…with Gary Moss

Archive for January, 2011

Do you know anyone who has projects that or incomplete? Unfinished?

Is that person you? If yes, is it a sometimes thing or is it business as usual?

I am generally good at completing the things that I love to do. But that paint job in my bedroom still requires that I finish painting the moldings. (That incompletion has been nagging at me for more than two years.)

When I have things to do, related to scrabble, I normally begin immediately and finish ahead of schedule. I’m also good when it comes to showing up for meals on time, practicing the ukulele, doing sudoku puzzles, arriving on time to meetings and appointments, writing my blogs, being first into the shower and first person dressed, making the coffee in the morning, and the first one to bed at night,

My marks fall from A’s to D’s when it comes to making the bed in the morning, balancing my checkbook, putting dishes into the dishwasher, making time to read for pleasure, exercising, and getting up out of my easy chair.

I sometimes teach a class or coach an individual on ‘Time Management’. I know most of the answers when it comes to breaking ‘bad habits’ and developing new ‘good habits’.

Simply knowing the answers is not the same as taking action. ACTION is where the power and the results live.

It (motivation) has been studied over and over again and the conclusion is always the same.

People Are Motivated For Their Own Reasons.

So, go knock yourself out. Until you find some way to motivate yourself, you are hardly likely to do any of those things on your own back burner. And GOOD LUCK if you are trying to move someone else to action. In either case you may find some leverage with the promise of Money, Sex, or Time (those are the big 3 when it come to motivating).

Better yet, do something that you love to do and you’ll feel as though you life is like Disneyland 24/7.

If you love scrabble as much as I do then you are already motivated to become even better at the game. You will therefore love my online class, SCRABBLE 101. You’d also love my HOW TO CD about using the Zyzzyva Program. Consider one or both TODAY.

How many times have you made a play onto the scrabble board and THEN, as soon as your opponent turns the board, you see the bingo that you should have played?

It happens way too often.

That phenomenon is not limited to plays at the scrabble table.

That phenomenon occurs upon change or loss.

Back in 1980 I developed the condition known as Grave’s Disease. Basically, it is an overactive thyroid gland. It throws the body out of whack. I lost 40 pounds in a few months, my body was shaking, and my moods were insufferable. The cure is the removal of the thyroid gland. In years gone by they use to remove the gland surgically. In 1980 they had developed the ‘atomic cocktail’. I drank radio-active iodine. Iodine heads directly to the thyroid gland, without passing GO. The radio-active cocktail burned up the thyroid gland. And ever since, I have had to pop a pill ‘synthroid’ daily to provide my body with an artificial form of thyroid.

Later this morning I will have a molar extracted from my mouth. My two choices are: an extraction for $65 or a repair for $1,500 – $2,000. In today’s economy I can’t justify a repair at age 68. I don’t know the ramification of my choice. I am certain to find out in the days ahead. The immediate consequences will be some pain and swelling. I’ll be on an antibiotic and some pain medication for a while. I have to eat soft food for a day or two.

What did people do before pain medication? What do people do today in 3rd world countries? The pain of a toothache is constant and unbearable. I won’t miss the pain. I won’t miss the tooth. But I do remember the feeling of loss in the sense of things ‘NOW’ being different and irreversible.

I’m going to make an attempt to use this extraction to help me to stop and ‘think again’, before completing my plays at the scrabble board. Once a turn is over, there is no going back.

When things are complicated people tend to walk away and not readily engage.

Even the things that appear to be the most complicated may offer the opportunity to be broken down into pieces, each of which is manageable and more easily understood.

Just thinking of the task ahead, when thinking about memorizing the sum of the OWL2, makes me sleepy, hungry, and wanting to go to the movies.

But when I think about a manageable bite, like memorizing 101 Two-Letter-Words or the 69 words on The SATINE Stem, I find within me the motivation to get the job done in a week or two.

Other times when I have difficulty getting myself motivated, but know that there is value for me at the end of the journey, I invite a mentor or coach to assist me along the road. Sometimes I require someone else telling me, “One more step”, “One more crunch”, “One more anagram”. (That’s why I created the online scrabble class for you and others: SCRABBLE 101.)
The longest journey begins with a single step.

