Down the Rabbit Hole

 Welcome back to another segment of my life trying to balance a million different things! Today I want to take a step back and show you all what I spent 4 hours making one evening.

Background

I tend to spend about an hour on social media every day. It can be a complete waste of time, but it also often brings out a lot of creativity. I actually found a PowerPoint animation that I wanted to try out a couple weeks ago without anything that I felt passionate about to present in PowerPoint format. Then while scrolling during the week I found it. I found the topic that would push me to step out of my comfort zone and make a presentation for no reason other than to expand my knowledge and skill set.

The idea is a continuation from a couple posts ago that was titled Level Up. The idea in that post was to continuously better yourself and find ways to improve yourself. The PowerPoint is how I planned to do that this evening and become just a little more knowledgeable and skillful in terms of PowerPoint. 

Complacency

The topic of the presentation is complacency. The idea that we become unconsciously numb to our way of life and find joy in the little things. Like most of my time spent on media a little chunk is devoted to watching podcast snippets. The ones that usually get me thinking are controversial and more times than not a little out there. The idea behind watching these is not to agree or disagree but to learn the variety of perspectives and see the complexity in the argument. 

On this particular evening it was a Joe Rogan snippet that got the ball rolling. Within the slide show I have embedded the snippet because I felt that if it got me thinking to the point of wanting to make a whole presentation on the topic, it deserved to be apart of the product as well. 

I will embed the PowerPoint for you to take a look at if you wish to. It works better when you download the file and play it through or else the main page is simply the moving background without any of the animations.

Complacency PP

Brief Shift in Focus

 WELCOME BACK!

It has been nearly 2 weeks since I last updated everyone on what is going on and my oh my life is still busy as ever...

Books

In the last 2 weeks I have put a small dent in my book list (3/28 read and 1 on the go). These books have been insightful and quite good reads. Of the 3 that I have read the best laid out one had to be The Millionaire Next Door by Tom Stanley. As a whole it is well written, flows nicely and one feature that I really liked was that you could read any chapter in any order because they were stand alone for the most part. Reading it in sequence the first time through is definitely beneficial but to go back to certain chapters you did not need background knowledge to capture the picture the author was painting. 

School

The last 2 weeks have been quite a hand full for classes. For context if you are just joining the feed, I am in Teachers College currently. Most of my classes want us to complete entire unit plans with a variety of lessons and resources. The time it takes to build there tend to be a couple hours but to ensure they are uniform and flow nicely take significant thought and revisions. The most recent unit I have been working on is my grade 10 academic science: physics. I have not taken any physics that is not related to human anatomy and exercise physiology since grade 10. It has been a lot of searching. Thankfully it is slowly coming to a close and I can begin focusing on my own personal goals once again.

Teaching Preparations

I have been in a little bit of a slump as of recent with school. It is that time of the year where it feels tedious and pointless. I like to be mentally stimulated and the continuous repetition of the same content is starting to be challenging. In this mind set it is hard for me to be productive. By reflecting on this I have decided to start preparing for when I am out of teachers college and bein to teach on my own. Many teachers I have talked to that are new and veterans have said the first couple years are the hardest because you are making all of your lesson plans while settling into the new role. Knowing this I have sorted through all of the content that I can possibly teach based on the credentials I will have after finishing teachers collage and begun to make unit plans and lesson plans for myself.

It is only the beginning but I have all of my files organized and begun with my grade 10 science curriculum since I have already started the physics unit. It is nice that I can use the same outlines for all of my lesson plans and just need to fill in the information. I have started to work on creating a hand full of slide shows and to be completely honest the first couple were rough. They were boring and ugly. I started to play around with the format and much like video creation they are starting to be more appealing and engaging.

I have gave myself a time line and I am hoping to complete all of the grade 10 academic science curriculum, lessons, and outlines by end of April. Additionally, I plan to get a wide variety of games, sports and other resources organized for my physical education open classes as well.

Coaching

Coaching has been on the back burner other than working with the hand full of athletes that I now have. It is an exciting time because I am helping one to prep for a mock meet coming up in 2 weeks. We have been working together for the last couple months and it is nice to see his numbers steadily climbing. We hope to have a strong performance in our mock meet and begin the next phase of training with some updated one rep maxes. 

