The Race is Won at the Finish Line

TheAmerican job market has changed. One way that Americans are tackling the lack of jobs is by putting a huge amount of energy into start-ups. This can create opportunity for some massive companies like Google and Apple, but can also result in a huge waste of time and energy for many.  One of the funds I invest with was pitched by almost one company per day last month with ideas as diverse as a new sales platform to take-on eBay, a new tequila brand (just what the world needs), and a line of pocketbooks whose differentiating factor is that they come in different colors. Few will succeed; many will not.

Even so, with all of the companies that are started on an annual basis, the ones that don't become billion dollar opportunities still have relevance somewhere.  So much time is wasted by great people working on concepts that just won’t scale into the next Instagram. Many are good ideas but have a limited market opportunity. The startup world seems to have a done great job with promoting the concept of failing fast.  Thank goodness!

As the U.S. economy continues to change into a much more entrepreneurial model, there will be fast failures (great!) and there will be huge success (great!), and now there is a place to help the middle (great!)

Check out Upcelerator.com, and please forward this to friends that are stuck in the middle.

The Gift of Time

We could all use a few more minutes in each day, a few more hours in each week, and a few more days in each month.  I haven’t discovered a way to add time to the calendar, but I have discovered some great apps that open up many hours per month for me by saving time on things I don’t have time for.  

Here are my top 10 time saving apps.  I hope you find some extra time in 2014 to spend with friends and family and doing the things you love best.

1. zirtual.com - For $17/hour you get a virtual assistant on demand. They handle all sorts of research and internet related items.

2. Google Calendar - Easiest way to coordinate meetings and eliminate scheduling misunderstandings. (“Oh, I thought next week meant the week after the coming week.  Did you mean Eastern or Mountain time?”).   

3. square.com/cash  -  Email money to anyone’s debit card… the babysitter, your bookie, your kids. No more stops at the ATM.  

4. refresh.io - Dossier on your meetings 10 minutes before. Wow them with your knowledge (but try not to look like a stalker) without lifting a finger.

5. uber.com - When you need a car to show up on demand, just click on the uber app on your smart phone. The gps will find your exact location and the nearest uber car right away, send the car to you, and charge your credit card, including tip!  All with one click.  

6. Apple TV - Watch whatever you want, whenever you want, with NO commercials.  Saves 30% of TV watching time, and avoids aggravation of the kids asking for every toy and cereal they see in the commercials.

7. taskrabbit.com - If you don’t have time to do it (organize family photos), don’t like to do it (assemble an Ikea item), or don’t know how to do it (set up the new wireless printer), list it on taskrabbit.com. You will have an eager taskrabbit on the job within minutes.  

8. contactually.com - Throw all of your contacts into this app, and it will remind you when you haven’t talked to someone for a bit.  No more combing through old emails or dropping the ball.  

9. opentable.com - What restaurant has a table available for 6 people at 7:00 tomorrow night in the West Village?  See the results in seconds, and make your reservation with just a few clicks. No more holding and spelling your name 3 times.

10. Hire the kid next door to teach you how to use 1 through 9.

GOALS

“If you’re bored with life - you don’t get up every morning with a burning desire to do things - you don’t have enough goals.”  - Lou Holtz

I am goal oriented. VERY much so.  I need a goal to clean my apartment, a goal to run a race (and I love to run), a goal for everything. I know it’s not the most peaceful way to live, but it's me and I make the best of it. Goals have taken me far in life.  

I started setting goals in college. Every year around September 1st, I would make a list of accomplishments for the year and forward looking goals. I personally think it is very important to have goals and to always be striving towards them.

I raise my kids with this in mind, and so far I have seen amazing things with a goal focus. In our house the accomplishments have been as simple as no sweets for 30 days and as over the top as no TV for an entire year (which was indeed accomplished!).  We have kept the apartment spotless to my wife's utter amazement and have made great strides on personal issues.  

“Learn from the past, set vivid, detailed goals for the future, and live in the only moment of time over which you have any control: now.”  - Denis Waitley

Last month our youngest daughter Becca embarked on a huge challenge and made it happen. See, Becca is not a big reader and in 3rd grade reading is becoming very important. So our goal for her this month was to increase the amount of time spent reading by one additional minute every day for the entire month. So November 1st she read 31 minutes, and by the last day of the month she was reading 60 minutes. By any measure, this is a phenomenal improvement. We are very proud of her.

