Dave Baldwin

I’ve Accidentally Started a Business!

June 14th, 2013

dave

It seems I’ve started a business. A Virtual Assistant business, to be exact.

As the title says, I can assure you that this happened purely by accident. This type of thing can happen to anyone. It might happen to you if you aren’t careful. I’ve learned something important about business. You don’t get into business because you decide to. You get into business because it’s time for you to get into business.

In 2007, I “decided” to start a business. The endeavor was a spectacularly hilarious failure. I started out by attempting to sell protein shakes and vitamins. Then, as I’ve shared on numerous occasions, I attempted to start a number of different businesses, all with ambiguous purposes and confusing titles. Case in point: I decided I would become a “Transformational Energy Consultant” one day. I can’t remember quite what I thought this was going to look like. But to make a very long story short, I ran out of money and nearly ran myself into the ground after several fruitless years of trying to build what I thought was a business. I simply wasn’t willing to accept the plain reality that I wasn’t ready yet, and that the time wasn’t right.

During this period, I repeatedly tried to sell myself as a writer. I just couldn’t make a go of it. Looking back on it, the reasons are obvious. I hadn’t researched the market. I hadn’t determined what people really wanted and needed. I hadn’t structured my business the right way. I hadn’t done the math and figured out what my numbers needed to be in order for the economics to work. I didn’t have the conditioning of an entrepreneur. I wasn’t clear about my goals. But all of that was superficial. There was a deeper truth that I wasn’t paying attention to. It just wasn’t time yet. I wanted it to be time, but it wasn’t. I wanted the fruit to be ripe, but it wasn’t ripe yet.

Fast forward to May of 2013. I found myself at a crossroads, trying to figure out what my next moves were. I “decided” to look for a fast food job. Food food jobs were not forthcoming. Every place that I applied said the same thing: “No, we’re not hiring, but we’ll take your application.” It was a blow to my ego to realize that I couldn’t even manage to get hired to flip burgers—and to see that I was getting passed over for jobs that high school kids were getting.

Then, the next day, I woke up with an old idea.

See, it wasn’t a new idea. It was an idea I’d be tossing around for a number of years. Why not start a Virtual Assistant business? The service fills an underserved need in the marketplace. I’d known it for several years. And I thought to myself, “It’s time.”

“But…”

Then came the “buts” and the “what if’s.” “But I don’t have enough capital.” “But I don’t have enough time. I don’t have the experience. I don’t have the proof that this will work. What if it doesn’t take off quickly enough? What if I fail? What if I never get off the ground?” In the end, I decided that waiting for every traffic light to go green at the same time would condemn me to a life of mediocrity and quiet desperation. I decided that if I don’t go for it now, I probably never will.

What led me to decide to do this now, rather than before? I’m not sure. Something just clicked. A switch in my brain flipped. Maybe it was divine inspiration. Maybe it was my entrepreneur’s biological clock ticking. But there came a moment when I just knew that I had to move forward, and that I would never have the proof.

What’s the difference between now and 2007? After all, I didn’t have the proof back then, either. But that wasn’t the issue. Back then, I thought I got to decide how and when I would go into business. I tried to seize control of a process that wasn’t mine to control. I tried to dictate the terms of how people would do business with me. The result? They walked away. It took a lot of awkward situations to show me that I am not in control. This time, I didn’t decide to go into business. I found myself going into business because that was simply the only logical move to make.

I don’t particularly want to start a business right now. It’s not a convenient time. Yes, I’m excited, but I’m not euphoric. Actually, I’m a bit scared. I would rather wait six months to a year to build up a nest egg. I don’t feel like I’m ready. But ready or not, the time is now and I’m moving forward.

It’s almost too simple to describe. It’s as if I’m in the Matrix and I just popped the Red Pill. I’m not sure what’s about to happen, but I have the distinct feeling that things are about to get very interesting.

If you’re thinking of going into business and having a hard time deciding whether or not now is the right time, I’m afraid I have nothing useful to offer you. I wish I could tell you that “you’ll just know” if it’s time, but that’s BS. I would have told you that I “just knew” in 2007, and I was dead wrong. I would have told you that I “just knew” that my business idea was the perfect thing to do. I don’t “just know” right now. In fact, I am stewing in uncertainty as I write this post. I’m wallowing in doubts, what-if’s, questions I don’t have the answers to, and a need for answers that I don’t have the questions to. I am not at all comfortable. I am not at all certain of what the outcome will look like.

It doesn’t feel like I made the perfect decision. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I made a decision. It won’t go perfectly. There will be bumps in the road. I will do things that I’ll realize I should have done differently. I’ll get scraped up and banged around a bit. But in the end, it will be worth it.

Tonight, I’m going to sleep with a smile on my face.

June 9th, 2013

dave

Update 6/18/2013: When I couldn’t get hired for a retail job, I started a business instead. The response has blown me away! So, it looks like my latte-serving plans have been thwarted for the time being.

