I have to admit, I feel lost. More lost than I’ve ever felt before. But while I sit here, drinking a glass of scotch and enjoying the ambiance of rolling stones, my thoughts have become lucid enough to write and share.

I have lived my life out of the box, as I encourage everyone around me to do. And I’m proud of that. But at the end of the day, I don’t feel I should be proud. The truth is, while I have been living out of the box, I have been chasing other people’s dreams. I have never truly gone after my own.

Who feels like they are not performing to their fullest potential? Go ahead…raise your hand. Who else feels as though the world is just passing them by? Go ahead…stand up. Well, I’m standing up and raising my hand, so that tells you how I feel.

What makes it worse is that I know what I want and I know how to get it. But because of the current state of affairs I have fallen into, I can not do what I believe I was put here to do. I have a special gift. I know that. But my greatest fear is that the decisions I’ve made in my recent past may prevent me from sharing my gift.

I feel like packing up…running away…and starting over. But of course, I can’t do that either.

I had a great conversation with my Grandpa yesterday about life, business and stress. He told me to follow my true passion, follow my heart. Stop stressing about the things I dislike doing and start stressing about the things I love to do. That makes all the difference. Such simple advice from one of life’s true old salts. He reminded me how easy it is to simply shift gears and change one’s perspective if we just…do it! Don’t feel sorry for yourself, forget about pity and most certainly don’t stop fighting. That sums up how I was raised. And after writing this…my gears are about to shift.

Original Article

Rework by Jason Fried and David Hansson

In the words of Seth Godin, this book will make you very uncomfortable and that is a good thing.

I love this book!

It’s an out of the box view of how to start and run a modern business. With chapter titles such as Meetings are Toxic, Your Estimates Suck, Drug Dealers get it Right and Resumes are Ridiculous,  Jason and David have turned the business world on its head.

In the spirit of this book, I’m keeping this review short and simple. This book is easy to read, straight forward, honest and cutting edge. Buy it, borrow it, read it.

Original Article

I saw a lemonade stand today, something I haven’t seen in a long time. Warm childhood memories came rushing back as I watched the two kids playfully wait for their next sale. Naturally I had to buy a glass, and it was delicious.

It dawned on me that these two kids were probably netting a larger profit than most of the local businesses in the area, and that made me laugh! Because of their youth, inexperience, lack of formal education and outside influences, these kids were doing something simple and pure. They were focusing on one thing and doing it well.

They were selling lemonade. One flavor, one size and one price. There were no up sells or discounts, no additional employees and no complicated point of sale systems. “This is a cash only establishment,” the young girl firmly told me.

As we grow older and “wiser,” we tend to complicate things, in life and business. More is better we’re taught. More features, more products and more options. It’s taken me twelve years to realize this uncomplicated fact: Simplicity is key. A three word phrase that holds more power than any business book or publication.

37signals.com, Google, Facebook, In-n-out, Ipods, Flip cameras, Wikipedia, Craigslist, Youtube, Twitter, Tumblr, Plentyoffish.com and Subway. What do these businesses have in common? They are simple and focused.

When developing your new business concept, never be afraid to embrace that lemonade stand simplicity. Focus on the key objective of your business. If you’re developing a website, watch out for feature creep. If you’re opening a restaurant, keep the menu simple and stress quality over quantity of items.

As a thought experiment, I imagined what would have happened if I took over that lemonade stand for a week and let my little entrepreneurial devil go unchecked. First I’d buy a cash register, there’s no way I can trust these little kids to handle the money properly. I’d implement credit cards using my trusty Iphone credit card swiper, which means I’d also have to open a bank and merchant account. One flavor is boring, we need at least three. And while we’re at it, we should offer small and large sizes. While word of mouth advertising is good, I think we should make some discount coupons and hand them out around the neighborhood. Did you apply for your resell number yet? We’re going to need that if we plan on expanding throughout the rest of the neighborhood. Did you do a cost analysis on the lemonade yet? What do you mean you’re only 9, that’s business 101 kid! Better add a little more water to that mix so we maximize profit. This isn’t fun anymore? Stop complaining. Who said business is supposed to fun!? Give me a few years and I’ll turn you into Gordon Gekko.

See what I mean. It’s easy to complicate things. But don’t! Simplicity is key. Repeat that out loud until you’re blue in the face, and then repeat it some more!

And now it’s time for me to go back and get another lemonade..

