Figuring out everything that's wrong with me - surprise!

As I was winding down my time at my big corporation, I figured I'd take advantage of my medical benefits while I had them. I was also trying to figure out what my new years resolutions were, so I figured I'd be data based in my resolutions.

I had a few things I was concerned about, things that most Americans were concerned about. These things included my weight, cholesterol, and salt intake. I went and got a physical with a full workup. Everything was fine, except the cholesterol might've been a little high, so they wanted to do some follow-up. I asked my doctor about salt intake, and he said if you're not feeling your fingers swell up, that means your body is taking care of it fine.

The follow up on the cholesterol came back everything was fine. So OK, what do I need to set my New Years resolution to fix? Looking at myself in the mirror, I figured I had some room for improvement on my weight. So I went to the fitness center and asked for a body fat measurement. The lady gave me a thing to hold, and it measured 18%. OK, there's a number I can work on reducing. The only data point I knew about body fat was Shaquille O'Neal in his prime was 4%. I looked on the wall, where there was a poster of body fat percentages and what they meant. 18% correlated to moderately lean. The fitness lady said "Hmm, that's very good." So nothing to fix here I guess.

The company also offers counseling as a benefit, and people recommended I go see one before making a huge decision like this. I also wanted to work on this issue of mine where I'd never want to start anything. So I went to see a counselor. After a few sessions, I realized I knew and had thought of everything he was asking me about. Was I financially ready? Was I emotionally ready? Recall I had blogged earlier about all the fears I had and how I overcame them. He wasn't really helping with the "never starting anything" issue, so I figured it was something that everyone had issues with and I needed to get over myself. So, no issues here.

So after a physical, body fat measurement, and counseling session, I came to the conclusion: THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH ME. The data said so. Sure, I can eat better and gain a bit more muscle and be a more efficient worker. But the way I am now shouldn't stop me from doing anything. I needed to stop thinking there was something with me and using that as an excuse for anything.

Figuring out everything that's wrong with me - surprise!

My goal, reward, and punishment for the next month or so

Goal: From now until 3/27, not counting two weeks in there where I'm on vacation, I will book 15 hours per week of focused, concentrated work on business ideas. I recently discovered slimtimer.com which allows you to time yourself and tag what the time was used for.

Reward: My baseball team, the Milwaukee Brewers, play in my current city, Cincinnati, on OPENING DAY 3/31. A friend with season tickets gave me the chance to buy 2 tickets, which I've purchased. If I make it, I will go to opening day. As a twist, I will treat the 2nd ticket to a friend who's been a peer mentor for me in the entrepreneurship world. This will not only get me motivated to complete this, but he will also be motivated to help me!

Punishment: I will sell or give away the tickets and donate $50 to a charity of a team I hate. I'm thinking New York Yankees right now, I'll hafta do some research on that.

Thanks again to Neville for providing the inspiration for this type of goal setting!

My goal, reward, and punishment for the next month or so

How to answer the "So what do you do?" question

Paraphrasing from the movie The Social Network:

Hot Stanford co-ed, getting out of bed: Where do you work?
Lucky guy still in bed:  I'm an entrepreneur.
HSCE: So you're unemployed?

One thing that I've wondered about is if my social status would take a hit if I didn't have a full time job (I don't have that much social status to begin with). How many people would understand I did it by choice? Although analyzing the situation more, the lucky guy was asked that question the next morning. Continuing with the dialogue:

Lucky guy: You ever heard of Napster?
HSCE: Yup
Lucky guy: I invented it
HSCE: Wow, I slept with the guy who invented Napster.

The moral of the story: If you don't have a full time job by choice, you can increase your social status by doing something cool, even if it doesn't make money. I.E., if you're gonna quit your job, go invent Napster!

How to answer the "So what do you do?" question

My fears - 4 months later

Four months ago, I posted my fears for all to see in the hopes of shrinking them down to size. Another benefit to posting them out there was it gave me something tangible to go off and work on. I'm happy to say 4 months later, although I haven't eliminated all of those fears, I've gotten a handle on them and feel really empowered to go after what I want. Here's an update to each:

Former Fear #1: My dad will be pissed/scared/hurt

One of the recent "thought experiments" I've done is to imagine I'm 90 years old and telling stories to people. When I say "60 years ago, when I was in my 30's, I..."  there were two ways to complete that sentence. 1. I quit my job and went and got my MBA in real life. I (totally succeeded/totally bombed) and learned a lot and had a lot of fun. Or 2. I stayed in a well paying job where they didn't really use my skills and hung out for 30 years because I was afraid my dad (your great great grandpa) would be pissed/scared/hurt. Suddenly, it was clear what life was all about. My dad would get over it.