~~If you personally know the general manager of a fast food joint or a coffee shop in North Raleigh (the 27609 area code) that’s hiring, tell them you know the perfect man for the job.~~ Yep, that’s right—I’ve decided to go back to being a freelancer. When you’re freelancing, you need an anchor of stability and a Zen-like job to keep you grounded. I’ve learned this over the years.

I’ve held a number of retail jobs over the years. The first job I had in high school was at Wendy’s. I worked there for about two and a half years. I could tell you some stories. I’m pretty good with a spatula and I can run a drive through cash register with the best of them. It might be a hoot to go back there again. I worked at the seafood counter of a grocery store in 2002, and I worked at Starbucks in 2008. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out for me to stay there when my primary job required me to be on call 24/7, eliminating any possibility of keeping another job on the side. I have a certain nostalgia when I think of the times when I’ve served the general public. In particular, I was sad when I left Starbucks. I’d really love to go back there. (Update: maybe I will still set up shop in a Starbucks.)

It appears I’ve picked a bad time of year to decide to pursue retail. I’ve put in some applications, but so far, I haven’t had any success. I attribute this to the fact that I’m competing with high school kids who just got out for the summer. Also, I may be up against a perception that I’m unlikely to stay, which is understandable. However, I have an unusual dream that involves working long-term for a fast food joint or coffee shop. Contrary to the way things may seem, I am not just looking for a temporary source of cash until I find something better. I can picture myself serving up lattes or burgers for the next 40 years—although it would likely only be one or two days a week. The idea has a strange sort of appeal to it.

See, I’m not interested in working at another full-time corporate gig. I’m just not an 8-to-5 kind of guy. I’d much rather derive a steady income base at a coffee shop, add some additional income from freelancing, and slowly build some residual income streams. Then, once I’ve learned to do that, I want to teach other people to do it as well. That’s a big part of why I’ve started playing the Cash Flow board game. (Side note: If you live in the Raleigh area, come check out the Raleigh-Cary Cash Flow Club).

One of the things that I’ve learned from playing Cash Flow is that a high-paying job does not create a financial advantage, which I came to learn the hard way. A year after I had finished high school, one of the managers at the Wendy’s where I worked asked me if I’d ever thought about going into fast food management. I rejected the idea at the time, partly because I’d already committed myself to going to technical school. But now that I think about it, part of me wishes I’d stayed in fast food. I racked up a bunch of debt to get some pieces of paper, and for what? Sure, I ramped up my income faster that way. I got to go some places and see some things. But in the end, it got me no closer to building real wealth.

There are some things I really like about fast food environments. First of all, the turnover is high. That means that things are always in flux, and the environment never stagnates. You never can predict how things will look in six months, or who the team will be. I like that. Also, retail gives you constant exposure to the public. During my brief stint at Starbucks, people started coming to look for me there. But perhaps most importantly, it keeps you humble. Mopping floors and scrubbing toilets on a regular basis is a good reminder that you aren’t any better than anyone else. I’ve found that I need that reminder. I’m very prone to arrogance. (Update: I’m still working on that.)

~~So, if you’d be so kind as to put in a good word for me at a local fast food joint or coffee shop, I’d be much obliged.~~

April 15th, 2013

dave

Not that I particularly expect anyone to notice, but I haven’t written a new blog post in almost a month.

And it feels great.

The pressure’s off. I’m not really sure why I ever felt pressure to blog—it’s not a rational thing. But I do know my own psychology enough to realize that I’m driven by the self-imposed pressure to continue doing things once I’ve started doing them. I used to feel my chest beginning to constrict and my breathing becoming faster if I saw a blog post date more than a week old. I wasn’t particularly concerned about what people would think—I was falling short of my own expectations. I didn’t like to see my blog with an old stamp on it, any more than I like coming home to a sink filled with dirty dishes. I had never made a promise to anyone about how often I would blog, but I felt that I was bound by an implicit law. If I owned a blog, I thought, it was my moral duty to keep it up to date with fresh content.

And then one day, I decided that enough was enough. I’m not sure what day that was, exactly. But I just decided that I was done pressuring myself to write at fixed intervals.

But, more importantly, there was another factor driving my decision to walk away from the keyboard: blogging was not moving me toward my goals. It was taking up valuable time that could have been put to better use doing practical things. Sure, it was fun. It’s fine as a hobby. But hobbies don’t deserve to get the same priority as business activities. Previously, I was treating blogging as if it were a business activity. No one has ever paid me a dime to write a blog post. But there were nights that I didn’t let myself go to bed until I had written a blog post.

What a perfect way to siphon the joy out of a hobby.

