Jordan Craft
Bio
AZ | Co-Host of Highly Inspired Podcast
www.jordancraft.com
www.highlyinspiredpodcast.com
Stories (29)
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Flow State
Have you ever been hard-at-work on a project and then glanced at the clock and realized 5 hours had flown by, but it only felt like 30 minutes? And you were so in-tune and focused that your perception of time made the hours evaporate? Conversely, have you ever sat in a class where every minute felt like an eternity; and you kept staring at the clock yearning for it to be over? I'd choose the first option any day of the week. These two examples represent polar opposites of a concept known as "flow". Popularized by positive psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Jeanne Nakamura, the "flow state" describes a feeling where, under the right conditions, you become fully immersed in whatever you are doing. This is the type of focus that hard-workers chase on a daily basis—that feeling of being so productive that your mind occupies zero distractions. "There's this focus that, once it becomes intense, leads to a sense of ecstasy, a sense of clarity: you know exactly what you want to do from one moment to the next, and you get immediate feedback." I came across this concept in a YouTube video discussing the benefits of time-blocking. I had never heard the word "flow" used in such a way before. But it soon made complete sense.
By Jordan Craft4 years ago in Motivation
AlphaGo
The ancient game of Go is probably the most complex game ever devised by man. Invented in China, more than 3,000 years ago, it is believed to be the oldest board game continuously played to the present day. It has 10^170 possible board configurations, which is more than the number of atoms in the universe. For those familiar with Chess, Go itself is more straightforward, yet more complicated. Simpler because all of the pieces are the same, just black and white, and in Go, the pieces do not move around the board. The playing pieces are called “stones”. One player uses white ones and the other, black. Players take turns placing their stones on vacant intersections or “points” of the board. Once placed, stones may not be shifted but can be removed from the board if the stone is surrounded and “captured” by the opponent. And when a game concludes, the winner is determined by counting each player’s surrounding territory along with their amount of captured stones. Overall, Go reigns as king of all strategy games due to its mind-boggling number of possible board sequences, complexity, and millions of experts who play the game worldwide.
By Jordan Craft4 years ago in Gamers
My Take on Cybersecurity
Let me tell you a story about how someone stole my $2,500 Macbook Pro last year. This was my first run-in with a digital cyberthreat. A year later, I’ve still been unable to retrieve it, and the FBI Internet Crime sector has failed to assist the case. To start from the beginning, I grew up selling a lot of electronic devices on eBay. I got really good at it, and my friends/family always sought to me for selling their used goods. Due to this semi-proficiency, I continued to utilize the platform because I had never encountered any game-changing issues. Well, clearly, I jinxed myself. In July of 2019, I listed an excellent-condition, nearly brand new Macbook Pro on eBay in the same manner that I had done throughout the many years leading up. Within two days, I received a notification that someone had placed a bid on the item. Since the offer was within range of what I was hoping to sell for, I proceeded to message the user directly via eBay’s messaging portal. Lesson #1: always use the messaging function within the medium of which you are registered, especially when it’s an e-commerce or freelancing platform because you never know exactly who you’re doing business with. So, I’m glad that I began the transaction by messaging the bidder via eBay. However, over the next couple of days, I received a few emails, to my personal email, regarding the completion of the sale and shipping information for mailing the device. According to my eBay account settings, my email notifications were turned on, which made sense as to why I was receiving messages to my email about finalizing the transaction. Lesson #2: always check the exact email address of the person sending you emails. Apple Mail, Gmail, and other email servers hide the full sender’s email address because it’s “ugly”. Moving on, I shipped off the computer. I distinctly remember leaving the UPS store and feeling so relieved that I had completed the task and that receiving the payment was all that was left. Little did I know…
By Jordan Craft4 years ago in Journal
The Art of Storytelling
The term "storytelling" is paradoxical. The narrative of the word "narrative" is a sort of inception. As in, the very story of the comprisal of stories is a narrative within itself. Confusing? Yeah, probably. I've always been fascinated by the art of storytelling. Although many people assimilate the phrase as a verb, I've grown to comprehend it as a big-picture concept. The very fact that human beings have the mental capacity to recount large encompassed stories is nothing short of extraordinary. Whether it be through literature, language, film, music, photography, writing, etc., we have been sharing trillions of stories throughout all of human existence. Maybe that's what sets us apart from other species; our ability to understand the difference between the past, present, and future. And the stories that we do possess are entirely rooted in our exemplary awareness of past events. Moreover, even tales that may feature fictional plots in the future were still founded and established in the past. Let's unravel the psychology of storytelling through analyzing its evolution, the mediums in which stories are presented, and how curiously enormous the concept of relaying information through narratives is.
By Jordan Craft4 years ago in Journal
Airstrip One vs. America in 2020
Airstrip One, the fictionalized version of London, in George Orwell's provoking novel - 1984, is staggeringly similar to the America we know in 2020. It is inarguable that this year is one of the most unique, appalling, and critical periods of time that anyone alive has ever experienced. Due to many reasons, and a significant contributor being the COVID-19 pandemic, societies have faced momentous loss, hardship, and consequence. However, that is not all. 2020 America has come to many profound realizations of critical societal issues, holes in the technology system, social constructs, and law & order across the board. All of which fall under gargantuan sectors of how a first-world country functions.
By Jordan Craft4 years ago in Humans