Original Article

[caption id=”attachment_1259” align=”aligncenter” width=”357” caption=”(I used to feel like this dude ever day!)”][/caption]

For a long time, I was plagued with constant headaches. They weren’t as painful as migraines, but they occurred every day, all day. I tried everything to cure them. That included banging my head against the wall and popping tylenol capsules like tic-tacs. Unfortunately, nothing worked!

After speaking to a few friends who had the same headaches, stress levels and hectic schedule I did, I came to the realization that these headaches were simply a symptom of our busy lifestyles. Stress is the number one cause of these types of headaches. I finally found a cure, and it didn’t come in the form of a pill.

Put simply, I had to learn how to “chill.” Here is a few things I did to rid myself of this problem:

1. Stop taking pills and start drinking more water. For all those people taking pain relievers and chasing them down with massive amounts of coffee (you know who you are!), stop! Tylenol doesn’t help and caffeine can actually spur on these types of headaches.
2. Go Rag Doll at least 3 times a day. This works! At least 3 times a day, you need to find a quiet place, completely relax your body, take deep breathes and work on clearing your mind. Do this for no less than 5 minutes. When I say rag doll, I really mean it. After doing this enough, you’ll learn how to relax every muscle in your body, which can relieve headaches, stress and anxiety. When you become “stressed”, a process in your body referred to as a “cascade of cortisols” begins. This process basically puts your body into a flight or flee mode thereby creating anxiety. The rag doll exercise relieves this.
3. Workout! Whether it be calisthenics in your living room or a brief jog down the street. Physical exercise is crucial to living a healthy lifestyle and it will help relieve that nasty tension causing those headaches.
4. Make sure the A/C is working. A warm work environment doesn’t help and can actually be counter productive.
5. Most importantly, take a step back. Whenever I got a headache, my first instinct was to power through it and continue working. Just ignore the pain. Right?? Wrong! Your productivity falls more than you think. These headaches are your body’s way of telling you something is wrong. Your body is saying “Hello?! Are you there? I need attention and if I don’t get it, I’m gonna kick your ass!” So try to lighten your workload and spend a little more time on you. Don’t worry, the work isn’t going anywhere! :)

These are the steps I took to decrease my anxiety and headaches, and I’m confident they can help you. These are things I learned from personal experience, not from google searches. There are no magic pills or quick cures.

I’d love to hear some of your remedies as well. Feel free to send them to me and I will post them for the rest of the readers!

Original Article

Reading is important. I tell that to everyone. I read at least one book a week even though I don’t have the time. How you ask??

I recently discovered audiobooks on Itunes. They have a good selection and you can find more on Amazon as well. At first, I didn’t think I would enjoy listening to books rather than reading them. My mind changed quickly.

Listening to a book on your Ipod or phone is easy and convenient. It allows you to perform other tasks simultaneously as well, such as driving or working out.

I like to cycle often. Instead of listening to music during my workouts, I listen to books. Whenever I’m driving or doing a mundane task that requires little brain power, I listen to a book. It’s great and I’m learning so much!

I highly recommend it to everyone. You don’t have to worry about reading glasses, eye strain or books cluttering your shelves!

Original Article

It’s like they always said in business school when giving presentations, visuals are key. Today’s ritalin popping culture is growing more and more dependent on visuals and short excerpts rather than essays and articles. And the more businesses try to reach their customers over the internet, the more engaging content they must create.

The saying a picture is worth a thousand words could not be truer in today’s market. And if a picture is worth a thousand, then a video (well put together) is worth a hundred thousand.  For bloggers, this means posting more photos in their articles and more videos of themselves. For companies, it may mean more videos of end-users interacting with their products or perhaps photos or videos of company events.

The costs of electronics has taken a nose dive the past few years. Good digital camerasand HD flipcamsare very affordable at around $150. Sites such as Youtube and Vimeo are free services that allow users to upload and broadcast their videos. Flickr is another free site that allows users to upload large amounts of photos for online use and sharing. Clearly, the costs of production and broadcasting are no longer to expensive for small businesses or individuals.

Examples: Check out MoreThanMary.com to see great examples of how a successful blogger does it. Mary has mastered the art of using visuals online and I myself have learned tons from her. Another great site to check out is ShopWatchBuy.com. I just recently discovered this and love its creativity. This site has taken the visual concept to the next level by allowing users to sell their products using their own videos.

So bloggers…stop being camera shy (I totally am, but that’s going to change). As for businesses, start getting creative with advertising via multimedia, and start engaging with your customers.

This is a whole new type of branding, where creativity is more important than the budget. No more giant billboards. No more million dollar Super Bowl commercials. They’re being replaced with amateur videos that cost squat and can reach the hearts of millions.

Original Article