April 7, 2006

5,000 Registered Members

I promised myself I’d blog about these milestones a little less frequently but was excited to see that sometime in the last 24 hours we passed over the 5,000 registered member threshold. It’s a lot of fun to watch the growth of the site and to see all of the people who are downloading audio books and podcasts.

Thanks to all of you who have joined the site. We’ve got lots more coming down the pipeline which we’re very excited to share with you. Have a great weekend everyone and keep learning out loud!

April 7, 2006

Paypal and International Payments

We’ve recently a couple of things to make it easier to purchase audio learning titles.

Pay with Paypal – If you’re one of the 100 million+ people with a Paypal account you can now purchase audio books and video with Paypal. It’s nice to make a purchase and not have to enter in your credit card. Your Paypal information (username and password) is entered directly on the Paypal website ensuring a safe shopping experience. Just look for the Paypal button above when you’re making your purchase. It’s really easy.

International Payments – Based on the many requests we’ve had we’ve now opened up our site for international purchases. If you don’t live in the U.S. you can now purchase any of our downloadable titles with your credit card or via Paypal. We’re very excited about being able to take the Audio Learning Revolution global. (Note: Our distributor only ships CDs and cassettes on the U.S. so, for now at least, the only titles that can be ordered internationally are downloadable titles.)

We’re always interested in doing anything that we can to make it easier for you to find and order great audio learning titles. If there is anything we can do don’t hesitate to let us know by sending an e-mail to suggestions@learnoutloud.com.

Thanks!

April 6, 2006

David Allen and GTD

Recently I had an illuminating day attending a David Allen Roadmap Seminar in Santa Monica. Jon has written in the past about Allen, and I’d like to share some of my thoughts on Allen’s system and philosophy as well.

David Allen, in case you were wondering is a human productivity black belt and author of the best-selling book, Getting Things Done. His system, now labeled GTD for short is a series of structured productivity schemes you can apply to your life in every way. On a surface level it comes across as a rigorous form of list making: you write down every single thing you wish to accomplish in your life, from the most mundane to the most profound; whatever has your attention at that moment. From there, you continue writing down things you wish to remember for the future the moment they come to you. These can be projects in the garden, goals for your next sales quarter, remembering phone calls, whatever. The overarching point here is that your brain is not something that was meant to store information. In fact, the more information you are constantly trying to remember, the more stress you have in your life because of the strain involved in making sure you have everything accounted for. This rings incredibly true to me, and indeed, another phrase Allen uses to describe GTD is “advanced common sense”.

This isn’t a system that Allen wants you to use solely as way of getting more projects done at work, despite the fact that most of the people attending the session with me were business professionals. On the contrary, while his system is acutely useful in the business world, Allen’s ambition with GTD goes farther. Throughout the day he convincingly applied it to the accomplishment of goals at home, in personal relationships, hobbies, (i.e. planning what audio books you want to listen to) and the establishment of lifetime goals. You are also asked to reflect upon what you’ve done every week so that you are constantly keeping up and in focus on what you are trying to do and what underpins what you are trying to do.

I have since begun implementing some of GTD into my life and it has relieved the pressure I’ve attached to what I do in almost every way. You wouldn’t believe how good it feels to write down everything you think about in a given day. When you see it, you can break it down into the actions it takes to get it done, and once you have all of that figured out, it simply isn’t taxing you any longer. Imagine being able to rid yourself of the daily torture that comes from not knowing if you’re doing exactly what you could be doing to reach your potential. I’m not saying I’m a yellow belt with this GTD stuff or even that I will follow everything talked about in the seminar to the letter. I don’’t think Allen is pushing strict adherence; instead he is providing a model of task assessment that can filter out any associated anxiety. It is a very durable framework and you can find many different ways to work it into your routine.

As I said earlier, David Allen’s primary book on the subject is Getting Things Done. He also has a second book which is available through us called Ready for Anything. Take a look, I honestly think you’ll find something valuable here.

April 3, 2006

John Wooden’s Legacy

I realize I run the risk of raising the ire of Florida students and alumni but I’ll admit that I’ll be cheering for the UCLA Bruins in tonight’s national championship game. After all, we’re located in Los Angeles and I’ve taken graduate business classes on campus so I’m a quasi-alumnus of the school.

Just as Flordia has a storied tradition in football, UCLA has one in hoops. I find the legacy of John Wooden to be one of the most remarakable in all of pro sports. I had the chance to catch a few of the interviews with UCLA and LSU coaches and players before Saturday’s Final Four games and it’s amazing how much of the conversation focused on UCLA’s past championship teams and its legendary coach despite the fact that we’re more than three decades removed from Wooden’s last title.

If you’re interested in learning more about John Wooden and how his unique philosophy towards basketball and life has inspired so many people, I’d encourage you to check out some of the Wooden-related titles we have here on LearnOutLoud:

Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court – A great audiobook narrated by Beau Bridges.

John Wooden: Values, Victory, and Peace of Mind – A DVD that gives an overview of Wooden’s philosophy.

Powertalk interview with Tony Robbins – An interview of Coach Wooden conducted by Tony Robbins.

It’ll be a fun game to watch tonight and regardless of who wins both teams have had amazing seasons and should be proud of how far they’ve gotten.

April 3, 2006

Listen to Authentic Sources of History

Why read a dry American history book of the 20th century when you can listen to history as it happened for free? If nothing else, speeches and news broadcasts from the past make for exciting listening that connects the dots of important events from the past century. Let me point out a few free resources that will sonically immerse you in history:

Authentic History Center – A Massive Collection of Hours of Streaming Audio well organized by decades and historic events; and they sell $10 MP3 CDs containing dozens of hours of historical recordings.

American Rhetoric – We feature over 100 free speeches from politicians and leaders throughout the last century as streaming audio and a MP3 download. I’ve yet to hear one speech that isn’t a high quality recording. Simply the best audio resource for speeches on the Internet.

Library of Congress: American Memory – From the Library of Congress comes this eclectic collection of recordings you aren’t likely to find anywhere else. Recordings of Theodore Roosevelt, Quilts and Quiltmaking in America, Voices From the Days of Slavery, and more. Interesting stuff.

Go to the historical source with LearnOutLoud.com, Your Audio & Video Learning Resource!