Archive for the ‘News’ Category

I’m pleased to announce the launch of my new online course, Running For Beginners. It’s a complete introduction to running for those who want to get into it for the first time or are coming back to it after a break.

Topics covered include:

• Where to run
• What to wear
• Staying safe
• Warming up and cooling down
• Motivation
• Dealing with different weather conditions

And much more. So far, it is proving rather popular:

And best of all, it’s free. Click here to check it out.

My new Udemy course is live, Sport Psychology for Athletes. Here is the blurb:

Are you interested in sport psychology? Maybe you’re an athlete or a coach looking for practical techniques. Or maybe a student or lifelong learner who loves sport.

If so, this is the course for you. It will provide you with a beginner-level grounding in the theory, but with a focus on practical application and how to use the techniques in your own life, whatever level of sport you play.

We won’t just be looking at slides, we’ll be out there exploring, with quizzes, workbooks and practical exercises to work through.

We’ll look at:

• Motivation
• Focus
• Confidence
• Mental imagery
• Self-talk
• Mindfulness
• And much more!

Click here to check it out.

I’m pleased to announce the launch of my new course, Heroku for PHP. I love Heroku as a hosting platform, and there were no Udemy courses on how to use it with PHP. So, I’ve filled the gap. For a very reasonable $29.99.

You can check it out here, and that link will save you an additional $10, too.

Worfolk Limited has been producing awesome software for many years. Whether we are building web applications and mobile apps for customers or launching them ourselves, I take a lot of pride in making them the best apps they can be, both from a user’s perspective and by leaving the client in the best position going forward.

That quality and attention to detail is now expanding to wearable devices, too.

This starts with Garmin devices, and I’m pleased to announce we’ve launched our first app, Mindful Moments. It gives you timely reminders to live in the present. If you have any of the Garmin watches that can download apps from the Garmin IQ Store (Forerunner 230+, Fenix, Vivo), you can try it for yourself.

It’s written in Monkey C, the version of Java that Garmin devices run on. Going forward, we’ll be developing more apps and making these services available to clients, too.

I’m pleased to announce the launch of my new book, Skeptic’s Guide to Pregnancy. Here is the blurb:

“Are you tired of reading pseudoscientific nonsense in pregnancy and parenthood books? If so, this book is for you. In it, author Chris Worfolk offers his frank assessment of preparing for parenthood with research references to back it up.

In this short book, you will find a mixture of cold hard, evidence-based facts, mixed with Worfolk’s brand of sarcastic humour and a collection of anecdotes to help you remember it.

Invest a few hours in reading this and avoid nine months of tedious and unnecessary planning, worrying and spending on things you don’t need. And, if all else fails, you will have enjoyed the ride.”

It has been two years in the writing as I have been documenting since we started Project Venla. This month, I’ve put the final touches to it. In some ways, it’s a victory for sunk cost fallacy. But I prefer to think of it as using Darren Hardy’s time/reward matrix.

In any case, it is officially out today and will be appearing in in eBook and print, via Amazon and iBooks, in the next few days.

My course, the IT Contracting Master Class, is now available in book form. Should you buy it? Probably not. It’s slightly cheaper than the course. Except that Udemy is usually discounting the course, making the book more expensive.

But, if you really hate the idea of getting the video lectures (which includes the eBook version of this book), you can buy the book stand alone on Amazon.

This week, it was announced that Richard Thaler had been awarded the Nobel prize for economics. It is long overdue. Here is why.

Thaler is best known for his 2008 book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness which he co-authored with Cass Sunstein. He was a summation of his many years of work on behavioural economics. You can read my review here.

This understates his contribution though: Thaler is considered by many to be the father of behavioural economics.

To understand why that is important, we need to look at what behavioural economics is. Economics, as a subject, has been around for thousands of years. Except that in many ways it really hasn’t. Traditionally, at least in recent tradition, it has focused on building financial models based on people making perfectly rational decisions.

Take the free market, for example. If you put prices up, you decrease demand. It’s nice and simple.

But then Thaler came along and said: “hang on, do people act like rational beings all of the time?” The answer, of course, was no. And a new field of economics was born: behavioural economics. The study of what people actually do.

But what exactly is non-behavioural economics? The more you think about it, the more you realise that we can basically can anything we thought we knew about economics beforehand, because all economics should be behavioural economics. Models that use “econs” rather than “humans” do not work in the real world. Which is where all research should eventually have some kind of relevance.

So, well done to the Nobel prize selection committee for making such an excellent choice. In a perfect world, it would have happened much sooner. But the selection committee, like the rest of us, are humans, not econs.

I’m sad to report that the last remaining restaurant of Leeds’s Chinatown has closed down.

Not that it was ever that big: a total of three restaurants. Hometown, Tong Palace and Ho’s. Plus the international supermarket remains, and Crown Buffet and Oriental City are nearby (though Mulan has also closed).

Luckily, the area booms with great food. Thai A Roy Dee, Zaap Thai and Bar Soba all provide Asian cuisine. But given Hometown and Ho’s were such enjoyable restaurants to visit, it is a shame that the street is now bereft of Chinese restaurants.

Sadly, restaurants live or die for a variety of reasons that you may not expect. Which is why I wrote a book about it.

I’m pleased to announce the launch of Do More, Worry Less: Small Steps to Reduce Your Anxiety. As of yesterday, it is available in the Worfolk Anxiety web store, as well as via Amazon and iTunes.

Like any book, it takes a long time to put together. Arguably, this was a quick one: it’s taken me over six months, but the restaurant guide took years. However, it has been a long time in the making. The research in the book has taken years to accumulate. And there is a lot of it. 291 footnotes and citations to be exact.

The book takes you on a journey, exploring what anxiety is, why it prevents us from reaching our goals and the proven strategies and tactics to overcome these problems and hit your targets. It then explores every aspect of lifestyle: exercise, diet, sleep, relaxation, personal growth, relationships and community to find the things that improve your mental health and what to do about them.

You can find out more about the book here.

Last month, I launched the IT Career Acceleration course for IT professionals looking to take the next step in their career.

Advancing your career is like being an athlete. Even the best athletes in the world have a coach to help them improve. It’s the same thing when you are writing your CV, winning interviews or creating a promotion plan: you need a coach. The course provides that.

That’s all super, except that not everyone wants to have to set up a new account or put their credit card details into an unknown site.

At the same time, there are great education platforms, like Udemy, already out there.

This made a natural fit for the ITCMC content. Which is what I have done. You can now find the Career Acceleration course on Udemy. It includes all of the video lectures and workbooks you get from us direct. The only thing missing is the checklists.

It’s all backed up by Udemy’s 30-day refund policy. Not quite as good as the 60-day one you get direct, but it still makes the purchase risk-free.