I recently read an excellent pictorial article about the differences between being a hobbyist photographer and starting a photography business. The exact same concept applies to writing. Now, don’t get me wrong. I never consciously thought that my blog was a “business.” I never expected checks to start arriving in the mailbox as a result of my blog posts, no matter how brilliant I thought they were. But I was acting out of habit, unconsciously and automatically. I would tell myself that I “have to” write a blog post. A hobby isn’t something you have to do. Right now, I don’t have to write this blog post. I’m writing it because I felt like writing it.

I do a lot of writing at work as a part of my job. But that kind writing is different. I do it whether I feel like it or not. I don’t always feel like it. However, that’s not a problem when you’re getting paid. My blog was in a third category. It was the worst of both worlds. It wasn’t fun, and it wasn’t paying the bills. I was stressing over non-existent deadlines. Blogging wasn’t the least bit fun anymore. It was just an obligation. It was drudgery. It was another item on my to-do list that I resented doing.

No more. I refuse to profane my art form any longer.

When will I post on this blog again? Who knows. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week. Maybe next year. Maybe never. But should I choose to post again, it will be because inspiration struck, not because I felt like I had to.

March 21st, 2013

dave

Have you ever given or received the ambiguous advice, “You’ll get there”?

There have been a number of times when I’ve found myself confused at a crossroads in life, not sure of which direction to take. I’ve often heard the words “Don’t worry—You’ll get there eventually.” For example, I’ve often heard people saying that if you follow your passion, you’ll eventually be successful. I’m not so sure about the wisdom of giving out advice like this. It could be dangerous.

Success is not always inevitable. Good things do not always come to those who wait. The early bird does not always get the worm. Hard work is not always rewarded. Studying hard and graduating from college with a 4.0 average does not guarantee you high-paying employment. We have created a culture of superstition when it comes to success. We want to believe that if we do this or that, we will be guaranteed to get what we want in life. But it just doesn’t work that way. There is no formula. Maybe there was at one time, but I doubt it.

There is good news here. The lack of a guarantee is an advantage in itself. If nothing is guaranteed to work, then there is never a guarantee that your next break isn’t right around the corner. What if, instead of believing that success is eventual and guaranteed, we decided to adopt the assumption that success is close at hand—but requires us to choose it?

Real estate investor Dolf De Roos is known for saying that “the deal of the decade comes along about once a week.” I believe that he’s right. Opportunity is out there today. It’s ready for us today. It’s not a reward that will come after long years of hard work. I’m not saying that you can get rich quick without working—if I knew how to do that, I’d have done it myself. What I am saying is that it might be worth looking at things from a different vantage point. Consider that if you don’t have what you want yet, you may be deluding yourself if you think that you just need to put in your time and keep doing what you’re doing for awhile longer. It might be that success is right under your nose—but will require a radical shift in the way you think, speak, and act.

There is no lack of opportunity. What most people lack is the perspective to see it—or the courage to act on it.

Instead of thinking that you’ll “get there” if you just keep at it for one more day or one more year, try asking yourself a couple of different questions:

If the perfect opportunity were under your nose—right now—how would you know it?
If you are on the wrong path, or on a circuitous path to success, what would it take to steer yourself onto a more effective and direct path?
What would it take for you to clearly see whether or not the direction you’re headed will take you where you want to go?
If you knew that it would take you another twenty years to get the results you’re after on your current path, would you still keep at it for the love of the game?

It’s one thing to think that “you’ll get there” when you really know that you will. It’s another thing to say those words as a way of burying your head in the sand and hoping for the best. Make sure that you know the difference.

March 13th, 2013

dave

I wish someone had explained some things to me before I went to college.

I attended Lincoln Technical Institute in 1996, one year after I graduated from Emmaus High School. Things went pretty much as planned. I finished my Associate’s Degree in 14 short months, and before I had graduated, I had secured a job in a factory. I used much of what I had learned on a daily basis to maintain and troubleshoot automated chip bonding equipment. I was granted increasing levels of pay and responsibility. Eventually, I ended up in the Model Shop, which was part of R&D. We built prototypes of new product lines and did various types of mechanical and electrical testing. All of that came to an end in 2001 when the telecom boom crashed and the factory laid off most of its staff.

No problem, I said. I decided to go back to school, finish my Bachelor’s Degree, and use my elevated level of training to secure a new job at a higher level of pay. The way I understood it, that was how it worked. The more you learn, the more you earn. That didn’t work out as well as I thought it would. Upon completing my BS, I landed a job as a field service technician at a rate of pay comparable to my old job. After starting in that role, I soon learned that the majority of the technicians (there were 42 of us at the time) didn’t have college degrees. In fact, a couple hadn’t even finished high school. It slowly dawned on me that my degree wasn’t actually making me any more money.

A college degree doesn’t guarantee you anything.

