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How do you know whether you love an idea or not? Please take the Jean Rostand test

“To love an idea is to love it a little more than one should.“

- Jean Rostand

All the best!

Generally speaking, you work and get paid. Did you ever think that you really pay to get paid. Let me explain…

There are two kinds of making money.

One, where you work and during that work, you are learning and enhancing your knowledge that will get you equipped to get future work.

Two, where you work and during that work, you are not learning much and there are few opportunities for enhancing your knowledge. In other words, as you make money with this kind of work, chances of you not being ready for “future work” are high.

In the second case, you pay dearly for the money you are earning.

So, think about it:
How much are you paying for what you are earning today?

PS: This is the reason why most call center jobs are disturbing for me. When someone says it’s a great opportunity, I tend to agree - but the opportunity is great only for the employer.

If there is one thing that you can do well when you are building a relationship, think about what you can do to make the other person (in the conversation) feel “good about himself or herself” at the end of your conversation. Lisa Kirk puts this brilliantly as she categorizes people into three types

“A gossip is one who talks to you about others; a bore is one who talks to you about himself; and a brilliant conversationalist is one who talks to you about yourself”
- Lisa Kirk

Courtesy of Brian Clark of CopyBlogger fame.

I am reading Paulo Coehlo’s fantastic book “The Zahir“. There is a paragraph on Page 18 that speaks to the syndrome called “Self-esteem Insurance Syndrome” (name made up by me). This syndrome affects many Wannabe entrepreneurs and in general many people who are putting off “identifying their purpose” and taking solid steps towards realizing it. The way I describe the syndrome is simply by not “committing” to what is it that one wants to become. Because if you commit and not get it, you might have trouble with your self-esteem later. So in order to protect your self-esteem sometime in the future, one decides to NOT COMMIT to the dream completely. That way the person is “safely reducing his or her future accountability”

Here is the paragraph from “The Zahir” that explains it brilliantly

“I continue to search for love, I continue to writing songs. When people ask me what I do, I say I’m a writer. When they say they only know my song lyrics, I say that’s just part of my work. When they apologise and say they’ve never read any of my books, I explain that I am working on a project - which is a lie. The truth is that I have money, I have contacts, but what I don’t have is the courage to write a book. My dream is now realizable, but if I try and fail, I don’t know what the rest of my life will be like; that’s why it’s better to live cherishing a dream than face the possibility that it might all come to nothing“

Can it be said any better?

I am big on peer networking. I have been a member of Vistage for a LONG time. Recently, my friend David Hassell talked to me about another organization called Entrepreneur’s Organization (EO). I met David recently and talked to him about EO and the EO Global Leadership Event on May 8. Here are his responses to my questions.

If you qualify to be a member, I encourage you to reach out to David and make it a point to attend the event. I am confident that you will enjoy it.

David Hassell is Membership Chair on the Board of the San Francisco chapter of Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO).

RS: David, so tell us a little about EO.

DH: Enterpreneurs’ Oraganization (EO) is a global network of nearly 7,000 business owners in 38 countries. Founded over 20 years ago as YEO (Young Entrepreneurs Organization), EO is a peer network whose purpose is to enable entrepreneurs to learn and grow through peer interactions, and ultimately achieving greater success in business and enriched personal lives.

RS: How did you get involved in the organization?

DH: In 1999, a year after graduating from college, I co-founded an Internet marketing firm in NYC, Endai Worldwide. We managed to survive through some tough times during the downturn, but come by 2003 we had stagnated. As first-time business owners, we didn’t know quite how to take things to the next level. My business partner and I both joined EO (called YEO back then) so that we could connect with others who had either already been through what we were experiencing or who were in similar situations. Over the next three years, we tripled our revenues and were recognized on the Inc. 5000 last of fastest growing private companies in the U.S. I attribute a large part of our ability to grow to the learning and peer support we received as members, and now volunteer as a member-leader as a way to give back to the organization.

RS: So what do you think is so important about peer networking?

DH: Many entrepreneurs suffer from being stuck in their own knowledge. They simply don’t know what they don’t know. Furthermore, most of the people they’re surrounded with – employees, friends, and relatives — don’t have any idea what they are going through and what they’re concerned with as business owners and entrepreneurs. Peer networking provides the opportunity for entrepreneurs and business owners to find others who understand what they’re going through, provide support for learning how to both improve their competence, and also be better prepared to deal with crises as they inevitably arise. Ultimately this leads to learning how to be more effective and live a more balanced business and personal life.

RS: What do you actually do as members?