The technique she used of adding a minute a day was used by President Clinton during his initial campaign for President. His goal was to wake up 1 minute earlier each day of the campaign. Obviously it worked!

Please share some techniques you use to make your goals happen. Thanks.

Somewhere in the Middle

We all know and talk about those phenomenal successes  - Facebook’s Zuckerman, Apple’s Jobs, the Yankees’ Jeter, Brangelina ...  We also hear too much about those unfortunate failures -  broadcast.com ($4B loss), Macklowe’s equity office deal, Kozmo.com, Lance Armstrong, Lehman Bros. I could go on and on.

“You can’t define what’s middle class, what is wealthy, what is poor.”  - Michael Bloomberg

What we don't talk about much, but is more relevant to our daily lives, is the other 95% that are in the middle:  the middle manager working everyday for a decent paycheck; the founder who gained traction and had a decent valuation in the beginning, but can't get his company into high gear; the minor league baseball player who still loves the game but won't make it to the majors.  It’s amazing that 95% of life is in the space yet we hardly hear about these people.  Is it because in America being in the middle is worse than being at the top and the bottom.  Is it not enviable to be average anymore?  

When my grandparents were my age they focused on getting from the lower class immigrant status that their parents handed off to them and becoming part of the burgeoning middle class America.  First they bought the house in the suburbs, then sent their son to a decent college, and then bought a small home at the beach.  They felt proud to make it in America.  Seems like the definition of making it in America today is a lot different.  

“Presidents in both parties - from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan - have known that our free-enterprise economy is the source of our middle-class prosperity.” - Marco Rubio

Middle class or even having a minor success today is sort of like being in minor league baseball.   No one seems to take you seriously if you don't have a startup with a billion dollar IPO or make it to the top of your company.  Even failures are ranked in today’s world.  Just losing a few million dollars doesn't rank in conversations.  You need to be a whale and lose billions for your firm or industry before you are ready for the next endeavour.

“If you can count your money, you don’t have a billion dollars.” - John D. Rockefeller

It’s tough in the US being in the middle.  We need to figure out a way to make people want to be in that space because probability shows that is where most people are going to be.   

I just started a business with a friend that is helping tech founders move on from stalled startups, into the next opportunity, and hopefully onto the new American dream.  One startup is not enough. It seems you need to have a billion dollar startup to succeed at all.  I hope that this new venture will allow founders stuck in the middle to move on and create the next billion $ opportunity.  

Please share some examples of life in the middle and how great it really is.

Get 31% more done by being happy

I enjoyed dinner and drinks last week with a long time friend, Ginger Jenks.  Ginger has been coaching executives for almost 20 years now and knows a thing or two about making things happen.  

Ginger explains her model pretty simply.  If you want to make great things happen, you personally need to know what a great thing is. In other words: What makes you happy?  What is your true purpose?  Think about it while watching this musical exploration of Purpose from the Broadway Musical Avenue Q.  Sounds easy, but it’s not. Making money is not many people’s true purpose.  Neither is having the biggest boat or even an island. Having the most friends? Maybe, but still not there.  Finding true purpose helps make the next steps easier.  

Ginger’s basic steps to finding your true purpose go something like this:

• Connect with people, more than a Facebook poke or Linkedin connection.
• Have resilience.  Just read my blog from last week to get more perspective on this.
• Show gratitude.  Thank others and help others.
• Maintain an attitude of deserving to win.

Studies show that people who are truly happy with what they are doing are 31% more effective than their peers.  Just think about that when you walk into your office.  A smile goes a long way!

Ginger shared with us her 3 to 1 positive to negative ratio.  For ever bad element of your day make sure you have 3 positives.  Now you may be thinking: how can that be possible?  But if you take the time and think about what makes you happy (the positives) you will see that its very doable, such as playing with your kids, walking the dog, meditating, watching Jimmy Fallon, donating to a charity, winning at online poker, going for a run.  The positives don't have to be Disney Worldesque, but mixing a few positive moments into what might amount to an otherwise negative day will change your mindset and move your outlook on the situation.

Ginger’s happy place is with her prize-winning dogs.

Please share some examples of little things you have programmed into a bad day.