Looking back on my end-of-college days, I can see that I basically approached the job market with my hand out. “I did my time,” I said. “Now give me a job. That was the deal. I held up my end; now you hold up yours.” But it doesn’t work that way. Getting a job is all about marketing. Marketing is all about creating perceived value. Perceived value is whatever the customer says it is. There apparently used to be a time when a college degree would predictably raise the perceived value of everybody who had one. Having never lived during that time, I can only speculate that employers must have had similar expectations. But that’s not the world we live in today.

I couldn’t possibly explain it better than Jack Welch did. Welch, the famed former CEO of General Electric, discusses in a short article what he believes to be the most important component of success: authenticity. “The most powerful thing you can do is, well, be real. As in not phony. As in grappling, sweating, laughing, and caring. As in authentic.” Unfortunately, college doesn’t teach authenticity. They teach how to memorize facts, follow instructions, and master certain arbitrarily-chosen skill sets. For example, I learned how to hand-draw a contour map in Geology 102. Authenticity cannot be learned through rote memorization and drills. It can only be learned by spending time around people. As far as I can tell, there is only one formula for learning to develop authenticity:

Learn how to sell.

That’s it, really. If there’s one universal skill that every student could learn that would guarantee a positive ROI on a college education, it’s the skill of learning to sell. If you can learn how to get people to write you a check (and deliver on what you sold), you can accomplish anything you want. That’s what I wish someone had explained to me in college. In order to sell, you have to learn to understand what people value. You have to learn to read between the lines. You have to learn all of the things that you will never read in a textbook.

I thought that it worked differently. I thought that if I accumulated enough information, my newly acquired knowledge would guarantee me a high income. But I’ve met people with Master’s degrees and Ph.D.’s who couldn’t find jobs—or who were working the same low-wage jobs as people with no degrees at all. What I’ve come to realize is that a degree—or a resume for that matter—is like a tri-fold brochure or a PowerPoint presentation. It’s a piece of sales collateral. It’s only a tool. A marketing tool is only effective when you select it strategically and use it skillfully.

If I had known back then what I know now, I would have approached college very differently. I’m not sure I would have gone at all. But if I did go to college, my goal would have been to build a network of strategic business relationships. I also would have been seeking more profitable employment from day one of my freshman year. I would have focused on increasing my income, little by little—even if only in 1% increments—and making sure that I kept the contact information of everyone I met. I also would have made sure to stay in touch and make sure they still remembered me.

If you’re in college, or about to start college, you have a huge opportunity. You have a chance to rethink the whole purpose of your college education. Why do you think you are in school? You might want to check out Seth Godin’s TED Talk, where he poses the question, “What is school for?” The neat thing about this question is that anyone has the opportunity to ask it. Personally, I think that there are four things that every school could benefit from teaching (and every student could benefit from seeking to learn):

How to sell.
How to negotiate a favorable deal.
How to make sure you actually get paid.
How to train your mind to look for opportunity in every situation.

If you’re in school, and your school doesn’t teach these things, don’t worry. You can still learn them. Knowledge—the useful kind—isn’t spoon-fed. It’s usually not on the test. Don’t complain if your school isn’t teaching you the right things. Instead, become a relentless seeker of truth and knowledge. Look for opportunities at your school to help you learn what will make you successful. Remember that your school already has their money, and they still get paid whether you land the job you want or not. No one has as much skin in the game as you do.

Don’t wait for someone to create a job for you. These days, you have to create your own job. You have to convince an employer that they can’t afford not to hire you. In fact, you have to convince them that they can’t afford to wait—they need to see that if they don’t move quickly and snap you up, someone else will. It’s not enough to have a 4.0 grade point average. In fact, no one is ever going to give a damn about your grades. Your next employer is only going to care about one thing: whether or not they will make more money as a result of adding you to their payroll. If you can convince the right person at the right time—you’ve got the job. It’s easier said than done, so you’d better get started practicing. Don’t wait until the last semester of your senior year and say, “I guess I’d better start thinking about a job.” Don’t even wait another day.

I believe that if every college student realized the importance of learning how to sell, the job market would look much healthier. The days of pre-made jobs are over. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing. All that it means is that the game has changed.

Photo credit: Clawed / Foter.com / CC BY-SA

March 9th, 2013

dave

I’ve been reading a lot of Napoleon Hill lately. I used to gloss over Hill’s work impatiently, thinking to myself, “Yeah, yeah, I already get this stuff.” But here’s what I wasn’t being honest about. I understood Hill’s concepts intellectually, but for the most part, I didn’t practice them. There came a point when I had to ask myself: how can I say that I “get” something if I don’t do it?

One of the concepts that I found I needed to work on the most was persistence. Hill emphasizes repeatedly the need to persist. Historically, I have had a poor track record in this area. My usual modus operandi has been to abandon a new idea if I don’t see results in a short period of time. I have allowed myself to believe that a good idea just shouldn’t require that much persistence. Furthermore, I thought, how do I know that persistence is getting me anywhere at all if I don’t see the fruits of my effort? But there was something I didn’t understand.

