Connecting the dots

some thoughts about

humble beginnings,

great success,

the public humiliation of failure,

starting over,

the meaning of life, and death,

and connecting the dots,

(all in less than 15 minutes,

from a man who has achieved greatly)

Quotes

It's only work if you'd rather be doing something else.

Scottish Proverb

There is nothing more demoralizing than

a small but adequate income.

Edmund Wilson

The Perfect Predictor of Success

The perfect predictor for success: 

self-discipline, or the ability to delay gratification. 

This little film clip is a gift for everyone!

Click Here

(this is the link to the facebook page)

Save 90% on federal taxes, pay no state tax at all...

The US Virgin islands, is a great place to put your servers if you want to save a ton on taxes. The USVI island of St. Croix, (now also known as "E-commerce Island") has the greatest bandwidth of any place in the western hemisphere except New York City.

Check it out:
E-Commerce Island

Hiring people the most efficient and effective way possible

Here's an email from someone I have worked with recently:

Hello Michael,

Just a note to let you know that I'm using some of the tools you taught me. Specifically the Group Interview -- it's brilliant -- we have benefited greatly from your system for hiring sales people. When I first proposed it our HR consultants they said "that's a bad idea, it's cheesy don't do it". So I bypassed them and laid it out to our Operations Manager, he said that's interesting -- never heard of anybody doing that -- let's give it a try. The first time we used it we landed an outstanding sales rep that has taken our business in new directions. He commented about the group interview and thought that was an interesting twist and really differentiated us from other companies that he interviewed with.

As I speak we are interviewing candidates for sales positions. We had two group interviews this week and have narrowed it down to five individuals. We are going to hire two or them-- just as you suggested!

You may want to consider doing a blog post about it. The concept of the group interview, with the voice message and email follow up is so effective at weeding out people who; don't contribute, don't follow directions, don't care and sound bad on the phone when they leave a message.

Jim Watson, Owner-CEO
Arc-Zone.com

Life at the top

The entrepreneur's absolute priority is to stay at the top of his creation, to remain in control, until his planned liquidity exit. Many business owners start small and soon become inundated with routine and trivial activities, reacting to the random events as they occur instead of creating a business which executes the Plan. The success of the business depends on keeping the entrepreneur from the trivial and this can only be done by creating the Plan, and Delegating the activities of the Plan.

The primary activity of the entrepreneur must be to delegate, and therefore to recruit and provide motivation for others to carry out the Plans of the business. Many inexperienced owners look at new employees as expenses to be avoided, but the astute owner will see great opportunities by recruiting good people and paying them well for helping achieve the goals of the business. Again, Delegation is the primary activity of the entrepreneur. People must be there to execute the delegated activities of the Plan.

The business must provide the entrepreneur with steady, comfortable income as soon as possible in the life of the business. Many new business owners look at their pay as coming last, if at all. When the owner pays himself first, he will be more focused on creating a healthy, consistently productive business. Consider the example of flying in a commercial airliner, with a young child in your custody... you are advised, in the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, to put your oxygen mask on first, and then put a mask on the child. The absolute logic in this approach is that you are of no use to the child if you lose consciousness first. The business is yours, and you must bend it to your will. It must provide your paycheck above all. And so you must create a business which will do this.

The Most Important Thing To Do Right Now

In business, and especially for an entrepreneur, there seems to always be too little time to do too many things. For this reason, Priorities according to a Plan are essential. This assures us that we will be doing The Most Important Thing To Do Right Now. As an aid to thinking about what that Most Important Thing is, for each of us, a new blog has been started on just that subject:

The Most Important Thing
To Do Right Now

iPhone App Store Growth is Astronomical.

Apple's home page now claims that the App Store has officially surpassed 15,000 apps available and over 500 million downloads in the six months since the store went online. This is the second landmark for the store. The first was when it hit 10,000 apps and 300 million downloads back in December 2008.

from iPhone Alley

These numbers and growth rate are extraordinary. Many opportunities with high returns (and risk) in this business.

The $300 million button

Still trying to figure out optimum web design?
how one simple button increased sales by 300 million for one website.

http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_button

Thoughts from a startup legend

Check out Lund at Le Web:

http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/01/14/as-raw-as-it-gets-startup-legend-lund-bankrupt/

This, just in...

Old-school economist John Maynard Keynes described the spontaneous optimism that drives startups:

"A large proportion of our positive activities depend on spontaneous optimism rather than mathematical expectations, whether moral or hedonistic or economic. Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits—of a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities.

"Enterprise only pretends to itself to be mainly actuated by the statements in its own prospectus, however candid and sincere. Only a little more than an expedition to the South Pole, is it based on an exact calculation of benefits to come. Thus if the animal spirits are dimmed and the spontaneous optimism falters, leaving us to depend on nothing but a mathematical expectation, enterprise will fade and die—though fears of loss may have a basis no more reasonable than hopes of profit had before.

"It is safe to say that enterprise which depends on hopes stretching into the future benefits the community as a whole. But individual initiative will only be adequate when reasonable calculation is supplemented and supported by animal spirits, so that the thought of ultimate loss which often overtakes pioneers, as experience undoubtedly tells us and them, is put aside as a healthy man puts aside the expectation of death."

— The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money

Dying Man Teaches Time Management

With such limited time to live, you can get pretty clear about time management.   Randy Pausch covers the bases:

Good Business (& Life) Advice from an Academic

Planning

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."
  - Dwight D. Eisenhower

It can also be said of the planning process in business.  The value of a business plan is not so much in the plan that results from the process, but in the process itself.

The Secret of Getting Ahead

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.” 

Mark Twain

Warren Buffett - his life story

The Snowball:  Warren Buffett and the Business of Life

I found it impossible to resist reading this excellent book, the first biography of Warren Buffett, world's richest man, written with his full cooperation. 

What fascinated me was how we had such similar experiences growing up. 

What motivates a man to become and remain the most successful investor on the planet?  Click this link, buy the book, and enjoy the lessons.

Is this your life?

Is this your life?

Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.
  - Ellen Goodman

Yes?  Well, what are you going to DO about it?

Yes, you can do it.

Think of all the fantastic things we humans have accomplished.  Is it possible to be impressed with anything nowadays?   

Well, here's something that has impressed me:   http://lstudio.lexus.com/#vid346

It is the story of David Goggins, ultra-marathon man.

Success in Martial Arts and Business

The principles of success in Martial Arts
will help you succeed in business.

Check out why, here.

Entrepreneur Blog

Check out this excellent blog for entrepreneurs.

The Meteoric Rise and Fall of Geosign

Many lessons for the entrepreneur in this excellent story about the meteoric rise and total collapse of Geosign.