It was also very helpful that my younger sister and I are our biggest supporters. My sister, who lives near my parents, told me recently that she started working on my dad for me. She told me the whole line of questioning she used, starting with something like "Don't you want him to be happy? He's not happy where he is... he'll be fine, he's smart and resourceful." She's paying me back for our entire childhood where I paved the way for her (including the time she asked a girl to the Homecoming Dance for me, so when she got to high school our parents would let her go). She basically is saying "do what you need, I'll take care of dad."

Former Fear #2: I'll fail miserably and hafta take a job that's much worse than the job I left

In a corporation, they grade on a curve, so to speak. 6% of the organization has to be rated "below expectations." I joined this 6% club, mainly because my organization doesn't value entreprenurial type people. One of the reasons was I didn't use our standard tools for my non-standard projects. Doesn't that actually sound like a reason to promote someone? So I ask myself this question: Why do I need to take this?

I also put together another thought. If I quit and go get a "real life MBA" so to speak, doesn't that make me more attractive to the type of company I'd like to work at, should I decide to go back to a company? I also went out and talked to all my friends who own businesses to see if there were things I could offer them. One particular friend was very interested. So I'm covered, I won't crash and burn right away at least.

Former Fear #3: I just don't have the drive to do what it takes.

This trait of mine still rears its ugly head. I've done a lot of work trying to figure out why I'm like this and what would get me out of it. I recently read The Birth Order Book: Why You Are the Way You Are, and it talks about first borns (which I am) and how they're perfectionists. I'm far from a perfectionist, but I read on anyway. Then it got to a part where it talked about another type of perfectionist: a frustrated perfectionist. This person is a perfectionist at heart, but is so afraid of criticism he gives up and doesn't finish things. This point hit home so much. I'm still working through this, and even looking to see if I can get some coaching.

I tried to work through this issue over the last 2-3 months by doing the 5 hours a week = iPhone 4 method. I tracked my work and booked hours, and I was able to do 5 hours a week for 2 months. After that, I upped it to 6 hours a week for a couple more weeks. This way I didn't have time to think about making something perfect, just book the hours. However, the last 3 weeks I haven't done any work on my projects. Blogging tonight is an attempt to get back on track. I think the issue is my project was to the point where I was close to involving other people; and that's when the fear of imperfection and criticism kicks in.

Former Fear #4: I'll never find a mate.

One thing I've started doing was to work on meeting people outside of work. Interestingly, Adam McFarland just put up a great post entitled Maintaining a social life after leaving the corporate world. I'm not necessarily doing it to find a mate, but more to prove to myself that a social life exists outside of the company. I've joined a minority young professional group (while I can still call myself a "young" professional) and met some great people there. And yes, I've also met a couple of people that interested me that didn't work for my company.

So things have gotten pretty clear to me. I'm taking the holidays to reflect on my next step, but my biggest fears have been brought under control.

My fears - 4 months later

Restarting the 5 hour weekly commitment

Well, it looks like @Timothy didn't quite make his 5 hours a week goal. To his credit, he fulfilled his promise and bought some pink Chicago Bears shirts from their charity. Read about it here. I'm curious to see where he goes next!

With that, I'm re-starting my 5 hour a week commitment after taking a week off on vacation. I'm still trying to brainstorm what my reward and punishment would be. I think I'll keep the $100 donation to Bears Care as the punishment. I've kicked around a few ideas about the reward. One was to buy one of my friends lunch. That way, they'd be encouraging me to make it work. Another idea was to offer up a $10 gift card to Amazon to a random commenter if I completed the goal. That way the whole community would be encouraging me! Thoughts?

Restarting the 5 hour weekly commitment

This is it!

