When I Was 23

Life was like a cresting wave of happiness, swelling nearly every day to greater heights than ever before. Teaching had me around incredibly optimistic individuals, otherwise known as college kids. To be able to teach at that age was a gift, being young enough to relate to the students in ways most are not was priceless. For all of us back then life was at our beck and call, ready to be tamed with our remarkable ideas and unmatched skills. The positivity of youth is intoxicating, the beauty of the campus, the tranquility of life without a bevy of clients to please, it all brought new meaning to the word relaxed.

When I was 23 it wasn’t about what you did each day as much as it was about how you did it. Were you feeling well? Was your girlfriend by your side, or were you still trying to find one? Tough questions that seemed at the time to be the weighty issues of life, framed around how you did things, and how they fit in with your peers. Friends at that age were still a lifetime equation, being so tight then, how could life ever separate us? Beautiful naivety.

When I was 23 coffee was so strong, a small cup had me up all night.

I’m 30 now, and most days I wonder where I parked my truck, or how my neighbor got his lawn to look like a PGA grade golf course. I care so much less about what others think, but just as much about being heard. I want ten kids now, back then I was terrified of the word parent, nonetheless the idea of being one.

I drink coffee now like a five-day parched traveler in the desert consumes water. A cup is never enough, and even when my hands are shaking from the insane amount of caffeine in my system I consider having more. 14 hour workdays are the mandate for the head of a small internet startup. In a way I’m the person I didn’t want to be at 23, yet feel like I’m living a dream at 30. How dreams change…

30 is cool I guess, I appreciate people more, and realize that life moves fairly quick, and that of course like most people my age, I’ve concluded I know next nothing about anything. The word expert is meaningless to me at this point in my life.

Where were you seven years ago? Reflection helps us put in context all the things we have to be thankful for. I’d be curious to know what you were thinking then, and how it all seems to fit now. Leave a comment if you wish, with your seven year reflections.

Who Are You

Who are you? Who the hell are you? W-h-o a-r-e y-o-u? The question rings in my head from morning to night, it has ever since I read a tidbit Apple Founder Steve Jobs wrote in an email last month.

It all started when a blogger named Ryan Tate shot off an email to Steve Jobs questioning, among other things, the lack of porn made available on the iPad. You can read the play by play here. Rather than the context of the discussion, I focused more on a bit of brilliance from a man full of it at the end of an email sent in defense of his ideas. Steve Jobs gave a glimmer of insight if you will, a look at what seems to be the way society is heading, into a full-blown hypercritical group of conformist followers. As you might have heard the gesture before, if you’re busy always following, how much are YOU really leading? If you own the latest iPhone or laptop, does that make you innovative, or for that matter anything more than someone that paid for a gadget? It’s what you DO with the tools of production, not how fast you got it, or how many pictures you take of it.

Who are you?

The internet makes you anonymous, you can say what you want, because who can find you behind that computer screen. What you say on the computer is exactly what you’d say in real life, right? Wrong. Of course not, you would change your tone, adjusting from animal to human at the first sight of eye balls and flesh. Your digital you is so much different than the physical you. If we could get back to the human standards of real life interactions, and away from the entitlement-centered my every opinion matters crap, we’d all be better off.

Are you a critic?

Do you judge the work of others? If you don’t like a website, are you first reviewing how many you’ve built before speaking? Or a business model, or a restaurant, or flying an airplane, are you putting in the necessary credibility check before opening up your mouth, or are you certified to speak on the topic simply because you think your opinion alone is worthy of sharing, despite the fact it might disrupt the creative process of others.

Critics stifle innovation

Those that truly want to change things are best suited to crawl in a box, turn off all media, and create. Ever hear someone that just did something incredible say they didn’t read about their achievements or struggles in the papers or see it on TV, because they shut themselves off from it all? Me too, many a great innovator has been a diagnosed recluse. Not such a wonder why they’d do such a thing if you stop to think about it.

In the day and age of reality television judgment panels and uneducated bloggers claiming journalist credentials at White House military briefings, it is so easy to feel entitled. To feel as if we are anointed to critique others, as if just our mere opinion matters, having to substantiate that opinion is totally passé. It’s just about judging right off the bat, no matter how little you create, or how afraid you are to create, since you know the exact level of unfair criticisms that can come your way.

Are you really?

So are you really going to be so quick to make your mind up about innovations that cross your path each day, and the people behind them? Are you ready to shove it down their throats for no reason other than you can? You are better than that, and you have to make an effort to be so. I’m not here writing this like I never judge others, twice today I had to cut myself off when talking with a friend about so and so, and we all have a so and so on the tips of our tongues, so let’s all get off our high horses.

