My Experiments with Entrepreneurship – Chapter 9: Dakara Nani? And The Texas Three Step
Over the past few weeks, I started asking some of my friends and mentors what they thought about my blog. I got a very interesting set of responses, and I am paraphrasing some of them here…
“Don’t bust a blood vessel trying to be funny.”
“Too damn long! No one has the time to read a blog longer than a page. Condense your writing or use a smaller font!”
“What is the single take-away for each blog? If everything is important, nothing is important.”
“Why should I read your blog? What’s in it for me?”
Many of the comments reminded me of a heading in a beautiful book I just finished reading – Presentation Zen, by Garr Reynolds….
“Dakara Nani? (So What?)”
My Experiments with Entrepreneurship – Chapter 8: The Groupon Buffet Burglary!
Have you ever been to an Indian Lunch Buffet? Assuming that it did not give you indigestion, and that you enjoyed the food, what are your top five favorite dishes? I am going to go on a limb and try to guess them here…
Naan Bread or Biryani
Tandoori Chicken
Chicken Tikka Masala
Saag Paneer
Gulab Jamun or Kheer
Now, imagine a much ballyhooed Indian restaurant called – ‘Something Palace’ opens up a branch next to your work place. What’s special about this location is that it offers your top five favorite dishes in the unlimited lunch buffet every single day! Even better – for $10.99 you get a groupon for a lifetime of lunches at this location. Would you buy it?
My Experiments with Entrepreneurship – Chapter 7: Waiting for Seeker-Man!
Surgeon General’s Warning: This is a long and convoluted blog with many unexpected twists and turns. Readers are advised to get cozy under a soft, warm blanky (snuggy would be ideal, though not mandatory), with a hot cup of cider, tea or hot chocolate before commencing the journey.
I am going to start this blog with a very hard question – one that has baffled mankind through the ages and will continue to do so in the centuries to come…What is your most memorable Steve Martin moment? There are probably too many to choose from. Is it the scene from ‘L.A. Story’ where he is hugging the talking freeway billboard? Maybe a scene from ‘Father of the Bride’ where he is battling Martin Short? Clouseau trying to pronounce Hamburger in ‘Pink Panther’? Watching Alec Baldwin on Meryl Streep’s laptop in ‘It’s Complicated’? Or it could be something from ‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels’, which I am ashamed to admit I have not yet seen.
My Experiments with Entrepreneurship – Chapter 6: Sunrise at Haleaakalā
So how would you pack for a week long trip to Maui in May? Especially if you are not flying South West and don’t want to dip into your (rapidly diminishing) retirement savings? The answer is lightly.
That’s what my wife and I tried to remember, as we packed for our Memorial Day vacation earlier this year…
One of us packed the obligatory backpack full of hard cover books that would never be read and the other took an electronic reading device. The other packed a light-weight, technological advanced reading device
(My wife is behind the curve and refused to make use of the latest technological advances. She is still on the Kindle and WILL NOT upgrade to the iPad. I read books the way God meant us to read them – on paper!)
As usual, for some strange reason, I insisted on…
My Experiments with Entrepreneurship – Chapter 5: The Archetypal Blue-Print
I realized four things about myself after reading Carols Pearson’s book – Awakening the Heroes Within –
I am passionate about supporting and inspiring my team
I love to seek out new approaches to solve problems
I get energized by sharing what I learn to help others
I am most fulfilled when I can see a vision realized
This mapped to four Archetypes-
Caregiver – Makes a difference to others
Seeker – Searches for a unique identity, path, or solution
Sage – Shares wisdom with the world
Magician – Uses intuition and insight to catalyze change
My Experiments with Entrepreneurship – Chapter 4: The Undiscovered Country
Let’s pick up our conversation where we paused last time-
Why are you on this planet? What is the mission of your life?
How will this world be a better place after you are gone?
What special gift must you share with the world before you leave?
What profound lesson must you learn before you find your gift?
What unique journey must you undertake before you learn your lesson?
Why does any of this really matter?
Let me tackle the last question first – ‘Why does any of this really matter?’
Three reasons – financial, emotional and spiritual…
My Experiments with Entrepreneurship – Chapter 3: The Hero’s Quest
iAm very happy with my iPhone. But iAm disappointed with my carrier – it doesn’t give me any bars when iMost need them. And sometimes, iAm dissatisfied with my iPhone battery – it runs out of juice just when iNeed it. And now, iThink iShould discontinue this mixed case bloggin because iMight iRritate and iLose you 🙂
OK, back to normal English now. So what do you do if your phone is low on juice? Maybe you can turn off 3G, or disable Bluetooth. Or just plug the dang thing back into the power outlet. If you’re super-cool, you may have one of those wireless charger thingies where you can just place your phone on a mat to charge it.
And what if the bars on your cell-phone disappear? You could apply the “Jobs Solution” and hold it the “right” way. If that is not the problem, you could either wait for iPhones to become available on Verizon, or ditch Apple & AT&T altogether for some other smart phone.
And now the real question…
My Experiments with Entrepreneurship – Chapter 2: Games People Play
Have you ever had a dream that you always wanted to pursue, but you couldn’t because… I’ve had a few of those dreams myself – my bucket-list. Things that I always wanted to but couldn’t because… # 1 on the list for a long time was the dream of being an Entrepreneur. But there were too many obstacles blocking my dream. Until a magical series of events helped me break out of the prison of my constraints. This blog is about my escape from my prison, in case it helps you break out of yours…
My Experiments with Entrepreneurship – Chapter 1: At the Cross-Road…
Have you ever been at a major cross-road in life and experienced some kind of inner conflict about which road you should choose? Maybe there was a difference between what you feel you would love to do, what you remember being taught you should do and what you have learned from experience is probably the right thing to do? What do you do when this happens? How do you separate these thoughts and what is the best way to reconcile the different ideas contained in them? I learned a way to do this from a most unexpected source and wanted to share it with you. Here is my story…
Upcoming SmoothApps Events…
SmoothApps Online Workshop: Leveraging Personality Type with the MBTI When: Session 1: January 14th 2010, 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM US Central Time Session 2: January 21st 2010, 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM US Central Time Where: Online Cost: $349 ( payable by check or PayPal )...