In about 45 minutes, I will have fulfilled my 5 hours a week of work for 5 straight weeks. The closest I've come to not getting the 5 hours in was the last two weeks. Last week, I was taking a trip out to SF and had no hours booked up to the day I traveled. Thank goodness for Delta's wifi on the plane! I knocked out 2 hours on the 4.5 hour flight out there. I couldn't do more because 1. The battery on my Mac drained, and 2. There was about 30 min of turbulence that was bad enough that I couldn't type straight. Then on Friday, while everyone else was sleeping and I was still on Eastern time, I knocked out the remaining 3 hours, giving myself the 5 hours for the week. Not bad considering I didn't do any work on the weekend. This week the same thing happened. I had no hours booked through the week... just constantly had stuff going on and the messed up sleep schedule caused me to be really tired at night. Well I knocked out 2.5 hours on Saturday and I'm wrapping up the last 2.5 hours for tonight.

I've been tracking the work I've been doing and the time I've spent doing it. A majority of the time I've used to learn Wordpress for a new website I'm trying to start. It's fun going through the logs. On Sept 5, I spent 30 min at Starbucks downloading Wordpress. Then later, I spent an hour on my couch troubleshooting the wordpress installation (it's NEVER the 5 min installation they say!). But then as I went along, I started picking up what Wordpress was all about... picked a theme, figured out how to change widths of stuff, figured out what "the loop" was, and eventually getting to a point where I could do some stuff on the code level. It's awesome to see the progression!

I definitely want to keep this level of discipline in my work. I would like to get to a glidepath to get to 10 hours a week. I've been pretty good about the work being real execution work, with minimal brainstorming and theorizing work (I tend to gravitate towards that kind of work anyway, so it won't be an issue to try to limit it). It's still hard to get started, all the self doubt and wondering if what I'm doing is really worth it or not kicks in. But it's a great feeling when you're done with the hour and you figured out that Wordpress issue!

As for the iPhone 4... I cheated a little bit and bought it last week in SF because I wanted the better camera and video recording capability. But I was still going to make that donation if I didn't get the hours in, and I was more determined than ever to get the hours in so I wouldn't hafta face you guys!

This is it!

5 hours a week = iPhone 4

I've been captivated recently on Neville's blog on his project to blog every day for a month. He gave himself a punishment if he didn't do it... he would make a $300 donation to a local homeless shelter that he hated. If he did it, he'd spend it on what he called a "money experiment."

That got me thinking... what a cool concept! What can I do? His goal was to write more consistently. One thing I'd like to do better is to be more consistent in working on stuff outside of work. I recently canceled my cable, so I've got time. One goal I've been trying to hit is 5 hours a week of good solid work on my entrepreneurial exploits. It's not asking for much... I'm thinking 2 hours on Saturday, 2 hours on Sunday, and 1 hour spread out through the weekday.

So there's the goal... 5 hours a week of good solid work. What should the reward/punishment be? I just found out that I'm eligible for the iPhone 4. So the reward will be, if I can get 5 hours a week for 5 straight weeks, I will buy myself the iPhone 4. For the punishment... I'm thinking a $100 donation to the charity of one of my hated team rivals... Either the Yankees, the Bears, or the Minnesota Vikings (I'm a Brewers/Green Bay Packer fan). Well I checked out the Chicago Bears site, and they have a charity called "Bears Care." The Minnesota Vikings site talks about some outreach stuff, but doesn't exactly make it easy for you to donate money. (I see all kinds of headlines about rumors of Favre being on a plane to Minnesota... GOSH I HATE THE VIKINGS. I wish Favre would just retire!). Well, "Bears Care" wins out because I can't find any info on donating money on the Vikings site.

I will start this next Monday, 8/23. 5 hours of solid work a week. If I can do 5 weeks straight, I buy myself an iPhone4. If I can't, I make a $100 donation to the Bears Care foundation. (I don't know what's worse, giving up the money or being on their mailing list so I hafta get Bears stuff all the time. Makes me really motivated).

5 hours a week = iPhone 4

Tiny steps make major leaps

Pamela Slim from the Escape From Cubicle Nation recently posted a blog entry entitled Tiny steps make major leaps. The idea is very similar to a blog I posted a while back called One small step for man. Pamela compares trying to lose weight with trying to leave the cubicle world. Interesting read on Pam's take on a similar subject!

Tiny steps make major leaps

No one gets fired for punting

Last weekend, Bill Belichick, the coach of the New England Patriots, decided to go for it on 4th down and 2 from their own 28 yard line near the end of the game, up 6 points. The Patriots didn't make it, and Belichick was vilified by the press.

