I was on Google+ today and read something by Carol Roth. While reading I was reminded of her book that I received as a gift from Erika Napoletano (redheadwriting.com). The Entrepreneur Equation was a great read and a really hard read for exactly the same reasons.
I was extremely excited to get this book from Erika because I've been thinking of getting my own business started and I thought this would give me insight into the process. I was right, but I'm afraid I'm not encouraged by the insight. Carol opened my eyes to what it means to be a business owner. The American Dream has been fed to us since we were little and no one ever tells you that 80% of people fail at the American Dream. They only tell you how this guy they know made it big selling widgets and now he lives in Tahiti or some exotic place all because he took a chance and now he's living the American Dream. It's just like magic...except it's not.
Carol opened my eyes to the impossibility of being a business owner and that those lucky enough to become successful are the exception and not the rule. There are few people who ever go into business with their eyes wide open. After reading The Entrepreneur Equation you won't have the luxury of closing your eyes ever again.
I won't go into the details. I will say that if you are serious about getting into business and think you have thought of everything you had better pick this book up and give it a good read. Do the thinking/decision exercises at the end of each chapter and then before you quit that day job read it again and if you still feel strongly about your idea then go for it...but plan on failing along the way...if you plan for it in advance you may just have a chance in the long run.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Pioneer week Challenge: Wrap Up
This post is about two weeks late but at least I'm getting to it now. If you didn't read my original post on the Pioneer Week Challenge now may be a good time to do that so that you understand what I'm talking about.
http://goo.gl/hrwri
Report
During the week we had planned to try some traditional Pioneer games. The kids were excited for the chance to try out some of those games (Marbles was a big hit). In addition to those games we played some of our board games and had a great time re-learning dusty games from our coat closet.
We also tried to eat meals that were more rustic. We cooked a couple of meals in Dutch Ovens and one meal on the grill. We also made our own butter. The kids really enjoyed shaking the heavy cream and were excited to try the butter on their homemade rolls. In fact we've found that if you buy your heavy cream at a reasonable price you can make your own butter for less than it sells in the stores. The added benefit being that you also have buttermilk as a byproduct for pancakes, scones, muffins etc.
I tried really hard to keep a pen and paper journal for the week. I didn't
do nearly as well as my wife (3 days to her 7) but it was interesting to see that my handwriting isn't nearly so bad as I had suspected it would be given how infrequently I write things down. I also tried to read more and finished a good book The Entrepreneur Equation by Carol Roth (review to follow).
We expected a lot of free time through the week and found that we didn't have near as much as we had planned. Which turned out to be a good thing. Below you'll find my thoughts on the results of the week as opposed to the activities.
Success
How does one judge success on something like a week without technology? "By their fruits shall ye know them". The fruit of our week without tech was promising. It showed me that my family is truly an Eternal Family. I saw my kids being more kind. I saw myself being more helpful to my wife. I saw my wife being happier. I saw my motivation to be better improved. In the end I feel like this is worthwhile and I would encourage everyone (with families or single) to try this Challenge.
FAIL
My participation in the Pioneer Week Challenge was limited. This means that I was able to access and attend to my technology habit at work. I was able to check email, Facebook, G+, Twitter, etc...and generally be connected to the world for the eight hours a day that I was at work. When the work day was over I was forced to cut out the phone, internet, TV, etc and become part of my most important social network, my family. The only failure of the week is that I wish I had the chance to eliminate tech from my life for the entire week like my kids and wife did. I feel like it would have made the week all the more important to me and my family. I feel so strongly about this that I'm considering taking a week off for the next Pioneer Week Challenge so that I can join my family in their tech deprivation.
Conclusion
The thing that I took from the Pioneer Week Challenge that sticks with me the most is that we live our lives full of distractions. Some of those distractions are necessary and part of the journey through life. Others are choices that we make. In large part technology is one of those choices. I'm not suggesting we all throw our tech in the garbage and drag out the horse and buggy. I am suggesting we find the distractions that we choose and decide if they make any sense.
http://goo.gl/hrwri
Report
During the week we had planned to try some traditional Pioneer games. The kids were excited for the chance to try out some of those games (Marbles was a big hit). In addition to those games we played some of our board games and had a great time re-learning dusty games from our coat closet.
