZERO interest in having ads on my site. Ever. Yet there I was considering embedding an Amazon ad? I opted instead for the lowest click-through / least offensive layout and I got almost no click-throughs and thus earned no revenue. I didn’t care about that, I only cared that it let me link to their book images, really. Sure, if I got enough revenue to buy a free book once in awhile, what was the harm?

So that’s where I was as of January 2016 (Finally setting up my book reviews). I had my layout, everything was SET. Perfect. Then I merged my sites back into one, but that was fine, only a minor tweak then. I uploaded 36 more BRs, a few more here and there at a time, added another 10 for my 50by50 campaign (#50by50 #28 – Write ten book reviews). I’m over 100 now, and quite happy with them, Sam I am.

ENTER THE GDPR DRAGON!

Dun, dun, dun! As part of the implementation of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR as it is usually written), many websites are trying to figure out how to deal with transitory data about users. In the old days, they had people register, give them some basic profile info, and then sat on it even if they weren’t using it. Now, in the EU, if the user hasn’t interacted with the website in over a year, and thus can’t be said to be “current”, then a few things happen. Most sites started emailing the user to say “Do you still want to continue?”. Many tried to figure out if there were ways to dump the data but keep some basic profile. And others, like Amazon, who are always in the EU’s cross-hairs due to domestic companies complaining they can’t compete, were forced to look at accounts even in their affiliate programs to see if they were fully “active”. Even if they aren’t EU accounts.

So Amazon et al with affiliate programs are culling the herd. If the affiliate links aren’t generating any traffic, i.e., no referrals, no income, etc., then they are shutting them down. For most people, this seems like an almost no-brainer. If you’re not using it, what does it matter? Well, for one thing, when Google indexes sites, it looks to see who and what links to other places. If I was part of a fanbase that really liked one author, and 100 of us had links to their books on Amazon, it might not generate any revenue (we already have the book), but it would boost Google rankings. If they cull the affiliate accounts, then my link looks VERY different and lots of people will just dump it instead. Fewer links to Amazon, lower rankings of some products in Google. The EU wasn’t stupid. The corollary though was also true…if the link is sitting there, doing nothing but may somehow, somewhere generate a sale for Amazon, why would THEY want to kill it? Lots of people suggested it was better to have updated Amazon databases of active referrers, but they weren’t DOING anything to really service my account. And they WERE getting links, just not ones that generated any revenue for me. So it wasn’t costing them anything. But the GDPR hit, someone decided this was a way to comply, and all affiliate links that hadn’t generated income in the last year were killed. Well, perhaps a better description was that Amazon maimed my API limb.

Know what an API is? No, okay, here’s a simple explanation. If you have a smartphone with a Facebook app, that app connects to the Facebook API to know how to transfer info and it connects with your account to allow you to do or see updates. Two permissions, although you only see one — you give it permission to access your account. But long before you downloaded the app, the developer had to get permission to access FB’s API at all. 

For Amazon, the API is the guts and power that your website needs to connect to their website and pull some data. And most websites have the same licensing rules — if you link to their site, you have to use their API to pull data, and if you use their API, you agree to their terms and conditions; if you link to their site without their API, you’re violating their licensing.

Okay, enough tech babble. What does this mean? It means that although I get to still be an Amazon affiliate, I cannot access their Amazon API. Which means I can’t pull data from their product pages like the BOOK’S IMAGE and format it however I want. Which was the primary thing I did. I can do banners, I can do detailed pages, etc., but no custom layouts. Heck, even NON-AFFILIATES can pull data from Amazon if they don’t care if it looks like this:

It’s freaking HUGE, and it is hard to style well. Definitely NOT what I wanted.

SO ABOUT GOODREADS

GoodReads is owned by Amazon, but they have mostly left it alone. They increased the links to Amazon products, etc., but you can still do a fair amount with it. And since I’ve also got an account over there, and have posted my reviews there, the site lets me use their API to show that review back on my own site. It even gives me the code to directly embed my review. There are two general caveats with their API usage…first, I can’t start harvesting their site willy-nilly, steal all their data, and create my own database to serve. Seems fair. Second, I have to include a clear and identifiable link back to GoodReads. The code it gives you to paste shows you one way to meet these requirements, and I tweak it slightly for wording and flow, and size of image, all allowable in the terms and conditions. Perfect, right?