Was it Belichick being bold? Was it his lack of confidence in his defense? Was he thinking he was smarter than everyone else in the world?

Well it turns out, he was right. According to Advanced NFL Stats blog, going for it gave him a 79% win probability. Punting gave him a 70% win probability. So if the goal of the game was to win, he made the right decision.

Punting would have been the safe decision. If the Colts drive for a TD, the defense would've been blamed. But punting would have been the wrong decision. But no one gets fired for punting.

The corporate world is like all 29 other coaches in the NFL. People in the corporate world are there because it's safe and secure. People get rewarded for making the safe decision instead of the right decision. There are numerous times where I've pushed and pushed for the risky decision when I saw that the safe route was too risky. I remember trying to convince my boss one day to change the method of production for a new product because the current method wouldn't get us to the point of the project making money. I literally said it's like being down by 8, scoring a touchdown, then kicking the extra point because going for 2 was too risky. (Incidentally, the product has now launched, using the method of production I pushed for... you can probably get it at Wal-Mart. Email me if you want to know what it is).

In a corporation, no one gets fired for punting, even if it means a higher probability of losing the game. No one gets fired for making their employees do hundreds of man-hours of paperwork before approving funding, even if it means wasted money due to all the extra salary paid out for work that doesn't increase the chance of the project succeeding. No one gets fired for requiring a hospital like clean room when manufacturing a product, even when the product is used to clean dirt.

I blogged earlier about how small companies can take down a large corporation. Here's another way. Think like Bill Belichick. Go for it on 4th and 2 to win the game while the corporations are punting.

No one gets fired for punting

Hitting 4 hours a day - with the help of a tomato

I blogged earlier about how I was struggling trying to reach my goal of 4 hours of good work a day. I'm happy to report that the last two weeks have been very productive and I've gotten to 4 hours a day!

I went over the tipping point with the help of a technique I read on a blog... I would love to give the kudos, but I honestly can't remember where I got it from. It's called the "Pomodoro Technique" (after looking into this technique some more, I discovered pomodoro means tomato. You'll hafta check it out yourself to find out why it's called that).

In a nutshell, you basically set a timer for 25 minutes (one Pomodoro). You start the timer, and you have to work on one task for 25 straight minutes. If you stop and do something else, you have to start the 25 minutes over. If you're tempted to do something else, you should just write it down, then decide if it's worth it to start over. You must stop at the end of the 25 min, and take a 5 or 30 min break (depending on how many you've done already).

The technique is great because it makes you focus on one task; as I mentioned in previous posts, I have a hard time doing that. But I like that it recognizes distractions occur, and it has you write down the distraction so you can get to it during your breaks. Or you combine them together to form a whole 25 minute session. The forced 25 minute session (technically you're not allowed to go over) also gives you some sense of urgency to get your task completed so you also are inspired to be efficient.

I used this method to tackle important tasks that I procrastinate on. I procrastinate because the task appears too big to tackle, or tasks where I feel some self doubt on. For instance, as I mentioned before, I hired a programmer to help with the latest NOTtheBookStore.com. His part is done, but I have a lot of things I still wish to change on the site. Taking one look at the code floored me. But I set my iPhone to 25 minutes one day, with the goal to figure out how to change the design of the front home page. I ended up figuring out how to do it, and along the way learning about organizing functions, object oriented php, css, and why Internet Explorer is a pain in the ass for web designers.

I relax the forced 25 minute rule... if I need to keep going I do. I know I'm not motivated by deadlines as much as normal people, and the bigger issue for me is getting going and staying going. I tend to doubt the "big picture" when I dig into things, so when things are moving and I don't have that problem, I want to keep it going!

So with two weeks and counting on my sabbatical, I'm starting to hit max productivity. This is a great learning because once I go back to the "Corporate" part of my Corporatepreneurship, I know I can do 1-2 hour chunks after work and keep up the "preneurship" part.

Hitting 4 hours a day - with the help of a tomato

Why you owe it to the world to run with your ideas

When I was maybe 13-14 years old, my family drove down to Chicago to visit my aunt and my uncle. I remember us going out to some tennis courts near where they lived and hitting around a bit with the family. My dad just didn't look right the whole time, looking like he was in pain. Later that day, we found out his stomach was bothering him a lot. My dad loves spicy food (he was born in the Hunan province of China, which is known for spicy food), but he started having these ulcers and had to cut way back.