Content Creation

This week has been moving at a miraculous pace! I feel like I have been sitting at my desk working, training, editing videos, and doing research all week. I have lost track of what day it is and that is ok since I am in school. So long as I meet due dates I feel free to work at my own pace.

Videos Creation

My videos are almost always revolved around my lifting. If I plan to do any video work it is around the times that I work out. It is nice in a way because I kill two birds with one stone if you will. I started off taking video of my top sets and first working sets for my powerlifting coach over three years ago. Since then I have continued to shoot these kind of update videos every session since. Only recently have I started to get a little more creative in how I video. I have been changing angles, videoing for longer periods of time to get my reactions and thoughts and the odd video with my siblings doing some wacky things when they come to spot me.

Video Editing

From the videos that I capture I start to edit them. The software that I have been finding great success with is CapCut and VideoLeap. CapCut is fun to use because I can scroll through TikTok and find different ideas and they have the template right there. At a click of a button I am redirected to CapCut with the template and all I need to do is fill in the content. The only downside is when creating your own videos that are all original, with no template it is a little tedious and hard to use for new video creators like myself.

This is where VideoLeap came in and saved the day! If I had to make a guess I have put in probably 25 hours worth of time video editing in the last week trying to learn what is popular and how to be more seamless in the transitions. I have found quite the enjoyment going through and creating videos. At times it is frustrating but one very nice thing within VideoLeap is that there is a back or forward button! Much like working on word documents if I make an error or add something or delete something I can click back instead of having to go through the process of getting back to the stage that I was just at. 

Informative Videos

The informative videos I have been working on for the exercise library have been quite a challenge. I was finding doing voice overs felt less authentic and during the takes for videos where I was talking were not coming in clean enough. In the last post I mentioned that I had bought some Bluetooth microphones and they are fantastic! The sound is crisp and clear. Additionally, I have learned that angles and video quality is a big thing. The old case had a slice across the camera coverings which made the videos blurry, since the new case came in the quality is night and day. 

Pallof Press - YouTube

Fun Videos

The fun videos I have been making are just to try and spur up page interest. If you are able to hit the algorithms of different platforms you can draw a lot of eyes to your profile. TikTok and other short videos are some of the best forms of advertising that is free! I have been playing around with a variety of videos and have found some of the ones that have gained a little more popularity. End of the day my posting on social media other than YouTube is for my enjoyment and if I am not enjoying it odds are I will stop. The mix between informative and these more fun videos keeps the work light and enjoyable.

zbint_Training - Instagram

Life is Like a Video Game

The past 2 weeks have been very hectic. I have lost track of time while trying to balance school, working on Dedicated Development, and trying to learn on my own. I have spent a lot of time trying to implement the idea of "leveling up."

Level Up

When I talk about leveling up I think of playing video games. In many games you level up your character or profile to obtain new items, skills and so on. The same idea I have began to implement to my own life. I am but a character in this world trying to level up. Right now I am in my early stages while still in school and trying to start a small company and brand.

I have neglected reading for a very long time because I am not a strong reader. It took me watching YouTube videos of motivational and educated individuals who said that knowledge has one of the highest return on investment (ROI). I have also learned that money is not the only thing that you can waste on useless things. Time is your most valuable resources and by wasting your time doing things that do not improve your character it is a waste. You only get one life, you may as well put it to use for your enjoyment or gain. 

Dedicated Development

It is crazy how things can morph in a matter of weeks. I have thought long and hard about what I am passionate about. I have decided that I am passionate about powerlifting and functional strength. Therefore I am trying to mold my company to those niches. 

I have taken some time to begin investing in myself and getting a better set up. I have bought a microphone set up for my desk top, a wireless microphone and am looking into cameras to begin recording more content. I think with all the tech available it would be a waste to not start analyzing online content and sharing my opinion and expertise. I have found OBS a great software for video creation and streaming. I hope to dive a little deeper and create my first video with myself casted in the corner analyzing some online content in the coming weeks.

Socials

I have spent some time starting different social media pages and chat boards to being building a community. I will link them here in the bottom of the post.

Instagram: Dedicated Development

Facebook: Dedicated Development

Discord: Dedicated Development