I leave you one parting story.  A psychologist put two kids in separate rooms which each had a pile of dog poop and nothing else.  When they opened the door to each room an hour later, the first kid was crying and sick to his stomach from the smell; but the second kid - the optimistic one - was digging in the poop.  When they asked him what he was doing, he said “I’m looking for the puppy!”

Be the optimist in the situation.  It will likely increase your ability to get the results you want.

Thanks for reading.

Rising From Hell and Learning from It

Last week I had the distinguished opportunity to dine with one of the most optimistic people I have ever met, Ishmael Beah, author of A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.  As Ishmael told his harrowing story, he maintained an infectious grin and positive attitude. My friends and I, who avidly listened to his stories, walked away feeling that anything is possible, we should always look at the bright side of life, and we should never give up.  Ishmael lives life to the fullest, always smiles, and is expecting his first child.  But life wasn’t always this way for my new friend.

“In the sky there are always answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy and confusion.”
― Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone

So let me tell you about some of his bad days and the stories he shared with me:

When Ishmael was 11 years old, his whole family was killed by warlords in Sierra Leone. He wandered aimlessly for 2 years because no one would take him in. At 13, warlords coercively recruited him to fight in the civil war. Ishmael’s training concluded when he was told to kill a prisoner with a knife while staring into his eyes. He was encouraged by hearing, “If you blink you get shot!”. He committed his first murder and became a boy soldier.

Ishmael’s new “family” gave him his own gun and made him take cocaine mixed with gunpowder. He was told to just keep pulling the trigger. He had no idea if he was shooting his side or the other side - not that there was much of a difference in this civil war. When his gang smelled food cooking, they would kill the family eating it and then have dinner at their table.

Ishmael lived his life not knowing if he would be alive the next morning. Fortunately, through mostly luck and a little arrogance, he was rescued by UNICEF, adopted by a New York woman, and brought to the United States. He assimilated into NY society, went on to law school, wrote books, lived life as one of the 1%, and continues to smile all the time.

My take-aways from an evening with Ishmeal Beah:

• Smile!
• Life can be really hard but just around the curve it will change for the better.
• Always be thankful for what you have.
• Hug your children every chance you can.
• When given an opportunity, take it with all your heart.  If Ishmael hadn’t spoken up during his interview he would not be alive today.
• In our lives few decisions are life or death. Make a decision and move on. Don’t dwell on the past.

The world is screwed up. It’s easy to live in a bubble not hearing stories like this or not paying attention to them when we do.  It is almost impossible to comprehend the chance of getting killed for your meal tonight. We need to open our eyes and at least do one thing to make the world better.

I would love to hear your stories about helping to make the world better.

“When I was young, my father used to say, ‘If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die.’ I thought about these words during my journey, and they kept me moving even when I didn’t know where I was going. Those words became the vehicle that drove my spirit forward and made it stay alive.”
― Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone

Community Bank Comeback

Over the past 5 years my company's focus has been on helping banks clean up their balance sheets. Our interest is not on the 200 or so major money center banks, many of which I can see from my office window. We focus on the 6,800 other banks in the US, the local community banks that seem to have been forgotten over the past few years, the ones that were not helped by TARP, Warren Buffet or sovereign debt funds around the world. My company invests in the community banks that help businesses get started and keep people employed in small towns all over the US.  

"In America, small business is a big deal."  - Bob Beauprez

Post 2009, community banks had some big problems to deal with, and they put their heads down and worked on them. Unlike New York City, many of the towns in which these banks operate did not turn around as quickly. In some cases it's a little bit of a catch-22. Before a small town in Kansas can rebound, the local bank that finances new businesses needs to be ready to lend again.

Interestingly enough, as much as NYC seems to be completely turned around - some people even say it is in a bubble once again - when I talk to bankers across the country I do not see the same optimism. I see lights starting to shine but no significant growth yet.  

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."  - Margaret Mead

Below is a link to a great article about the value of community banks in the US economy. Please read it. Until smaller cities and towns across the US start to revitalize their local banks, we will probably continue to see hot activity on the coasts and little in between. Paying attention to the in-between is necessary to achieve a vibrant US economy.  

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-buffett/the-future-of-regional-an_b_3861799.html

Please share your stories about how a community bank helped you start your business.