Well, not quite. First of all, the code for Amazon has to be deleted — with the API not working for them anymore, or at least not allowing ME to use it, all the old images I pulled are gone. But not just “not showing”, they’re replaced by a little image of a missing picture file. So the code has to be deleted, and done so relatively manually as it is different links on every page (same structure, different sub-elements, so can’t just search and replace).

But I had also conformed to the Amazon rules about disclosure, which doesn’t make much sense on my site as it is the same text almost every time. No I didn’t get a free book; no I don’t know the author personally; no I don’t follow or interact with them on social media. Blah blah blah. A legalistic text that sometimes seems overkill if the rest of the review is short. Yet if I’m no longer constrained by the Amazon API, I can delete that. Sweet.

Oh, but then the bottom-line / one line summary should be in a different spot in the review, it doesn’t look right where it is sitting now. And some text right above it was fine being in 14 point font previously but now that I’m moving things around, it should go to 10 point font and two horizontal lines should be ditched. Plus a heading is no longer accurate.

Bloody hell.

Sure, they look “okay”, and I could simply go through and do the bare minimum to do the update. I did that once before — I decided that a bunch of individualised links at the bottom were taking too long to generate, so I ditched them. But I didn’t go back and delete them from previous reviews. I just left them. They looked sucky, but I didn’t want to edit.

Since I’m going to have to edit ANYWAY now, I might as well clean up everything, no?

Damn the European Union and the extraterritoriality of their cyber laws!

While this should be the last time I have to ever edit the BRs that I’ve already done, and there is now nothing in any of them that would no longer link properly, it’s still a pain in the patootie to edit 125 posts. But I’m anal about how things appear, which is partly why I have a website at all. At least I’ve got a decent workflow figured out — delete the old images (Amazon link, featured image); adjust the old layout (adjust a heading, remove horizontal lines, reduce font size for a legend, remove repetitive disclosure, move the one-line summary, and delete some old stuff I should have deleted previously); and paste the new GoodReads code (image plus link to more information).

While I’m not happy I “have” to do it, I am happy with the detachment from a commercial vendor like Amazon, and having more control over my layouts and how things appear. I just have to remember to never tell my wife about it again.

Reading Jeffrey Kottler’s “Change”: Chapter 14 – Why Changes Don’t Often Last

The PolyBlog
November 15 2018

The last chapter of Jeffrey Kottler’s book, “Change”, was one of the ones I was most looking forward to reading — “Why Changes Don’t Often Last”. The sobering statistics are quite common in pop psych — the huge numbers of people who set New Year’s resolutions but abandon them before the first week is out (often from trying for perfection in “Just Do It” mode rather than incremental chain-growth like the Seinfeld method mentioned earlier), and that 80% of those who join gyms stop going after the first few visits even though they keep paying for membership for much longer (the illusion of still being committed that would be shattered by formally quitting their membership).

Oddly enough, I was quite surprised at the beginning of the chapter that those who study change don’t have a firm grasp of why it fails. First and foremost, those who are heavy at work in the change industry — like therapists or weightloss consultants — don’t know what happens after the patient reaches a goal. There is the pop psych results, such as the fact that almost all of the contestants on the weightloss show “The Biggest Loser” end up gaining all the weight back later. But there is no ongoing follow-up in most clinical or therapeutic settings. And thus no info on if the patient/client relapsed or slipped. Secondly, change is often not a “point in time” measurement but a journey, and thus is quite complex and difficult to measure quantitatively, particularly for a moving target. Thirdly, the results are demoralizing — huge numbers of relapses. So studying it isn’t very satisfying or helpful to clinical treatments.

Nevertheless, Kottler does have a rudimentary list in the headings of why change doesn’t last:

  • Limits of will…good intentions are not enough, and we don’t always have full control over our lives;
  • Unrealistic expectations or lousy goal-setting;
  • Dysfunctional beliefs…including defeatist attitudes, and, perhaps more importantly reasons NOT to change and stay stuck:
    • You feel justified in self-pity;
    • You can blame external factors or others for your problems;
    • You have an excuse not to do it;
    • You get sympathy;
    • No reward but no risk of change;
    • You can avoid addressing deeper issues;
    • You can be a jerk and blame your condition;

Put a little differently, “you can remain miserable on your own terms” [pg. 305]. It’s heavily about control of what is familiar vs. risking loss of control with trying something new. In other words, flat out fear.

