This is seriously the worst Hans Gruber impression ever, and the dialogue they wrote for him was even worse... but Jamie Gumm saves it.
"Trust me I'm the all time wrongest tree to bark up..."
All in Random Stuff
Yesterday, my blog turned five.
I'm not really inclined to write much about that... I've got too much work to do today.
And, I suppose that's somewhat fitting. This is me working. You want to look back on it? Knock yourself out. It's all here. Me? I'm looking forward. I have stuff to do.
I'm not going to write about how much my blog has given me or who I've met because of it. If you're blogging with any kind of consistancy and effort, you know what I'm talking about. If you're not blogging, then the rest of us are inclined to think that either a) you do not want feedback on your thoughts, b) you do not think your thinking needs practice or c) you do not think you have any thoughts worth sharing. In any case, we're not inclined to chase you down to force you into it.
It's 2009 and if you don't get it by now, the world is passing you by.
I will, however, leave you with three lessons that I hope, in my five years of blogging, that you've learned from me by now:
1) You do not know everything and neither do I, so open communication makes us all smarter.
2) There are a lot of people out there who are working hard on awesome things. There are a lot of other people out there talking about other people who are working hard on awesome things, talking about awesome things in general, and tagging themselves on the 8,000 pictures they took of themselves during social media drinkups and tweetups. These latter people are to be avoided. Strive to seek out those are are actually changing the world--leave no stone unturned.
3) You can't please everyone... so the best you can do is be a lightning rod for those likeminded people that you do see eye to eye with, and poke bears and rattle cages around the rest of them.
Ok, back to work...
"If the intent is to help homeowners, then foreclosure is undoubtedly the best solution. Household balance sheets have been destroyed by taking on too much debt via the purchase of inflated assets. With so little savings, a household with negative equity almost implies negative net worth. Walking away from the mortgage immediately repairs the balance sheet. Credit may be damaged, but homeowners can rebuild it. And by renting something they can afford, instead of the McMansion they cannot, homeowners are most likely to have some money left over each month that they can save toward a down payment on a house they can eventually afford."
Incorrectly valuing assets--that's basically what this financial collapse comes down to. All the stuff we thought we had--our houses, mortgages, and all the wacky financial derivatives we layered on top of them--turned out to not be worth that much.
Now that prices have fallen off a cliff, investors are out searching for undervalued assets. There's one asset out there that few people are talking about that is severely undervalued in a bad economy--and its the one thing that has the most potential to get you through 2009 in one piece.
Your body.
It's actually the only asset we ever truly own. Our ownership of most of our other stuff is pretty tenuous--and often highly leveraged, making it a missed payment away from being taken away. Your body, on the other hand, is always yours. In fact, the government even prevents you from selling it.
It is the physical instrument by which we carry out everything that flows through our various digital lifestreams--it is the source of the lifestreams.
This really hit home for me when I found out that a friend of mine and fellow entrepreneur, Tim Marman, told me that he has cancer--fortunately a highly curable form, but still... It made me realize how much I have invested in and depend on my body to carry me through the day--and how much my employees and investors are riding on it, too.
That's why, if there's any one thing I think we need to focus more on over the next year--it's taking care of our physical selves. We're going to need those few extra minutes of lucid thinking a day and that extra spring in our step when we're trying to make a flight to a customer. We can't afford extra sick days, financially and just in terms of meeting ever increasing professional expectations.
Does that mean we all need to run a five minute mile? No, but how about trying to break a 10 minute mile...or just get out and walk a mile? Unplug and treat your lungs to some fresh air--and maybe have a new idea or two while you're away from the screen.
Additionally, I'm stunned to see anyone--let alone relatively smart people who should know better--smoke nowadays. To me, taking investor money from people who invested in you and smoking is like taking their money to buy a server and just kicking it once a day...maybe after lunch. You are an asset just as much as the machines are--and there are much more effective ways of destressing that don't make you smell like you've been eating matches all day.
For those of you who think that self abuse is part of the deal--no sleep and Ramen make startup happy--start reassessing not only whether or not this is truly sustainable--but how, in ways you might not realize, you're actually doing more harm to your startup than good. Fuzzy thinking, bad first impressions, missed appointments--when you act like you are duct taped together, then your company appears duct taped together and, not surprisingly, duct tape will be the only think you can afford.
So before you get freaked out over competitor on TechCrunch or writing a marketing plan for the first time in your life, start with priority one--your physical self... and move outward from there. Look at yourself in the mirror. Forget about whether your nose is too big or you're losing your hair--just assess whether or not you look well taken care of. Are you putting as much care into yourself as you are into server optimization? Sleep well, eat right, exercise, and then try to change the world with AJAX and APIs--don't put the cart before the horse.
What's one thing that you can do over the next year to optimize your own physical self?
From the comments section:
middledigit.net | jonathan hopkins » Blog Archive » Snuggie - the blanket with sleeves!
One Response to Snuggie - the blanket with sleeves!