The next day, we were going to drive back to Milwaukee, and my dad was so bad he couldn't drive. My mom, who didn't drive the mini-van much, gave it a go even though my uncle offered to drive us back. We did fine, as I sat in the front seat and helped navigate. My dad laid down in the second row of seats, still suffering from pain. When we neared the Milwaukee area, he let out an audible groan, and my mom started getting scared and we decided to go to the hospital where a family friend practiced. We helped my dad out of the car to the emergency room, where they put him in a wheelchair. I'll never forget the image of my dad in obvious pain sitting in a wheelchair clutching his insurance card.

I don't remember how long my dad stayed in the hospital, probably a day or two, but I do remember what happened next. Ulcers were through to be a weakening of the stomach lining, causing your stomach acid to irritate the stomach. It was also conventional wisdom to think that stress would cause the acid levels of your stomach to increase, causing ulcers. But one of the doctors treating my dad had read about a new line of thinking for ulcers based off some new research that showed that ulcers were caused by bacteria. They put my dad on anti-biotics and Pepto Bismol, and within a few weeks he was cured.

The doctors that helped discover this bacteria being the cause of ulcers deservedly won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 2005. I love this story for many reasons, of course number one being the quality of life my dad now enjoys. The second part of this story I love is how people took a different approach from conventional wisdom and solved an age old problem. 


This is where entrepreneurs fit in. They're the ones that zig when everyone zags, and are passionate about their goals enough to keep pushing on even when others constantly shoot you down. The doctors were willing to think outside the box and not be dissuaded by public skepticism. One of the doctors actually drank some of the bacteria himself to prove to others that it was the cause of ulcers. How many problems are out there right now because people refuse to believe anything other than conventional wisdom? Is there a cure for cancer out there that we're not seeing because everyone thinks cancer is a mutation of cells in the body? Maybe it's caused by bacteria, or a fungus? I have no idea, but I wonder what alternate theories there are out there. On a business note, are there opportunities out there that everyone's passing up? Or even discouraging you from doing because they think it's ludicrous? If you think you're right, you owe it to the world to at least try. 

My dad has never relapsed and eats spicy food now whenever he can find someone else to enjoy it with (my mom doesn't eat spicy food at all!). One of my favorite images of him now is watching him eating something so spicy it makes him sweat. He usually follows that up by saying, "mmm that's good!" All because someone challenged conventional wisdom and believed in their idea.

Why you owe it to the world to run with your ideas

Bloginage

So once in a while I like to do a "Bloginage" which is a takeoff of the word "blog" and "badinage." The word badinage, which I learned in a game of cranium, basically means "banter." So I'm just gonna banter a bit, giving some snippets of random stuff...

So about the upcoming leave of absence (or SEEF3M), the analogy I had earlier was I felt like I had senioritis. You know, when all you can think of is graduating and being free from all this homework. Well, since I'm a little over a month away now, I have a new analogy from my college days: It feels like final exam month. I have all this stuff I need to get done at work before I can leave for summer vacation!

I've inched my way out of the dip... The new project I'm looking at trying out is a single use wipe for use on the exterior of cars. It's not a ground breaking idea, but it'll let me learn about selling a physical product. Also, I'm thinking this as an example of a commercial innovation: the product is very similar (if not the same) as an existing product, but you position it in a way so it solves a different problem for the consumer.

I had a short meeting with the wipes vendor and learned about the typical issues with this kind of business model. Minimum order quantity is 50,000 wipes. The cost isn't too bad (in the thosands of dollars for 50K wipes). But then I figured in fulfillment and shipping costs, and I'd prob at best break even if I charged $0.50 a wipe. Adam, how do you make money using this model? :) Next step is some testing with people...

I've gotten some buzz on NotTheBookstore.com, as 3 students have signed up for my mailing list in the same week. The mailing list is invaluable; these are people who voluntarily want to be reminded to buy your product. I haven't rolled out the new site yet, but I've gotten to the point now where I've redesigned one page and have sent it in to my programmer.

I find it interesting that Brad was in "The Dip" just as I was at the same time...

