People often wonder what it feels like for an entrepreneur first starting out on their journey and leaving behind their 9 – 5. Here’s a synopsis in pictures.
An Entrepreneur’s Journey (In Pictures)
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The Power of Awe and Wonder
Every single moment spent on this blue litte planet we call Earth inspires wonder and awe within me and further awakens my inner child.
How is this to be true?
They say that Chimpanzees share 98% of our genes yet as I gaze into the distance of the New York skyline and view the lights, the architecture, the cars, the people, the fashion, the technology and realize that this all has resulted simply from the manifestation of human thought makes me contemplate how much of a difference that 2% represents and how grateful I am to simply have life in the form of a human being.
I’m further in awe by the infinitely number of events that occur simultaneously in this very moment. Read More
Opportunity is in Every Moment
People everywhere are searching for opportunities to succeed. What many don’t see is opportunities are available within each moment in time – within every breath we breathe.
If you are failing to comprehend this then first, broaden your definition of success. In the Western world, the popular definition of success equates to riches, fame, and status. As a result, we often go about our days lost in our thoughts on the next opportunity for us to “get ahead” – sometimes at the expense of others and sometimes at the expense of ourselves. Read More
How to Overcome the Fear of Death
By accepting death and understanding that it’s one of the few things in life that all of us will experience – we can begin to overcome our fear of the uncertain. It also helps to focus on living a life that aligns as true and authentic to us as possible.
Have you ever played sports and lost a game by just a few points and reflected afterwards “If only I had made that shot or tried just a little bit harder, we could have won!”
Or took a test and missed your target score / grade by just a few percentages and later stated “If only I started studying just a little bit earlier, I could have achieved x.”
Or maybe that girl / guy who has always made your heart skip a beat when they enter a room and find yourself thinking just before bed every night “If only I could manage to muster the courage to ask them out.” Read More
Go Away Fear Mongers
Over the last several years since the economic collapse of 2007, fear mongers and gold hoarders have been passing around chain letters that typically use a teaser tagline like “Are You Prepared for the Meltdown?” or something similar. These links then lead to some video landing page with a pre-fixed 25 – 30 minute video aimed to place the fear of God into any watcher. They cite statistics about inflation, rising debt levels, rising college costs, and a slew of other data points. Now many of these statistics may actually represent some truth, however instead of laying the problems out on the table to discover a long-term and sustainable solution, they frame these statistics with an element of fear and offer gold as the solution.
The Art of Letting Go
Imagine yourself at a theme park being lulled toward a carousel by its bright lights and music. You take a seat and hold the rail with a gentle hand and enjoy the slow pace of the ride. After experiencing a few rotations, the excitement begins to wear off. Instead of being a flashy spectacle, the bright lights now hurt your eyes and the redundant music is beginning to produce a headache. What was once enjoyable is slowly transforming into a monotonous misery going round and round without making any real progress.
Unfortunately the ride isn’t even close to being over and soon it begins to increase its rotational speed. As the concentric rhythm begins to move faster and faster, you tighten your grip to hold on as the ride is now going so fast that all the enjoyment that once existed has been depleted. Due to the increasing speed, you have now become trapped in a vicious cycle of holding on for dear life to avoid facing the fear and pain that may result from letting go and falling to the ground below. Consequently, you are stuck on the ride. Read More
Are You Living From a State of Fear?
Fear can cripple and lead us into living extremely small lives. It can cause us to take a safe job and give up on exploring our passion. It can result in us being lonely and never asking that girl or guy on a date. And it can prevent us from exploring the world and experiencing alternative perspectives. All of these instances result in making life an extremely small and boring state of being when the truth is far to the contrary.
To prevent fear from sneaking up in our lives, we need to be conscious when making decisions and ensure the decisions are made to seize an opportunity instead of coming from a place of fear. The best way to accomplish this task is to recognize when we’re feeling fear then use it as a motivational device to move through with an action or behavior necessary to achieve an outcome or state we desire.
Following are two main fears we all experience that are common in preventing us from achieving great success: Read More
Hacking Facebook
Facebook’s new Open Graph feature has been released to me for a few weeks now allowing me to demonstrate the new search service. My first impression of the product is positive and using the features of the search allows me to better envision Facebook’s future ability to monetize from its user’s preferences and Likes.
Prior to the release of Facebook’s open graph, user’s may have been more hesitant to engage with “Liking” pages and products on the Facebook platform. Prior to Facebook Open Graph, the user feels that they are giving much more than receiving and possibly contains the incentive to keep information private than sharing it across their network. Facebook Open Graph changes this dynamic.
Now with the ability to search “Friends of Friends who like jazz in New York City”, user’s can easily discover trends and characteristic of their personal network unlike ever before. Consequently, user’s benefit from engaging and sharing their information with the Facebook platform as they themselves increase their discoverability.
Currently a problem does exist with Open Graph. A few weeks ago, I was set up on a blind date and only had the individual’s name who I would be meeting for dinner. As any curious individual would do, I went to Facebook to see if the individual was listed on the network. Read More
Will Your Life Be a Masterpiece?
Often I hear many people discuss work/life balance when contemplating job opportunities and career paths. They weigh the pros and cons by their ability to experience family life and explore hobbies and interests outside of work. I find this to be non-sense.
I’m all for quality time spent with family, however if your miserable at the office and not pursuing the work that you’re meant to perform, then this misalignment will likely spill over to tarnish the time spent with your family. And instead of looking to pursue hobbies or interests, try to make your hobbies and interests your work. Read More
How to Be Valuable at Work
I recently overheard someone asked a question relating to career advice on how do you maintain looking busy at work to appease your managers? I couldn’t help but shake my head and consider the fact that this very question is being asked is a root problem on why it can be miserable to work for large corporations.
In the words of Thoreau, ”It’s not enough to be busy. The ants are busy. The question is what are we busy about?”
If you find yourself in an environment where you need to show “face time” or “pretend” to be busy to appease management, then run and don’t look back. Don’t listen to any person who says “Well Jonny, you need to learn to play the game” and all that poor advice. Yes, we do need to learn to play the game, but more importantly we need to make sure that the game we’re playing is worthwhile. Pretending to be busy is a game that equates to wasting our life by placing no value on our own time or capabilities? Read More