But you also may lack support (or have others who are enabling triggers for your old behaviour — there’s a reason why alcoholics and drug addicts are actively encouraged NOT to hang around their old friends and family members who may have not only introduced them to their addiction but also actively enabled it…it’s hard to leave port for a better world if you’re still weighed down by an anchor that ties you to your old habits); suffer from other traits or moods that are not conducive to the change (and might need addressing too); or have poor coping skills / preparation (or even just lack the knowledge of how to implement a change).

However, all of the previous chapters came down to pages 308 to 315 for me. I wanted to make one very large change in my life — lose weight — and I was stuck. So I was looking for an enhanced understanding of why I was stuck and how to overcome it. These 8 pages helped me craft a kind of “to do” list.

Success depends on:

  1. Conducting a fearless inventory of the costs, benefits, patterns and triggers of your “issue” (to make all the pieces clear to you, both in pulling you forward and in resisting change);
  2. Finding the right motivation (to allow you to commit in the first place);
  3. Substituting better or different habits to replace the previous ones (even if just to use the time differently);
  4. Building in consistent rewards (to gamify the journey);
  5. Committing wholeheartedly (to carry you through); and,
  6. Changing the narrative of your journey (to reinforce the change and oppose relapses).

The book, and this list, gave me a way forward. I’ve handled 3 of the 6, and I’m working on the remaining 3. Onward to the journey! (#50by50ish #50 – Lose weight – Part 1, the decision).

Reading Jeffrey Kottler’s “Change”: Chapter 13 – Soliciting Support and Resolving Conflicts in Relationships

The PolyBlog
November 15 2018

Jeffrey Kottler says he saved the most difficult subject for last in his book, “Change”, and it is addressed by Chapter 13, “Soliciting Support and Resolving Conflicts in Relationships”. He isn’t kidding. There are some really tough things in this chapter, often dealing with abusive spouses, parents with addictions, and family problems out the wazoo. It is both a problem in and of itself as well as an obstacle to other changes being accomplished. A list he includes of the types of changes you would like to make in relationships is an extremely powerful one, simply put:

Changing the patterns of those that are frustrating, unsatisfying, or unfulfilling;

Setting boundaries for relationships that aren’t meeting your needs or are taking a bite out of your soul;

Reducing the level and intensity of conflicts with others, especially those locked into repetitive patterns;

Ending relationships that don’t seem amenable to necessary changes;

Enhancing intimacy with friends and loved ones;

Feeling and expressing more love and caring in current relationships;

Initiating and broadening new relationships that meet interests and needs that are currently unsatisfied;

Experiencing more authentic, caring, honest, respectful, and fun exchanges with people on a daily basis;

Processing and recovering from perceived slights and relational difficulties in the past;

Practicing forgiveness to let some things go and move forward without lingering resentment; and,

Learning from past mistakes, misjudgements, and relationship breaches in order to enhance future connections. [pp. 276-277]

If you’ve done any past soul-searching about relationships, you could likely read the above list and think, “Yes, please”. All of them sound good. I’ve certainly faced hard truths in the first four. In the end, it led me to one of my greatest insights and freedom from some avoidable pain…

I trust people to be who they are. Not who I want them to be, nor who I unrealistically expect they should be, but rather that they will be who they are. It’s stupid, I know, but it reminds me of a scene in a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode. Small geek diversion…Data is about to do a war game against Riker, and is trying to postulate what Riker will do. He starts to tie himself into knots to wondering if Data thinks that Riker will do X, then Riker could change his behaviour by knowing that Data thinks what he’ll do (X) and therefore Riker will do Y. Except if Riker knows that Data knows that Riker knows, etc…In the end, Troi counsels him that Riker can’t avoid being who he is at the heart (a risk taker with a penchant for innovative solutions). A stupid geeky reminder, but one that I find strangely comforting.

And from that “truth bomb”, that I should expect people to be who they are, I found the basis for a much different relationship with my mother when I set some clear boundaries (such as games I would not let myself be tricked into playing) and changed the pattern of expectation and disappointment from what I thought/hoped she would do to simply what she did do. I expected (and loved) her to be herself for her last ten years, not the mother I wanted her to be or expected she should be. Just who she was. By contrast, another relationship had passed its healthy expiry date and had become consistently toxic, so I ended it. And with #6, I make sure that I tell my son every day how much I love him.

I’m still working on many of the other ideas from #5-11.