We also tried to eat meals that were more rustic. We cooked a couple of meals in Dutch Ovens and one meal on the grill. We also made our own butter. The kids really enjoyed shaking the heavy cream and were excited to try the butter on their homemade rolls. In fact we've found that if you buy your heavy cream at a reasonable price you can make your own butter for less than it sells in the stores. The added benefit being that you also have buttermilk as a byproduct for pancakes, scones, muffins etc.
I tried really hard to keep a pen and paper journal for the week. I didn't
do nearly as well as my wife (3 days to her 7) but it was interesting to see that my handwriting isn't nearly so bad as I had suspected it would be given how infrequently I write things down. I also tried to read more and finished a good book The Entrepreneur Equation by Carol Roth (review to follow).
We expected a lot of free time through the week and found that we didn't have near as much as we had planned. Which turned out to be a good thing. Below you'll find my thoughts on the results of the week as opposed to the activities.
Success
How does one judge success on something like a week without technology? "By their fruits shall ye know them". The fruit of our week without tech was promising. It showed me that my family is truly an Eternal Family. I saw my kids being more kind. I saw myself being more helpful to my wife. I saw my wife being happier. I saw my motivation to be better improved. In the end I feel like this is worthwhile and I would encourage everyone (with families or single) to try this Challenge.
FAIL
My participation in the Pioneer Week Challenge was limited. This means that I was able to access and attend to my technology habit at work. I was able to check email, Facebook, G+, Twitter, etc...and generally be connected to the world for the eight hours a day that I was at work. When the work day was over I was forced to cut out the phone, internet, TV, etc and become part of my most important social network, my family. The only failure of the week is that I wish I had the chance to eliminate tech from my life for the entire week like my kids and wife did. I feel like it would have made the week all the more important to me and my family. I feel so strongly about this that I'm considering taking a week off for the next Pioneer Week Challenge so that I can join my family in their tech deprivation.
Conclusion
The thing that I took from the Pioneer Week Challenge that sticks with me the most is that we live our lives full of distractions. Some of those distractions are necessary and part of the journey through life. Others are choices that we make. In large part technology is one of those choices. I'm not suggesting we all throw our tech in the garbage and drag out the horse and buggy. I am suggesting we find the distractions that we choose and decide if they make any sense.
 |
| Our screensaver for the week |
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| Monkey makin' butter |
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| "Cars" on the TV! |
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Pioneer Week Challenge: Can you live without it?
Recently this addiction came to a head with my son (and myself) being at the receiving end of some serious talk from my wife. It seems we neglect Real Life when we stare at our glowing screens. Who would have thought there was life outside of Lego.com, Google+/Facebook/Twitter, and Angry Birds? So my wife said we were going to have an entire day without computer, TV, or cellphones. Being the "good husband" that I want my wife to believe I am I one upped (+1) her and said we should do a whole week without technology. Talk about putting your foot in your mouth. That taste will never leave. Sooooo here's the deal:
We will be shutting down our technology consumption from Pioneer Day (July 24th for those not aware of Latter Day Saint celebrations) and conclude on Saturday (which just happens to be our Ward Pioneer Day celebration). What does shutting down mean? Well this means that we will not have our cellphones, our TV, our computer, running for the entire week. This could result in some serious energy savings for our family. The lesson we'd like to learn from this is that there is more to life than 0's and 1's arranged for our entertainment. We may take this to a new level and even do as much of our cooking using less conventional methods (i.e. Dutch Oven, BBQ grill, solar oven etc.). We will either come closer together by weeks end or we will not see the week end. In either event I feel strongly that it's going to be quite the adventure.
So now the challenge to all who are willing. Join us. Take the Pioneer Week Challenge and turn off the digital world as much as possible. Take out the things that distract you from your family and focus on things that bring you together. If you survive then you just might be a Forever Family.
Are you going to take the challenge? Leave your ideas for "Pioneer activities" in the comments section and we'll try and do some of them during our experiment. When it's all over I'll post a blog about our experience.
NOTE: We are so digital that our only phones are cellular style so if you need to get hold of us during this week you'll need to come by and talk to us in person.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Facebook...it's been a good run. Google+ gives me so much more.
I was recently lucky enough to get an invite to Google's newest attempt at social networking. Google+ is the latest in a long line of mediocre and failed attempts by Google to compete legitimately with their newest and biggest threat to internet dominance - Facebook.
Google+ (G+ for short) is everything that Facebook should have become over the last several years...had they been listening. Which is exactly what Google appears to be doing with their early adopters at least. There are tons of new features and things to like in this social network and while I'd love to spend thousands of words on those features I will try and keep this short.