The results don’t ultimately matter. It’s the habit that matters.

For example, I recently started a Facebook group focusing on The Law of Success (Hill’s predecessor to Think and Grow Rich). I envisioned a group where the members would engage in lively discussion and deepen relationships. I could see, in my mind’s eye, a virtual community that would potentially span the globe and grow into a grassroots movement of people who take on the challenge of building unprecedented success in their lives through practicing the principles in the book. I’ve only had the group up for a short couple of months, and very little is happening so far. In fact, Facebook tells me that no more than two people have looked at any single post that I’ve put up for the past several weeks.

For most of my life, I’d usually quit when I got to this point. I’d say that if no one is engaging, why bother? But I’ve decided that if I focus on only one thing this year, it will be to develop the habit of persistence. It might mean that I post content to a group with few responses for the next six months before I begin to see measurable evidence that the group is making a real impact. There are some things that cannot be directly measured. Even if only one person saw a posting, I can never know how that person’s day was affected by what they read. For all I know, they could have told 200 of their friends about it offline. Do I think that’s likely? No. But the point is, I’ll never really know.

Napoleon Hill is famous for telling a story about a gold prospector who gave up drilling for gold when he was three feet away from the vein. He didn’t know that the gold was close by—and he missed out because he failed to consult the right experts. We aren’t always three feet away from the gold in every moment, but there are times when I suspect that I’m nearer that it might seem. During those times, persistence can make all the difference. However, there’s a difference between persistence and blind stubbornness that, until recently, I had failed to discern. You can mindlessly repeat the same behavior again and again in a futile effort to produce a result, but that’s not persistence. That’s insanity.

Persistence itself is the reward.

Persistence doesn’t begin with stubbornness. Persistence doesn’t come about by sheer force of will, any more than an alcoholic can quit drinking by white-knuckling it. Persistence is given; it is not taken. When we align ourselves to our true purpose in life, persistence results from that alignment. Persistence is the end result of imagination coupled with desire—and tempered with humility. These ingredients, when combined in the right way, produce a near-magical synergy. It is at the intersection of imagination, desire, and humility that persistence comes naturally into being.

Have you ever had one of those mornings when your body was physically tired, when it was cold outside and warm in bed, and yet despite all of that, you were still excited about the opportunity that you knew you were about to encounter that day? Have you ever had the experience of feeling a tiny nudge to go on working on an important project because you knew that getting over the next critical hump could open a door? That is what it looks like to develop natural persistence—the state of being inspired by the mystery of life. That is the kind of persistence that has the power to move mountains, and I believe that it was precisely this quality that Napoleon Hill was talking about in his writings on the subject of persistence.

In Matthew 17:20, it is said that “…if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Persistence is the measure of faith.

I used to think that if I tried something for a month or two and didn’t see the results, it meant I was on the wrong track. But what I’m starting to see is that this tempering period is necessary not only to produce humility, but also to allow us to experience faith. Personally, I rode into the entrepreneurial world on my high horse in 2007, and I had to get knocked off it a bunch of times before I became willing to listen to anybody. It took me an unnaturally long time to learn some pretty simple and basic lessons, and only for the reason that I didn’t understand the true nature of persistence. If I’d understood, in the beginning, that persistence is not born of willpower but is, in itself, a privilege, I might have approached building a business differently. I might have learned to develop my imagination one day at a time and learned to enjoy the process.

I can’t exactly say that I’ve mastered persistence just yet. What I can say is that I’ve won a small-but-important victory. I have abandoned the futile goal of attempting to produce persistence by an act of self-will. I am now asking myself three important questions instead.

What will it take to imagine more vividly, and more continually, the success that I really want?
What will it take to awaken my heart’s true desire more fully?

Last but not least…

What will it take to temper my inner wild horse with a deeper degree of humility?

Creating persistence happens one day at a time. It is a character trait that must be cultivated deliberately. Just for today, I have gained one smidgen of persistence. Tomorrow, I will gain another.

What about you?

Photo credit: M Carmody Photography / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

March 4th, 2013

dave

As an overly creative person, I have wasted a lot of time brainstorming ideas that I never did a thing with. I have devoted the past several years to the development of my creativity, and along the way, I’ve learned that there are some simple things that can make all the difference between an idea that gains traction and one that just burns up energy needlessly. An idea that dies quickly isn’t a bad one; in fact, that’s a great outcome. The most dangerous ideas are the ones that sound like good ones—but aren’t. In fact, there are some ideas that sound so good, everyone around you will agree with them.

I can remember one time when an employer went through an odd phase. Upper management decided to assemble everybody into small groups and collect everyone’s feedback on what we thought needed to change. Our group spent two hours on a conference call, collecting people’s ideas about what could be done to improve the business’s effectiveness. People called out all kinds of things. One person suggested a peer recognition program. Someone else suggested automating time-consuming processes. I suggested a couple of ways to reduce airfares by planning more proactively. Everybody felt great—but at the end of the day, none of the ideas were implemented.