1. January 1st, 2009 at 2:33 am Jennifer Says: Both the SLANKET and the SNUGGIE are guilty of stealing this idea from the owners and original inventors of the FREEDOM BLANKET, Sean & Jennifer Iannuzzi. The FREEDOM BLANKET was out long before these two companies! The Slanket actually purchased a FREEDOM BLANKET months before they started up their business. AND the Snuggie is an EXACT copy of a FREEDOM BLANKET! Now, my question is&Is it fair these two companies are making millions off of someone elses idea that they STOLE?
2. January 27th, 2009 at 5:05 pm Charlie Says: @jennifer The answer is, if they didnt patent it, then yes. Even with a patent, w/o good marketing execution and branding, an idea is nothing. Do you think the Iannuzzis are the first one to sit under a blanket and wish they could stick there hands out? No way. Im sure there are lots of people who have cut holes in their blankets, too. The Snuggie wasnt the first one out, and I guess neither was the Slanket, but they deserve their millions for awesome marketing. I googled Freedom Blanket& first link was a complaint that the Freedom Blanket never arrived. IMO, Sean and Jennifer dont deserve a dime b/c they clearly have no idea how to run a business.
If there are any extremes about my personality, it's my lack of social tolerance. I don't mean about people's backgrounds or lifestyle choices--I mean personalities and actions. If I don't want to be somewhere or don't want to be around someone, I have less tolerance than anyone I know for putting up with people I don't particularly care for.
And that often means I tend to make bigger deals over things that other people don't see the harm in--particularly in relation to the NY tech community. I'll call out people that I think are self-interested and I don't feel the need to "network" with anyone because I think they can do something for me. I just try to spend time with people that I actually like, respect, find interesting--which is why I'm never surprised when people compliment me on who I know. I get a lot of "Hey, I met so and so... they're really great..."
Yeah... um... that's why I'm friends with them--not because I think they can do something for me.
I'd rather spend the majority of my time with people who have the right motivations and intentions and that I just really really like. Life's just too short and there's not enough time to feel overly socially obligated to be "friends" with everyone--even the people you feel so-so about.
Contrast my near unwillingness to bite the networking bullet with people I don't care for with my willingness to help--to bend over backwards for--the people I do care about, and you'll get what I imagine to be very contrasting opinions of me depending on who you ask. Just about everyday, I get at least one instance of someone thanking me for my help or for being nice, and at least one instance of someone saying I'm being mean, grouchy, or unfriendly. Time and time again, I've been willing to help out entrepreneurs who take the time to actually get to know me, build a relationship, or whose efforts I actually have some relevant knowledge about.
This is how I want it. It's because I agree with Ayn Rand when she said, "[T]he person who loves everybody and feels at home everywhere is the true hater of mankind. He expects nothing of men, so no form of depravity can outrage him."
I really love a good number of amazing people in my life, but love and admiration has no meaning if you really think everyone is great in their own way. Sorry, some people are just taking up space--a net negative on their environment. Some are dangerous, and others are just distractions and time sinks. Because of this, I very actively seek out great people to spend my time with, and actively weed out, call out, and refuse to engage with those that add little, no, or negative value.
It's like the a long/short hedge fund. If you really want to go long on some people--build relationships, engage, spend more time on--then why won't people go short, and cut people off.
Too many of my friends get caught up with people they'd rather avoid, but don't want to make waves or cause trouble. We're so obsessed with trying not to hurt people's feelings that we're willing to spend disproportionate amounts of time on people that drag us down or just sideways, but definitely not boost us up. This happens in relationships all the time...and we think there's no cost, until we realize all of the other people, like family, and activities, that we could have otherwise spent time on instead of someone that doesn't make your life more fantastic with every second you spend with them. It's like TechCrunch. How many people feel like they have to read it, even though they don't have the least bit of respect for the behavior of the guy behind it?
Social media magnifies the cumulative effect of this exponentially. If you're following over 500 people on Twitter, how many amazing people are you not paying enough attention too? The incremental effort it takes to pay attention to the least additive 20% of your network could add up to a weekly or monthly extra phonecall or personal email to the most amazing people in your life--and that could make a huge difference in your most important relationships.
If you're running groups and communities, focusing on aggregate numbers versus quality, signal to noise, or engagement can bring down the whole network. You don't need 100 people to show up to your Meetup--20 fantastic and extremely relevant people will do. Part of the equation here that makes this work is that word of mouth has never been so fast and so cheap, so what you really want is a strong initial signal, because it will indeed get magnified, and received by right folks in a hyperconnected world.
2009 is going to need to be a year of focus for people--to spend their limited resources on the things that matter most of them. I hope that people realize that their time and emotions are some of the most precious resources they have, and that they become a little more discerning about how they spend them.
"Heart disease, diabetes, prostate cancer, breast cancer and obesity account for 75% of health-care costs, and yet these are largely preventable and even reversible by changing diet and lifestyle."
Deepak Chopra et. al.: 'Alternative' Medicine Is Mainstream - WSJ.com
"Try to frown on a waverunner..."