Monthly Archives: October 2011

Mission Before Business, Horse Before Cart

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People throw around the word “entrepreneur” like it’s a lifestyle trend. Many fancy themselves an “entrepreneur” with only the curiosity (or perhaps a lust) for building a business. Like movie or rock stars, many successful business leaders keep up a public image. Far too many people subscribe to entrepreneurship because it sounds and looks cool. Most fail to understand the real work involved.

Building a business is very hard. With very few resources at hand, you must pull everything together through favors and very long hours. If you do not truly believe in what you are building, then it will never work. You must have a mission or product you believe in first before chasing your lust for business. Not only that, but you must have a mission or product that can inspire other people to help you and customers to buy from you. That’s a tricky thing to find. Most wannabe entrepreneurs forget that the core mission or product is what it’s all about. And it must come first.

Everyone and his or her mother wants to start a business and be a boss. Nobody will care about you until you give him or her something to sink teeth into. If you cannot offer the world a product that changes lives, then you must start with a mission people can understand, sign on for, and follow to the end. You must get the team on board and excited. And to find success with your business, you must get customers on board and excited as well. As the character Proximo says in Gladiator, “Win the crowd, and you will win your freedom.”

Find your core idea, set your mission, build a product, and then build a business around it. You cannot have a business without something to be busy about.

The Hat-Trick of Leadership

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While it takes many different ingredients to make a leader, some of the greatest I study share the following three traits:

  1. Higher Purpose – for the mission and for humanity abroad.
  2. Steadfast Optimism – faith in people, the direction, and positive results.
  3. Genuine Patriotism – in service of and love for the family or organization at hand.

Do you have what it takes?

Ride the Inspiration Wave

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How often do you find inspiration? Once a day? Once a week? How often do you experience epiphanies, the moments in life when your heart swells and your mind races?

Inspiration is sacred and rare. Never let it go to waste. Act on it immediately. Do the work, get dirty. Procrastinate other things if you need to. Ride the wave until the wave breaks or until you are too tired to ride anymore. If you truly believe in what you discovered, other people will eventually understand.

A big wave is breaking in Santa Cruz, California.

Image via Wikipedia

Write History

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The men and women revered in our history books made it there by impacting their community. Their personal ambitions transcended the self and aimed for a higher context. The heroes in our history books lived their lives for others, for a mission or spirit greater than themselves. We do not remember them because they were trying to earn a paycheck; we remember them because they made a difference in our lives. They served us in one way or another. They played a role in changing the world.

If you want to leave a legacy before you go, push personal needs and wants to the back burner. Live life for a higher context – if not for humanity, then for your community, friends, and family. See past your own problems and look into the problems of others. Make it your mission to heal the wounds of the world. Target a problem you believe you can solve with your talents, and do not rest until the job is done.

The world will notice. Before long, your needs and wants will be fulfilled in thanks. Your deeds will enrich lives, your name will live on, and life will be good. But only if you do it for others, not yourself.

Goodbye, Film Friday

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For the last seven months, I have posted film-related topics every Friday. On the whole, the series has underperformed consistently across the board (an average 43% less than topics across the week). Film-related posts on days other than Friday have not performed as poorly, so I can only assume the Film Friday brand is to blame. For those who enjoyed my film commentary, do not fear – film will continue to be a large part of my life and will undoubtedly come up often in my writing. Stay tuned.

Chart Your Addictions

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Want to quit? Then inventory every infraction. Timestamp them into a spreadsheet. Explain to yourself why you gave in and take notes. Run SUM formulas to tally the total number of infractions per month. Never miss a beat. Make a habit out of charting your habit. Keep track of your addiction. Determine whether or not your habit is good or bad, frequent or infrequent – and monitor the change.

If your addiction is staring at you in the face all the time, one of two things will happen: you will get tired of the spreadsheet, or you will give in less frequently. Before long, you may even find yourself addiction free.

Thank You, Steve

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Thank you for empowering the arts, challenging the competition, and never giving up. You were, without question, the decade’s great visionary, artist, teacher, and leader. You gave your life to your work and to the world. I have learned a lot from you and will no doubt continue to do so as your legacy lives on. Rest in peace.

New iPhone Summary

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For my readers who are not plugged into tech news every waking minute, here is a quick overview of Apple’s keynote this morning. No big surprises in Cupertino today:

iPhone 4S

  • No iPhone 5 yet, mostly performance enhancements: improved processing (A5 chip, 2x faster than before), graphics (dual-core, 7x faster than before), battery life, and download speeds (14.4 MBps).
  • Improved camera: eight megapixel, 3264 x 2448 resolution, 73% more light, faster capture speed, Hybrid IR filter for more accurate color and uniformity, sharper lens elements, wider aperture, face detection, and better white balance.
  • 1080p HD video camera with image stabilization, noise reduction.
  • The phone will be a GSM / CDMA hybrid, working on Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint.
  • AirPlay Mirroring: mirror your iPhone on television sets, wired or wireless.

The most notable announcement was the iPhone integration with Siri, a personal voice recognition assistant. Hold the home button on the iPhone and Siri will listen. Ask her anything you want, and she will return information, a search query, schedule a meeting, send a text message, set an alarm, perform a function on your phone, and more. She can also dictate for you. Siri was started as an iOS app in December 2007 and acquired by Apple in early 2010. Nothing new here.

Pre-orders for the iPhone 4S start Friday. The phone will be available October 14th in black or white casing. Pricing as followings (with a two-year contract): $199 16GB, $299 32GB, and $399 64GB.

Other Announcements

  • Cards App: make your own greeting cards, $2.99 per card
  • iPod Nano improvements to the fitness experience and timekeeping faces (Nano = your future watch)
  • iCloud will launch October 12th
  • Find My Friends feature: similar to Google Latitude, anyone on a GPS enabled Apple device can open their location up to contacts and share where they are. It is unclear how integrated this feature will be.

Overall? Underwhelmed. The iPhone 4S met none of my needs for a next-generation phone, except perhaps performance enhancements. This new model will no doubt outsell the rest, but I’m not sold yet.

The Tweetable Mission Statement

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Your core mission should be tight enough to share on @twitter. Why? 140 characters focuses your idea and leaves room enough for inspiration.

Casually Late

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Hosting a party? Count on people arriving casually late. After all, it’s not as fun to arrive when no one else is there yet. Schedule for it. You might even find time to blog before people arrive…