Brainstorming is not guaranteed to produce useful ideas.

The output of brainstorming can vary tremendously; however, the process is valuable for a number of reasons that often aren’t talked about. In the case of the exercise I just mentioned, most of the ideas would have been useful if they’d been implemented. However, one thing was lacking: buy-in. In order for an idea to gain traction, someone with sufficient authority needs to pull the trigger and allocate the necessary resources. Some ideas are simple enough for a line worker to implement without asking anyone’s permission, but the types of ideas we talked about were the kinds of things that typically require top-down implementation.

If we’d framed the exercise differently, we might have gotten different results. For example, if we’d narrowed the scope of ideas to things that we could implement without needing to wait for the green light from senior management, we might have had a whole different discussion. We might have created a “skunk works” project or a grassroots movement. On the other hand, we might have brainstormed ways to get resources allocated for our ideas. Most brainstorming sessions that I’ve ever participated in have lacked these kinds of practical parameters. They usually consist of “anything goes” ideas, and as a result, they tend to produce little more than momentary excitement.

There are three qualities that make a useful idea.

A useful idea must solve a real problem. It must be practical to implement. Perhaps most importantly, someone, at some point, has to buy into it. That’s why totally open brainstorming sessions most often fail to produce lasting results. Many people will tell you never to filter ideas at all during a brainstorming session, and to just “let it rip.” Write it down, they’ll tell you, no matter how ridiculous it might sound. You never know just which idea might be the right one. I can agree with this—but only up to a point. It’s fine to “let it rip” for five to fifteen minutes, but only as a warm-up exercise to get everyone’s juices flowing. If you brainstorm much longer than that without setting boundaries, the point of diminishing returns will set in quickly. If, instead, you think critically about the real problem you’re trying to solve, you may soon find new insights and ideas coming in before you even start to brainstorm. Instead of trying to brainstorm solutions and being open to anything, try brainstorming answers to different questions—and spend some effort coming up with more useful ones. For example, you might try coming up with a few simple ideas and then brainstorming about what challenges you would most likely face when implementing each one.

I can only begin to scratch the surface on what there is to say about the art and science of brainstorming. It is a worthwhile endeavor, and most people would benefit from doing it more often. However, brainstorming is not a casual thing to play with. It demands discipline, practice, and rigor—just like playing the violin does. Give it a try today, and ask yourself what might be possible if you devoted the next year of your life to getting better at coming up with useful ideas.

Photo credit: Cayusa / Foter.com / CC BY-NC

March 2nd, 2013

dave

I was recently inspired to write this blog post when I saw a video by code.org. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and a handful of other tech-savvy entrepreneurs share about why computer programming is not just for computer geeks. It is quickly becoming a basic requirement for literacy in the technological age. Writing computer code, just like writing blog posts, isn’t just about producing a great end product. It’s about submitting to the process and allowing yourself to be transformed by the act of creating something. However, learning to think like a coder has side effects.

The first time I wrote a computer program was 1989. I learned AppleSoft BASIC (Beginner’s All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) on my Apple IIGS computer. It had a 3.5” floppy drive as well as a 5.25” floppy. It had a 512K of RAM. (That’s “K” as in kilobytes—not megabytes or gigabytes.) The screen could display 16 colors. There was no hard drive and no modem. Eventually, my grandparents bought us an ImageWriter II dot-matrix printer (the kind with the holes in the side of the paper). I remember becoming quickly enamored with the process of writing code. I first wrote a program that said, “Hello.” Then, I learned to write programs to do things like calculate sums and averages and play guessing games.

Throughout high school and afterward, I continued to take computer programming classes (and read books about programming). I eventually learned Pascal, C, C++, Visual Basic, Java, Javascript, and ladder logic. I learned about things like loops, iteration, recursion, trees, linked lists, top-down design, and object-oriented programming. Programming became at least a small part of every job that I held. The way that I think and operate today is influenced heavily by what I learned about programming—both for better and for worse. The reasons why I consider programming to be simultaneously a blessing and a curse might surprise you—particularly if you have never programmed.

It teaches you to break everything down into an algorithm.

When you’re solving a problem manually, you have a lot of flexibility to be lazy and disorganized. You can just “wing it.” When you’re instructing a computer to perform a task, your brain has to break the problem down into specific components. Computers are dumb machines. They have to be told exactly what to do, down to the last detail. This exercise conditions you to think through the implementation of an idea, which is highly useful for any entrepreneur. It’s useful especially if you are a “conceptual” person who can easily conceive an idea, but cannot translate that idea into practical nuts and bolts.