I've always wondered if this blog would ever make money for us. It's been great as a way to get inspiration and meet people similar to you in this journey, so even if it doesn't make me a penny it'll be worth it. But last week, someone bought a copy of the E-Myth that I blogged about. So our first pennies of revenue! Funny how such a small thing inspires you so much...

As usual, things just kinda flow when you just start writing and instead of a bunch of small snippets I end up with a pretty long post!

Bloginage

One person is seriously derailing my entrepreneurial drive

It's my boss. And it's not what you think...

Last week I had a regular meeting with him. Before I had a chance to start updating him on all of the projects I was working on, he said one sec... and pulled out a sheet of paper with my raise for this year. I wasn't expecting much with this economy, but it was more than I expected. He told me that he thought highly of me and I was doing great work. Now typically you write that off as hot air, but he put his money where his mouth was.

I've worked with this person before. About 5 years ago, I was struggling with the company. When I was called into my previous boss's office, I actually thought that this could be it. But instead they came to talk to me to offer me a "change in scenery" role, with this guy as my new boss. He basically told me from the beginning that he believed in me and didn't care about the previous stuff. In a twist of fate, fast forward 5 years and he became my boss again.

So now I'm thinking, with a boss like that, why can't I just stick around, collect a nice paycheck, and be happy???

One person is seriously derailing my entrepreneurial drive

Mark Cuban - my hero

In my entrepreneurship class during my MBA, we started off by introducing ourselves and then saying who our business hero was. I said Mark Cuban, because I wanted to ultimately own a sports team after I made it big. One girl in the class asked, "Isn't he that annoying guy?"

Well Cuban has a blog, and on that blog he's doing his own economic stimulus package. He's going to fund people who post comments on his blog that he sees fit. Check out the posting here, and take note of the "rules" he has.

Take note of rules #3 and #4:

3. It MUST BE CASH FLOW BREAK EVEN within 60 days
4. It must be profitable within 90 days.

Now I see why this guy is my hero. He follows the principle of be patient for growth and impatient for profit. Too many companies have the delusions of grandeur and want $50 million for a website with no business model (i.e. some way to make money).

Lesson to people looking to be an entrepreneur... Figure how to make a little profit. It'll go a long way towards getting funding.

Mark Cuban - my hero

One small step for man

So a lot of people have these great ideas, but they say stuff like “I don’t have time.” Or “I don’t know how.” The answer to these questions (yes it’s another question) is: What’s the next step you CAN take? It doesn’t matter how small a step. It’s infinitely better than taking 0 steps. And if you can be disciplined enough to string together a bunch of these tiny steps, pretty soon you look back and you’re a ton further than you ever thought you’d be. Two proverbs come to mind.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

So what do you think is the most important bite? Or the most important step? You might think it’s the first one. But the most important step is the last step you took plus one. In other words, the next step. It doesn’t matter how small that next step is, as long as you’re taking that next step regularly you’ll be amazed at how much progress you can make.

Have you ever been to Disney World? You get in one of those really long lines for a ride. You step to the end and look at the miles of people in line, winding back and forth like a snake about 20 times before it goes into a building, and who knows how long it goes for inside that building. So you get in line and hunker down for the long haul. As the people in front of you step forward, you take a few steps forward. A few minutes of conversation later, the line moves up another couple steps. You follow. After a few more minutes, you turn the first bend and double back and for the first time you can look at all the schmucks who are BEHIND you in line. And it goes way back. By simply getting in line, taking a few steps at a time, you’re suddenly a ton further than everyone else.

I was having lunch with someone recently, and we were throwing around some business ideas. Then he said to me “boy, you’re so much further than I’ll ever be at starting a business.” Which was really shocking to me because I haven’t even gotten anything to make enough money to even buy him lunch yet. But I took a look back, and if you would’ve told my 2 years ago self that I would even be talking about revenues and expenses at all, and that someone who say that to me, I would’ve been really happy with my future self. And it all started because I started dabbling with some php (which I still suck at) and one of the co-authors on this blog gave me about 3 lines of code to help me out.

I’ll give you another analogy. I’ve been trying to get myself stronger, so a friend challenged me to do 25 pushups by a certain time. My baseline was about 20 at that time. And man was it a struggle to get to 20. One time I got to 20 and was just about to die when I told myself, heck, let’s shoot for 21 just to break that psychological barrier. So I pushed and got 21. The next few times I hit 21. So then I shot for 22. I struggled but got to 22 comfortably. I don’t remember how long ago that was (the friend and I never did follow up on the 25 limit) but I can tell you now I’m at 34. All by taking one seemingly insignificant step at a time.