Where do you want to go? What is it that you want to accomplish? How can you break it down to make it more doable? When will you begin?

Today is 1/11/11. Make it a day to remember. Begin your quest today.

If you are a frequent scrabble player and have been a player for a few years or more, you have undoubtedly experienced this. A word is played onto the board after which one or the other opponent say, “I haven’t seen that word played in a long time.”

Words that are played during the game seem to travel. By that I mean, if you play a word against me today it has the opportunity to enter my consciousness and influence me to play it tomorrow, when those letters appear on my rack.

Geography also plays a part in determining the words that are played during the game. I was living in Detroit, Michigan when I began playing competitive scrabble. Detroit is a hop, skip, and a jump across the Detroit River from Windsor, Ontario, Canada ‘ay’. I played many a tournament in Branford, Hamilton, Toronto, Oshawa, and Montreal. They speak a funny version of English there, but most of those Canadian words are in the OWL2. Some of those words will give a Yank a reason to give pause, and consider a challenge.

It is always fun to go though an attic or and old trunk and find your treasures from yesteryear. That happened to me this past weekend when I went onto my own web site and opened some links that were not very old, but were off, away from the links I use most. I rediscovered an entire series of blogs that I wrote under the heading, ‘Gary’s Slant On Things.‘

I invite you to browse some of my older blogs. Some of them provide life lessons that I was very pleased to revisit.
CLICK HERE.

Then visit a current link and receive a Scrabble Tip from Letter Man. CLICK

To become great at anything, it is my opinion that you’ve got to be ‘hooked’. Being ‘hooked’ to me means that you are giving 200% of your effort and energy to your mission. The choice is always yours: be a novice or become a mavin. In the immortal lyrics of Billy Preston, “Nothin from nothin leaves nothin”. CLICK HERE and watch what Letter Man has to say about The Power Of Hooks.

Remember the ‘good old days’ and the Gillette Safety Razor? Many a time after shaving I’d look a lot like this guy in the picture. Maybe the razor was safer than the versions that people shaved with before that time. But I will say, that since those days, there have been many incremental advances, right up to today’s ‘FUSION’. Now I rarely nick or cut myself during my daily shaving ritual.

Advances of the safety razor have been paralleled by advances with thousands of products. Remember the transistor radio? the 8-Track tape players? flint & steel to start fires? the horse that pulled your carriage?

At times it is fun to look back and reminisce. For some, it is great fun and sometimes lucrative to hold on to antiques from days gone by.

A small group of people have always resisted change. In today’s world they refuse to use cell phones and computers. You’ll see some of them at the Monday afternoon scrabble club, sharpening pencils and keeping score on scraps of paper.

Most of the people who are stuck in the past will frequently look at a word on the scrabble board and say, “That’s not a real word.” They limit themselves to information that they used in their youth. The same group of people will tell me, “I CAN’T learn a word unless I know the meaning.” But they usually won’t take the necessary step to look up the definition and learn a new word. These people are content with going through the rest of their lives looking through their rear-view-mirror.

I don’t want to give the impression that I am always on the cutting edge of every new gadget and technology. In fact, I often am annoyed by the speed of innovation that leaves me with an old model of this or that. As soon as you buy a NEW computer and step out of the store, it is outdated.

When it comes to building one’s word knowledge for the game of scrabble, there are some learning systems that are tried and tested that are light-years beyond the ‘safety razor’ of ‘hunt-and-peck’ through the dictionary.

Scrabble players who do not use study systems to improve, fall farther and farther behind the pack.
(Check out my online class: Scrabble 101).

When the first Franklin Electronic Dictionary was introduced in the mid 1990s, the players who used that tool, to study, added about 75 points to their scrabble ratings, compared to non-users. The saying is true:

The More You Know, The Luckier You Become.

Some of the tools that every budding scrabble player should have include:
1. The OWL2
2. HOW TO USE ZYZZYVA CD
3. PROTILES
4. Time Clock

I do some of my best thinking in the shower with hot water pouring over me. Maybe the hot water loosens up my idea bank the same way it effects my sinuses. Who knows?