At the same time, there are some things that simply cannot be reduced to a formula. Love cannot be systematized. Intuition cannot be deduced by logic. There can be no formula for reading between the lines—or for paying attention to the unspoken intricacies of conversation. The sheer irrationality that governs human behavior can make it hard for an algorithmically-minded person to function in the real world. I know this because I struggle with it every day. My programming background did nothing to prepare me for passive-aggressive behavior, power plays, or other common dysfunctions that run rampant through communities.

It trains your mind to look for ways to improve efficiency.

Programming is all about streamlining, organizing, and making things flow elegantly. An effective computer program is broken down into well-named subroutines. It’s designed to minimize the number of instructions for a computer to execute. The more lines of code a computer has to run, the longer the job will take. A 0.1-second difference in execution time can be a big deal if that instruction is being repeated millions of times. Inefficiently organized code can lead to frequent bugs. Cryptic naming conventions can make it easy to forget what a block of code does, which can be inconvenient if you need to modify it months after writing it.

I’ve noticed that I have a tendency to pursue efficiency at all costs, sometimes at the expense of the human side of things. Processing people efficiently does not always lead to good relationships. People don’t appreciate being plugged into a system. While it might be more efficient to have four 15-minute phone calls back to back than to meet one person face to face for an hour, the latter can allow for subtle, non-quantifiable nuances of communication such as body language and gestures. The efficiency-obsessed person never makes sacrifices for the sake of anything that can’t be measured.

Learning computer syntax reshapes your communication with people.

Computers are literal machines. They don’t know how to read body language or other subjective signals. When you’re talking to a computer, you have to say exactly what you mean. It does not exercise common sense or judgment because it has none. Computers have zero tolerance for error. One misspelled word can cause a program to crash. Remove even one comma or semicolon from a line of code, and the computer will have no idea what to do.

When you get in the habit of structuring your code within the boundaries of syntax rules, you also train yourself to speak literally in all of your communication and think carefully about the meaning of each individual word in the context that it’s used. It took me awhile to realize this, but I am a very literal communicator. When someone says something to me and really means something else, I have a tendency to miss the double-meaning. I have a tendency to assume that you mean exactly what you say—and expect you to interpret what I say in the literal sense.

(Yes, I am one of those people who gets annoyed with incorrect usage of the word “literally,” such as “I literally through the baby out with the bath water” or “my stomach literally exploded.”)

I generally agree with Gates, Zuckerberg, and the rest of the producers of the video—with a caveat. If you have the opportunity to learn to code, do it. But be aware that there are two sides to this story. Everyone can benefit from learning basic programming. But at the same time, anyone who spends a significant amount of time writing code would do well to practice a right-brained art form (such as painting, music, theater, or dance). The market demands a more adaptable brain these days. Doubtless, we will all uncover new skills that become more critical over time. But no single skill will ever be the key to winning the market. Achieving greatness will always require a carefully thought out combination of competencies.

Let’s face it; the world is a collection of moving targets. Life just isn’t that simple. But I think that’s good news.

Photo credit: Patrick Hoesly / Foter.com / CC BY

February 25th, 2013

dave

Someone came up with a brilliant idea that I read about a couple of years back. The concept: an “Eye-Gazing Party.” Here’s the premise: get a group of single people together and facilitate an “eye-gazing” exercise. As you might have guessed, the exercise consists of looking one person in the eye, for two minutes straight, in complete and total silence. Then, you move on to the next person, and the next person, until you have repeated the exercise with everyone in the room. The inventor created a web site dedicated to the concept, and you can download an e-book explaining exactly how to organize an eye-gazing party of your own.

I might have been skeptical about this idea before 2007. However, I did a similar exercise to this when I participated in the Landmark Advanced Course in Philadelphia. I remember looking directly into the eyes of a number of the other participants, and a strange effect overtook me. I began to see each person as fundamentally the same. I was able to see the humanity under the personalities. We all felt a tad bit more vulnerable—a bit more authentic than most people are willing to get.

I have wondered about what might be possible if the world of business networking were to embrace the power of vulnerability and authenticity by using silence as a tool for creating just the right kind of discomfort. The modern entrepreneur trying to make money in business today is facing a lot of tough challenges. People go to networking events in the hope of building relationships, but that’s hard to do when everyone in the room is playing it safe and trying to look good at all costs.

Imagine, if you will, what might happen if you attended a business networking event, and found yourself among 100 fellow entrepreneurs—with no one saying a word. Imagine spending an hour or so, just walking among the crowd and mingling, but with no talking. No business cards, no free chicken wings, and no music in the background. What would you do? How would you communicate? I’m willing to bet that you would find the experience transformational. Everyone in the room would walk out of there a different person.

Another alternative: “lights-out” networking. Talking would be allowed in this instance, but the doors would close and the lights would go out. Imagine having to network without being able to see anything. You’d have to recognize people by their voices alone, without the benefit of seeing facial expressions or body language.