If we can be better to each other in the sense that we align ourselves with principles that makes us proud, rather than weak, and motivated, rather than melancholy, would we not be better off for such a thing? Then again, this is just my opinion, and some could say I’m judging the idea of judgment, but at least my intentions are in the right place.

“By the way, what have you done that's so great? Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations?”

Steve Jobs in response to Ryan Tate blogger for Gawker.com

Yes to Everybody: A No To Self

Yes, I’ll do it. Yes, I’ll be there. Yes, I’ll pay for it. Yes, I do want that extended warranty, and yes, I was hoping you’d bring some frozen meat to my door for purchasing. Yes, yes, yes. The more you yes, the more you end up putting a big fat no in your own plans.

A half decade or so ago when I quit teaching college speech, and forged ahead full time as an internet business creator I read that the most important word in business was in fact the word no. Learn to say no to people and you’ll get far in business and life many a book (including my own) have advised. Too many yeas and too few nays later I concur, no is better than yes.

While my plans are often off the wall, and rarely fit with what conventional minds would dare to plot to begin with, they are my plans. For this reason alone they should remain in tact. The more I’ve said yes over the years, the less I’ve been able to pursue these wacky plans, leaving me thirsty for more. Less is more, say no to most requests from others and get a yes from karma to execute your plans as you see fit.

Postscript

This blog post is inspired by the many distractionary hiccups that I have to endure each day of my otherwise fantastic life coupled with an article Jovan Washington sent me yesterday dealing with the dangers of distraction. I’m sure you can relate, and thus I write this with great respect for those that already do say no, if you are a no person, I admire you. If you are like me, always saying yes, let’s not forget the great George Foreman’s appearance on the ill-fated ABC show American Inventor, in which he approved of nearly every invention presented to him. At last blush Mr. Foreman’s grills have made a few bucks over the years.

Every Action Has A…

Spring has pretty much come and gone, summer is ventilating heat here as it is across much of the country, the dog days are officially upon us. With the South Carolina heat comes reflection, it is after all easier to reflect when things slow down than it is when they speed up. Here is a reflection, dare I say lesson, on doing business in 2010.

Being self-employed definitely has its perks. Want to take an impromptu trip to Augusta to check out productivity software at the Apple store? No problemo, you’re the boss, go on your geek quest and indulge in the euphoria of utilizing the 3G feature on your iPad for the first time while you ride shotgun in your cushy Chevy Suburban truck. What’s that you hear? You have payroll due for two businesses, rent due for three locations, and a handful of rioting clients over a delayed turnaround time in services ordered? Turn the truck around, this geek adventure must wait.

While the example above is mostly hypothetical, the truth, pains, and stresses it illustrates are entirely real to me. For the better part of a year I’ve attempted to diversify my business interests in a hedge against any one business becoming victim to the economy.

Watching the Today Show this past Saturday morning sprawled out on my sofa that’s too small to fully lay down on, legs bent and all, I was privy to the advice uttered every year by a perky summertime fun expert turned TV personality. The advice to having a safe and fun summer at the beach goes something like this, when going swimming in the ocean be on the lookout for riptides, if you are swimming in the ocean and get taken by one, swim parallel to the shore, instead of towards it to stay alive. The logic being that if you swim with the current instead of fighting it, the end result will be life preserved. Much of my business ventures as of late have been riptide inspired.

Instead of boldly claiming our business is going to become recession-proof, which is a dumb phrase on so many different levels to begin with, we instead aim to navigate the recession-riddled waters of commerce with cautious aggression. Try to do as much as we can to hedge ourselves against going out of business, while still working to innovate by bringing new products and services to those that want them, this is the game plan we have followed to date. Sounds like a good plan right? Maybe not.

By cautiously but aggressively expanding we have in essence made our business vulnerable to the economy in new and different ways. Instead of dealing with one business that has to figure out how to keep customers coming back day after day, we are now forced to deal with three, or more depending on your definition of a unique business. It’s as if we swam with the current when caught in a riptide only to get bit by a jellyfish. Maybe the best bet all along was to stay out of the ocean all together.

Hindsight is 20/20, and critics are far too eager to analyze a business post problem. What is clear is that caution in business makes a lot of sense right now, staying in a core competency and executing a long-term plan also is a pretty good idea these days. Trying new things just because the economy sucks, unfortunately, is not.