Reading Jeffrey Kottler’s “Change”: Chapter 12 – Changing People’s Lives While Transforming Your Own

The PolyBlog
November 15 2018

I am not sure how to review Chapter 12 of Jeffrey Kottler’s book “Change”. The chapter isn’t bad, and it focuses quite well on “Changing People’s Lives While Transforming Your Own”. The problem is that it is a bit narrowly-focused.

If the change you are looking for in life is that you are unhappy, I suspect it is a decent chapter. It deals with altruism vs. reciprocity, the “helper’s high”, being part of something bigger than yourself, paying back (altruism born of similar suffering), or even “my life is my message”. Namely living according to your principles, transformation through service. All laudable, good elements. 

But if you are dealing with a problem like weightloss, or a specific addiction, but you are generally happy in your life, or you are already in a service mindset, it wouldn’t be a very helpful chapter. I’m not sure it is even worthy of being a separate chapter. I guess it depends if you are having more of an all-around existential crisis about your life or just want to change something specific.

Overall, I thought it was okay, just long and not very specific.

Reading Jeffrey Kottler’s “Change”: Chapter 11 – Creating Meaning and Happiness

The PolyBlog
November 15 2018

Chapter 11 of Jeffrey Kottler’s “Change” is titled “Creating Meaning and Happiness” and I admit that it starts off pretty strong.

You don’t find happiness, but rather, you create it a little bit at a time. This is an active process of invention as much as discovery, one in which you shape the meaning of your own experiences in such a way that they inspire you to continue along the transformative path. […] It is estimated that about 50% of reported happiness is the result of genetics, and another 10% is influenced by particular situations and contexts. The good news is that this means that as much as 40% can be shaped, influenced, and controlled by strategic intentional actions. [pp. 235-236]

I’m not as thrilled a few pages later though when he shifts into the concept of those who move away from “happiness” as being too hard to define. I don’t disagree that it’s challenging, but I think most people understand intuitively what it means to be unhappy rather easily, and even what it means to be extremely happy. It’s just the whole middle ground. My real problem is that while difficult, I think happiness is WAY better than the counterpart terms “well-being” or “flourishing”. I think people start to throw stuff in there that are more “foundations for happiness”, not actual happiness. I suspect in part it is because true happiness is more an emotional or spiritual state (or both) than something that can be quantified.

Although I like his list of what social scientists have found that contributes to happiness i.e. the roots:

Focus on positive feelings and try to make the best of those that are unpleasant;

Hold onto an optimistic perspective, looking at the best in people and things whenever possible;

Live in the present and honor those moments when you can;

Do good work for which you feel proud;

Spend quality time with those you love the most;

Forgive those who have hurt you and let those resentments go;

After you figure out what you love, make a habit of doing those things as often as possible. [pg. 244]

I find the list both compelling and repulsive. In the first instance, you could take any one of those phrases and, without turning a critical eye to what it says, think it is extremely profound. Optimism in the face of adversity, for instance, is an extremely powerful mental perspective. Living in the present, equally solid. Serving others. And so on.

But if you turn a truly critical eye towards the list, it all starts to run into, “If you want to be happy, be happy”, or more simply, “Don’t worry, be happy.”

On the worst days, does anyone really think “be positive” changes the outcomes? Will it drag the poor out of poverty? Will it put food on the table? Will it cure disease? It’s about as facile as saying, “Don’t worry, everything will be all right” to someone on the Titanic. No, everything will NOT be all right. Being positive doesn’t change your situation. It only changes your interpretation by being blind to reality, or being too simple-minded to understand what is really going on. I’d go so far as to say that might work for about 10% of the population and that’s about it. But, then again, being negative or pessimistic never helped anyone either. I think there’s a small piece in there, but exceedingly minor.

My favorite is the last one…on a classic note, it is the same as “Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life”. Instead, the framing here is about the equivalent of “find things that make you happy and do that.” Really? That’s considered a profound element? Do more things that make you happy than make you sad and you’ll end up happier? Wow, let me write that down.

I’m also less thrilled when he talks about how it is all about relationships…great, more social capital stuff?

I’m okay though with thoughts about finding things to do that seem more meaningful or socially useful — it is a good way to feel a purpose in life, that you are contributing to society or at least a positive outcome for someone, and thus to feel better about your role in the universe (and thus be “happier”).

It’s at least a start towards something resembling “being happier”. And more therapeutic than the kindergarten advice, “You get what you get and you don’t get upset.”