DH: On the local chapter level, we do two things. First, we hold monthly learning and network events that are open to all members of the chapter. Typically this includes cocktails, dinner and a guest speaker, or some sort of exclusive access event. For example, last month our chapter was given a tour of Doris and Don Fishers’s extensive private art collection housed in The Gap headquarters, followed by a wine tasting with a well-known sommelier at Shanghai 1930 in San Francisco, and a talk by the former co-CEO of McKesson, David Mahoney on philanthropy and social entrepreneurship.

Second, we facilitate EO Forums. A Forum is comprised of between 8 and 10 business owners who meet on a monthly basis to discuss specific issues members are facing in their businesses, and sometime their personal lives. Members provide feedback about similar situations they’ve dealt with in the past, what they did to address it, and what the outcome was. In this way, rather than giving advice, members learn from each others’ experiences and are better equipped to act effectively in their own situations. Many members equate this to having their own personal board of advisors, and rate this as the single-most valuable aspect of membership in EO.
In addition to local events and Forums, the EO Global organization facilitates education and networking conferences called EO Universities that typically take place twice per year in the US, and twice per year Internationally. These Universities provide access to some of the top speakers in business, as well as opportunities to network with some of the most engaged and successful CEOs in the organization.

RS: How do you become a member if interested?

DH: Membership is typically by invitation only, and mainly through referrals from other members. Our membership criteria is:

• You must be the Founder, Co-Founder, or Controlling Shareholder,
• Of a business entity that generates $1MM or more in annual sales,
• And join before your 50th birthday

On May 8 EO is holding its Global Leadership Conference, where the board members from chapters all over the world will be converging at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco for a summit on how to maintain and increase the value of the organization. The San Francisco chapter will be inviting a limited number of prospective members to join them for cocktails and the keynote session with Ken Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager, followed by dinner and networking with members of the San Francisco EO chapter and Board members of other chapters from around the world.

If you are qualified, located in the Bay Area and interested in joining us for the May 8 event, send an email to dhassell (at) sfeo.net by May 1.

For more information, view the invite (PDF) here:

SFO EO event on May 8

If yes, Congratulations!! and you can skip this article.

You don’t know what you don’t know..

You can’t hear what you can’t hear..

You can’t see what you can’t see…

You can’t think about what is not in your awareness..

You need mentors and teachers because you just can’t do it alone.

The irony is that the people who need the most help don’t know they need it.

To copy or to mimic is low cost. And, it may work in the short-term. You save on the cost of innovation. If you are a fast “second mover”, you might have some advantages too (like you may not make the mistakes that your competitor made).

The big threat of blindly copying someone is the cost you will incur when that competitor does something to self-destruct. It can get messy.

Take care!

You ask for something and you get rejected. Sounds familiar?

If you are in the “self help” world, you just “motivate yourself” and “persist” and go and ask some more people. If you get rejected again, you “don’t give up” and you “walk the extra mile”.

Before you do all that, please think what is the cost for the other person to TOTALLY ignore you. If it is bordering zero, may be you have to first work on your identity and then go back to making requests.

There may be many reasons for slacking. However, when you start justifying without being aware that you are justifying, you may believe in those justifications and stop fixing the core issue.

Here are a few examples:

1. When you are late, you say “better late than never”
[$.02 - we all know that slow late is not good]

2. When you are slow, you say “slow and steady wins the race”
[$.02 - not unless EVERYONE believes in this and after that faster one in the crowd wins]

3. When you can’t earn enough, you say “money is not everything”
[$.02 - Even if it is true, whatever that money is not, money makes it easier to get it]

4. You don’t have time to do a course on time management
[$.02 - We tend to ignore anything that does not give a short-term result]

5. When you are asked about your goals, you say “I’m still figuring it out”
[$.02 - This is an insurance policy. If you did know the goals then you would have the burden of being accountable for them. If you don't pin down the goals, you are not accountable for anything]

Have a great week ahead!

Please watch this video and then read my comments below the video

The video to me comes in the category of a joke. Let me explain. A joke is a narrative where the punchline is unexpected. If you can expect what comes in the punchline, then it is no longer a joke.

First, the instructions in the video ask you to “focus” on the number of passes by the white team. If you were watching the video without those instructions, you would watch it differently and it is not difficult to spot the moon walking bear. However, once you are asked to specifically “focus” you are forced to put your attention on the white team.

I remember so many speakers who have used such tricks to sort of “shock” the audience. For instance, there was a speaker who asked all of us to look at all the “green” objects in the room for two minutes. And after that, the test was for all of us to write the “red” objects in the room.

Yes, we can all make a point even with a joke