Too frequently some great ideas that occur to me, while I’m shaving, go down the drain with the sudsy water and never have any real, tangible effect outside of the bathroom. It is the same way with most of my dreams.

But this morning when the water got me to thinking about ‘motivation’ it came along with an extra ounce of energy for me to hold on to it. It almost got away. My thinking was diverted for an instant from my ideas about ‘motivation’ to thinking about how I might invent an ‘idea catcher’. (That would look something like a voice recorder or a waterproof white board and marker on the wall in the shower.)

How many of your great ideas have evaporated over the years?

It occurred to me that we all must stream ideas all day, every day. Some are frivolous and whimsical. But others relate to solutions that could be useful to ourselves and others.

Why then do so many of the good ones get away from us? (Lack of) Motivation, commitment, time; expense, self-doubt and a host of other thieves.

I spend an enormous amount of time trying to enlist people into the scrabble world (Club #350 in particular) and coach them toward becoming better scrabble players.

Sometimes I am successful; other times I think that I am a complete failure. But this morning I was able to step back and see that I have never failed in my mission.

People are MOTIVATED for their own reasons, not mine.

As I stood in the shower this morning I was thinking about myself and others who have said that we wanted to do something . . . . and then never followed through. At times we used excuses to explain away, to ourselves and others, the WHY we didn’t do IT.

The simple truth is, we weren’t motivated enough to go forward.

I truly believe that we each have the power to achieve almost anything that we can imagine.

Becoming a better scrabble player is both as easy and as difficult as it is to become a doctor or a musician or a forensic scientist.

What do you really want? Become motivated and committed and it will be yours.

SCRABBLE 101 (an online scrabble class) Enroll NOW!

Mezuzot have no place in the secular world of scrabble, and yet they stimulated me to thinking about their purpose, and that lead me to a stream of thought that I’d like to share today.

The mezuzah, of course, is a decorative box that contains a small scroll that is sacred to Jews. The Hebrew word ‘mezuzah’ means ‘doorpost’ and that’s where mezuzot are positioned. Observant Jews touch the mezuzah and then kiss the hand that touched it, upon entering and leaving their homes.

Over time, the mezuzah served as an in-your-face reminder to Jew to pass along the teachings of the Torah with their knowledge and wisdom unto their children.

Similar things were happening in other cultures as fathers taught their trades and traditions to their sons and mothers taught daughters about managing their families.

Over most of history mankind has had only primitive means of recording and verifying facts and opinions. Today, in a single day, more is written and preserved than in the total of time before 1900.

And still, in many circles, conscientious families do their best, using modern approaches, to promote education, learning from folklore, personal experience, and the never ending stream of sound bites bombarding us.

The modern ‘scrabble club’ is a mezuzah-like instrument. It’s holy parchment is the OWL2. It teaches it’s children (the players) the lessons of our founders in the form of The Rules and the Study Systems.

SCRABBLE holds learning and correctness dear. Scrabble clubs serve as homes for players, where they can build they knowledge and skills in a community of acceptance and encouragement. (Where else could you use a word like ‘amidogen’ and not get a blank stare?)

So friends, teach your children and friends wisely. Pass on the word. And visit you local scrabble club often. Click here on CLUBS and or Tournaments for my locations in southern California.

Things were just beginning to become comfortable again in my life and as usual, I was becoming antsy. Do you know what I mean? Does that happen to you?

On the one hand, I’d like to veg out on some tropical beach with a pitcher of Margaritas, a good book, no cell phone or computer, and an empty calendar.

On the other hand, I know that I’d be going totally crazy before I finished reading the first chapter.

In recent years I have developed the skills that ‘THEY’ refer to as ‘multi-tasking’. I get up each morning and rush to my computer to check my email and the counter on my You Tube creations. Then I tend to personal hygiene, daily meds, and coffee before heading out the door with my laptop in hand. My two favorite morning haunts are Brueggers Bagels in Aliso Viejo and The Corner Bakery in El Toro (they both offer ‘free’ Wifi). More than two-thirds of the 700+ blogs that I have written in the past two years have been pecked out on my computer at these two locations; another away-from-home writing hangout for me is Barnes and Noble in Aliso Viejo.