So go out and figure out what’s one small step you can take. Be creative. If you want to fly to outer space, the first step is to Google “space tourism” and figure out how much it costs. The next step may be to check out this blog to figure out how to start to make that kind of money. Or it maybe to Google “php” and figure out what that is.

One small step for man

My 4 Hour Workweek Moment

The book 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris talks about working no more than four hours a week and from anywhere you want... including the beach. I had my 4-Hour Workweek moment last August, which gave me the vision of what I wanted in my life...

My dad's company sent him to a conference in Honolulu, Hawaii... Quite a boondoggle. My mom joined him, and I figure I would too. Free lodging in Hawaii, all I had to do was buy a plane ticket. My dad even offered to cover that to get me out there, but I really didn't need any more incentive to go so I told him thanks, but I'd be more than happy to pay my own way there. This was August of last year.

Rewind back three years... I was an MBA student, and I discovered that buying textbooks at the bookstore was a crock... you could buy books on Amazon.com for at least $20, if not $50-100 cheaper. So after graduation, I started playing around with creating a site that felt just like buying from the campus bookstore, but it pointed you to Amazon instead. I got some revenue out of it, but nothing major.

Back to last August... I had spent the spring of 2008 working on marketing and promoting the website. I dropped almost $1000 on marketing (doesn't sound like much, but I'm closer to the "corporate" part of corporateprenuership than "entrepreneur"). The start of the textbook buying season coincided with my trip to Hawaii. And since students weren't accessible in the summer, all the advertising was done in the spring. So all I could do was watch and see how much revenue would come in every day.

The resort had a wireless connection, and it was accessible from the beach. So every day, after sightseeing, I'd take a swim in the ocean, have dinner, shower, and head to the beach with my laptop. Since Hawaii was 6 hours behind, I was able to check the previous day's revenue while I was still up. Each day I checked... some days would be $30 days, but some days got as high as $120 days. By the end of the week, I was up to almost $500.

I was living the dream... money was rolling in, while I was basically working one hour a night. That's a 7 hour workweek (not quite 4 hours), but when that one hour a day is spent on a laptop on a beach, I think anyone would sign up for that. The money I made wouldn't even pay for my flight out there, but it was a major breakthrough to taste it for just that week. I considered this the first step in the long term goal of financial independence. My mom took a picture of me with my laptop on the beach, and I have it up on my wall so I can look at it every day.

Some people back home didn't get it... They felt like it was sad that I was working on vacation. On the contrary... people thought my working on the beach was replacing vacationing on the beach. I wanted working on the beach to replace working.

My 4 Hour Workweek Moment

Work hard and the company will take care of you

So what's the first thought that crosses your mind when you hear that? Many people are probably cynical, saying no more loyalty or what not, but there also is a positive ring to it... we're in an era now where we can set it up so we don't NEED the company to take care of us! So why try the entrepreneurship route? How the heck do you even spell entrepreneurship? Here are some reasons I can think of:

1. As a hedge to if something happens to the company you work for, or if you can't find a job when you get out of school. What I don't understand is people who are out of work who decide to get more education. If you're in need of money, why would you go pay more money to other people? Why not go out and try to make some money yourself?

2. As a way to give yourself a raise. Let's say you want a raise. You can work hard, continue to deliver results, and do what you can to show everyone that you deserve a raise. Then you can go state your case to your boss, who may or may not be able to give you a raise. Let's say he does. That raise then kicks in the next paycheck... maybe it's 5%. Maybe it's 10%. But it's maybe 6 months or a year later! If you've got your own business, you get a raise the second you deliver results.

3. A way to really leverage our strengths and keep you sane at work. You are in control over what venture you want to do. So you can pick stuff you're interested in and good at. For me, it's a great release when my ideas fall on deaf ears at work because it's not part of our "core competencies" or corporate strategy. It's a creative outlet for me that allows me to use the skills that my job doesn't let me use!

So that's why I do it. So far I've not been successful yet in turning a profit, but I'm gonna try until I get it! And hopefully blogging about it and hearing what everyone else's trials and tribulations are will keep me motivated.

Work hard and the company will take care of you