If you organize an event like this, feel free to invite me. I’ll invite everyone I know. I just might do it myself!

February 21st, 2013

dave

Sometimes, we take the freedom of speech in unproductive directions.

At some point in American history, somebody decided that it was a virtue to have an opinion about everything—and to have a big mouth about that opinion. I’m not sure exactly what benefit this is supposed to have, but I have yet to see anyone make a lasting difference in the world by expressing an opinion. As far as I can tell, opinions have no practical use at all. They don’t solve problems, they don’t open the way to new perspectives, and they don’t create progress. In fact, they do the opposite. They cut off communication. They kill possibility. They damage relationships. They stifle progress, and they reinforce fixed, one-sided points of view.

Awhile back, someone asked me what my opinion about embryonic stem cell research was. I responded that I hadn’t done any research on the subject and didn’t really know the facts, so I didn’t have any basis on which to form an opinion. His body stiffened and he became visibly aggravated. He said, “You must have an opinion about it.” I said that no, I didn’t. The conversation became heated and I don’t remember exactly how it went, but at one point, he accused me of being a coward. I’m sad to say that this attitude seems to be somewhat typical.

I’d like to offer a different view of things. It takes a disciplined mind to remove opinion from the process of making decisions. Opinions are the result of conditioning and emotional reactions. Opinions are never original thoughts. They are simply rehashed statements infused with emotion. If you want to make an effective decision, you need to learn to look at a situation and ignore everything except what matters—and your opinion never matters.

If you use your freedom of speech to express opinions, consider that you don’t know what freedom of speech is. If your idea of expressing free speech is loudly squawking a one-sided, one-dimensional view of a controversial issue and consequently alienating half of the people you know, then your speech isn’t free. Your words aren’t your own—in fact, your thoughts aren’t your own.

Living according to your opinion will enslave you.

But, there is good news.

What if you had more power than you could possibly imagine? What if you had the power to make an impact on a global scale? Are you upset about hydraulic fracturing? Outraged about abortion? Is there a cause or issue that really ruffles your feathers more than anything else? If you could pick one thing to change in the whole world—but only one—what might that be?

Consider that you have the power to leave a lasting impact on the world—but that developing your power begins with accepting the cold hard reality that nobody gives a damn about your opinion.

When you make the conscious choice to give up the right to have an opinion, something magical happens. You gain a new level of clarity into the facts. You begin to see the world in a way that reveals hidden opportunities and possibilities. However, this skill takes time and effort to practice. You were raised in a world filled with opinions, and you are surrounded with people who, for the most part, take pride in telling you all about theirs. The individual who chooses to detach from the world of opinion has an uphill battle to fight—but you’re not alone in that battle.

John 8:32 says “The truth will set you free.” Werner Erhard, Founder of EST added to that quote by saying, “The truth will set you free, but first it’s going to piss you off.” Ask yourself this: are you willing to face the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—even if you really don’t like it and would rather believe something else? Sometimes, setting aside your opinion is uncomfortable for the simple reason that it forces you to deal with reality. But the discomfort and sting of looking at unpleasant truth is temporary. The slow-burning anger that stems from the powerlessness of an opinion-driven life is permanent.

Giving up the right to an opinion elevates you to a new level of personal power.

When you stop making decisions based on your opinion, your words start to carry more weight. You can feel a greater degree of power when you speak. You begin to find it easier to hold the attention of the people in the room. When your speech is devoid of your personal biases, your voice becomes authoritative. This shift is immediate. You’ll begin to notice a change happening within yourself. You’ll feel a new kind of certainty accompanying your declarations. For example, if you say that two plus two equals four, you don’t doubt the truth of what you’re saying.

Injecting opinions into your speech is one of the greatest sources of doubt. It can kill self-confidence. When that burden is lifted from you, you’ll be ready to expand your performance into new areas you had never even thought about.

Abandoning your opinion takes practice. If you want to take on the challenge of being objective, you’ll need to start paying close attention to every word you say. The first step: practice saying “I don’t know” and getting more comfortable with not knowing the answer. Ordinary people, in the absence of fact, will make up the answers. When you say “I don’t know,” it forces you to feel the discomfort of not having the facts—and it motivates you to look for the facts.

Finally, you may begin to notice frequent use of the word “should” in your speaking. This word is an indicator that you are likely substituting opinion for fact. Each time you hear yourself saying this word, substitute a fact-based question for a “should” statement—and add a sprinkle of curiosity. For example, if you notice yourself thinking, “Sue should stop smoking,” ask yourself, “I wonder why Sue doesn’t stop smoking?” If you do this and nothing else, you will find heavy emotion dissipating and a childlike playfulness slowly displacing it over time. You will also find frustration giving way to new ideas for action you could take.

Opinions are highly overrated. Trying going without your opinions for just one day. You will be pleasantly surprised.

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