I usually write my best in the middle of a crowd. Sometimes when I write in the peace and quiet of my home the silence is too deafening. Do you get that? I do suffer from tinnitus, which can make silence a very noisy experience.

Another one of my quirks related to calmness is that I sabotage it. I don’t allow the calm to reign for too long before I throw a pebble into the pond. Most often the ripples result the formation and creation of new concepts and projects which take on new lives of their own, turning the calmness into a sea of challenges.

Like the time I broke through the funk of a personal tragedy by planting the seeds that led me to found a new private school.

Like the time I got tired of being ‘fat’ and challenged myself publicly so that I had to lose weight to avoid further embarrassment. (I’ve lost 25 pounds since April 2010).

Like making the decision that ‘I CAN’ in regard to computers and developing an extensive web site, movies, blogs, pod cast, and a recent series of You Tube videos.

If you are bitten by the scrabble bug, like me, you know that every game on every day provides a new ‘I CAN’ opportunity.

But even all that isn’t enough for me right now.

This morning I went out and purchased a brand new ukulele. No, I do not know how to play the uke. It is my intention to develop my ukulele playing skills to some level where I feel comfortable enough to perform at one of my future scrabble parties or tournaments.

But the greater reason for me challenging myself is to keep myself in touch with the challenges that newbies feel when they make their first appearance at scrabble club. Knowing that feeling will help me be a better scrabble director and a better scrabble teacher.

Aloha

What factor inhibits and often puts the brakes on potential greatness?

I see it all the time. It comes wrapped in a blanket named ‘I CAN’T’. From there it smothers the person, much like a Boa Constrictor, choking the life out of its victim.

It is all about self-indulgence and Fear Of: looking silly, foolish, stupid, unworthy, etc., etc.

At exactly what age do we abandon the freedom and excitement of discovery and replace it with our egos? Go to some playground today where there are young children. Watch the one who are playing freely and trying out new games. Some fall, but they generally get right back up and play again. The fear of falling rarely stops any youngster from playing and having a good time.

Maybe we can blame it on some parents, if we’re looking for someone to blame. They would be the ones on the sidelines who are always calling out, “Be careful!’, “Don’t run!”, “Don’t get dirty!”.

Some of you have heard so many caution messages that you’ve been indoctrinated. That little voice of caution lives within you and pushes your brakes every time you venture into some new activity.

Almost every Newbie displays caution at some level when they finally get themselves out to scrabble club. Here are some of the things I encounter every week:

1. Alice plays scrabble at home with friends and family every time she can find someone to indulge her. She love to play. She has become ‘THE BEST’ in her circle; she wins almost every game. But Alice has never ventured to a club. Alice worries that she won’t be good enough. Finally, with the urging of her friends, Alice goes to a local club. She is a nervous wreck. She is excited to meet others who love the game. She plays well but loses all of her games on the first evening. She goes home and uses her losses as evidence that she is not good enough. Alice never plays club again. Both Alice and the club are losers.

2. George is really interested in finding a place to play scrabble, his favorite game. He does a Google search and finds my name and phone number listed as a local scrabble club director. He takes the time to call me. We have a wonderful conversation about George and his love of the game. I spend as much as an hour talking with George, trying to impart some courage to him that will assist him in deciding to come and experience the joy of competition and learning. Only about two out of 100 callers ever show up at club. I refuse to believe that I dissuaded them. George’s fear got the better of him.

Did I ever share that I graduated high school by the skin on my teeth. Did I ever share that I then entered Highland Park Junior College, only to flunk out. It’s true.

I hit bottom and looked into a mirror. Some people would have buried themselves under the covers, lost themselves in a bottle or a needle. I wanted more. I worked to earn enough money to pay tuition at Detroit Institute of Technology and earned A’s and B’s in order to transfer to Wayne State University. There I graduated with a B.S. in Education and later achieved an M.A. in Educational Guidance and Counseling.

When we do things for ‘our own’ reasons, not the expectations of or the fear of others, our true abilities emerge and we are all powerful.

I went on to teach public school and then founded a private school at the age of 27. Many people were doubters when I was in the planning stages of founding The Bloomfield Nursery School and The Moss School. My programs flourished from 1969 thru 1988.

Yes, You Can Too.

Come play. CLICK