It's even got Twitter-like functionality. Twitter allows you to follow people that don't follow you back. Creating a source for news and information without forcing a "relationship". G+ also does this. You can add almost anyone to your circles and they aren't forced to follow you back. This means that you can get the same news and information feed that you have on Twitter without leaving the Facebook-like relationship network of G+. Admittedly G+ is new and as with all new things they glitter with awesome...but I see this network replacing both my Twitter and Facebook because it can do both functions for me on one site without a third party Hootsuite, or Tweetdeck interface.
The next innovative function (probably the next one to be mimicked by Facebook) is the "Hangout" feature. This feature allows people withe web cams to meet up and have a 10 way chat with each other. Built on the Google Talk product this is an awesome social integration that really takes things to a new level. While this feature won't stand long with Facebook playing catch-up very quickly it remains to be seen just how this will be executed in Facebook. I can tell you that it is very compelling in G+.
The next feature is deep integration with the mobile phone app and image sharing. Every time you use your phone to take a picture the image is immediately uploaded (not shared) to your Picasa web album and available to share. Another mobile feature is Huddle. This is a SMS feature that allows you to select one of your Circles and start a SMS chat with the circle. All of the responses are sent to all the circle members creating a complete conversation where everyone is privy to the conversation and no rebroadcasting is necessary. Very handy for organizing diner with some of your favorite people.
The long and short of it all is that Google has finally got social figured out. They will be a force and you'll find that your in a similar situation to when you left MySpace for Facebook. Below are some important links in learning more about this network and if you understand it all you'll be as excited about it as I am, maybe. One more reason to join...Ashton Kutcher is already building a following here.
My favorite features:
First is the Circles concept and execution. Circles are your "circles of friends" sort of like Groups on Facebook but a million times easier to create and manage. Your circles act like individual streams for each group and gives you the ability to communicate the information you want with only the people you want. I know most of you Facebook-ers are saying that you can do the same thing on Facebook. My question is; how many of you are doing it? and if you're not why not? I consider myself pretty well heeled on almost every social media platform primarily Facebook and I don't break my friends into those categories because it's simply too time consuming and not very intuitive. Google has found the most intuitive way to not only conceptualize your groups but also curate them and execute their usage. You can create layers and layers of circles and share just the information you want with just the people that care about that information.It's even got Twitter-like functionality. Twitter allows you to follow people that don't follow you back. Creating a source for news and information without forcing a "relationship". G+ also does this. You can add almost anyone to your circles and they aren't forced to follow you back. This means that you can get the same news and information feed that you have on Twitter without leaving the Facebook-like relationship network of G+. Admittedly G+ is new and as with all new things they glitter with awesome...but I see this network replacing both my Twitter and Facebook because it can do both functions for me on one site without a third party Hootsuite, or Tweetdeck interface.
The next innovative function (probably the next one to be mimicked by Facebook) is the "Hangout" feature. This feature allows people withe web cams to meet up and have a 10 way chat with each other. Built on the Google Talk product this is an awesome social integration that really takes things to a new level. While this feature won't stand long with Facebook playing catch-up very quickly it remains to be seen just how this will be executed in Facebook. I can tell you that it is very compelling in G+.
The next feature is deep integration with the mobile phone app and image sharing. Every time you use your phone to take a picture the image is immediately uploaded (not shared) to your Picasa web album and available to share. Another mobile feature is Huddle. This is a SMS feature that allows you to select one of your Circles and start a SMS chat with the circle. All of the responses are sent to all the circle members creating a complete conversation where everyone is privy to the conversation and no rebroadcasting is necessary. Very handy for organizing diner with some of your favorite people.
The long and short of it all is that Google has finally got social figured out. They will be a force and you'll find that your in a similar situation to when you left MySpace for Facebook. Below are some important links in learning more about this network and if you understand it all you'll be as excited about it as I am, maybe. One more reason to join...Ashton Kutcher is already building a following here.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Awesome Camping Trip: 10th Anniversary at Camp Z
This last weekend we went on our 10th annual Camp Zarahemla trip with Karen's family. It was perhaps one of the best trips we've ever had. The weather was great the food was perfect and our trip to Mt. Rainier was as good as you'll ever get. I'll keep this post short and not bore you with the details of our trip. Instead I'll include some of the awesome pictures we took. Below you will find the slideshow of our trip.
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