Fall Is Upon Us

In the next week or two it will officially be fall. This is my favorite time of the year as it cools off a bit, the leaves change colors, etc. I'm looking forward to continuing on my career journey with a lot of new developments going on around me. Surprisingly enough to me the towel business did $7,000 in sales in the month of August, and it's looking like I might be able to continue to receive deals as a new client has come into the picture. As I've mentioned before, I'm done putting any time or energy into this business, however if a client calls I'll gladly take care of them.

I feel like I'm more in control of my mind than I've ever been before, which I believe is a reason for many great things happening in my life right now. I've really been working on maintaining a positive attitude throughout all situations, and it has helped out a lot in my entire life. It's been a great learning experience and I feel the more time I put into this the more I'm gaining control of my mind and attitude.

On another note Steve Irwin the crocodile hunter lost his life today. It's been all over the news lately, and I'm mentioning him in this post because of his unrivaled PASSION. In entrepreneurship one thing that is repeated over and over again is that you need to be passionate about what you are doing. If you embody this passion, than you will succeed. I think Steve Irwin was an example of that as I can't think of another human being more passionate about what they set out to do. Imagine waking up each and every day knowing that this day and every day you would be doing what you love with the people you love, making a change for the causes that you believe in. I feel like this was the life that Steve lived, and the life I am seeking to discover on a day to day basis.

Finally, I was recently introduced to the "Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance" by Andrew Ericcson. The book studies expert performers from a wide range of fields including sports, musicians, stock picking, etc. The interesting conclusion (and one that really got me excited) was the trait that we often call "talent" is highly overrated. Experts are made, not born. Experts are made through days and days of practice, which does make perfect! One example of this can be found in a story recently written on Andre Agassi (also introduced to me by the same fellow who introduced the Cambridge Handbook) which noted that he hit between 3,000 - 5,000 tennis shots a day growing up, and by age 5 was already practicing with tennis pros such as Jimmy Connors. You can find the article right here. Another astounding fact that I didn't realize was that when Andre rededicated himself to tennis back in 1998 he built his upper body strength up so high that he could bench press 350lbs!

Start Up Mode

The latest business plan that I mentioned in the previous posting has been on my mind for some time now. I believe I started writing the plan back in March and finished it to my abilities sometime early this summer. In looking back on the amount of time this has taken, I'm truly not satisfied with what I've accomplished to this point. I'm actually never satisfied with my work, which I think is something that I can use to my advantage. So here is where I am at this point:

• Business plan is done, however not sharp enough to where it is worthy of raising funding. I need to find someone to work on filling the holes in this plan. Regardless of whether or not this idea gets off the ground, it's going to be better to know how to finish a sound business plan at a young age than to continue to go on as an entrepreneur without this knowledge
• I do NOT have a programmer whom is on board as an equity partner to build this site. My goal is to find someone whom I can partner with , where I provide the business end, and they provide the technology end. I have a few people to pursue at this time, but no commitments
• I do have a supplier of products that will enable me to get this site off the ground, and have products to feature each and every day. They might not be the "best" prices on products, however we can make them attractive by keeping our margins very low to start. This won't result in us making money, but it will get us up off the ground so we can build our traffic base and continue to source products in order to increase our margins.
  
• I've got the marketing relationships in place to set up a nice PR push for the week that we launch. Once again this would get us off the ground, but in order to get to the level that we are seeking, we're going to need a lot more of a sound marketing plan

I'm not sure that this idea drives me as far as being considered a "passion" of mine, however I feel that I have something else to prove to myself by continuing to pursue this. Give me a month to follow up on this posting.

Trying To Keep Up

I haven't really been avoiding this blog lately, I actually think about it all of the time but just don't have anything relevant that I want to post until right now. In life you have a lot of choices to make, one of those big ones being your career path. I've chosen to start a business, as opposed to working at a job, however it's by no means been an easy ride and I often find myself thinking that I could just end this misery by getting a job and resorting to a stable life. And then I think to myself....Commit. Make it work one time, and life's a beach.

Originally in this posting I was going to document a few things that had happened to me since my last posting, a few negative things. After a conversation with a friend and fellow entrepreneur I've decided that while these events are part of the journey, it's a better choice to focus on the positive. Don't get me wrong, I've had a positive attitude and demeanor throughout it all however it has seemed that everything has been going wrong. Not going to focus on that though, here's what's been going down that I'd like to remind myself.

• My wishes of joining a team, and finding an opportunity to learn and make money were answered when I was brought onto a team at a company called Greif. I'm making more money than I ever have in an hourly position, have freedom to work whenever I please, and am learning a lot about bringing a product from an idea all the way to commercialization with a limitless budget.
  
• I've been able to continually keep my house rented out in spite of losing all of my tenants
• My golf game continues to make improvements, and everytime that I seem to have a problem, I'm able to work it out with my coach or on my own.
  
• A client that I lost a year ago called out of nowhere and gave me a large towel deal, that could keep on coming throughout the year. We shipped product out the beginning of August, and I received and deposited the check this week
  
• I wrote and finished my first full business plan with financials, traffic statistics, etc. Learned so much by going through these steps, and met so many new people regardless of what happens.
  
• Pitched my business plan and idea to so many different contacts, still have a few open doors
• Networking like crazy, and the contacts that I have made, have in turn been introducing me to more and more people they know that might be able to provide value. It's amazing as you never know when a relationship that you've taken the time to develop will lead you to the person or path that will change your life
  
• I've had numerous opportunities present themselves to me in the past few weeks, and it will be exciting to see where the next door opens
  

I'm sure there's plenty more great things that have been happening lately, however these are the few that I could recall at the time of this posting.

A New Path

I try to write in this blog more often, however laely I haven't exactly had many new things I felt about writing about. My past posts describe a few common recurring issues that I was facing, and I've recently had a few positive developments. One thing I mentioned a few times was the towel business, and the ups and downs I was facing with that. Well recently I decided to close the doors on this operation. When I say close the doors I mean get rid of all inventory, and stop pursuing any new business. I still have clients who call once in a while, and I will fulfill their orders, but that doesn't require much time or energy. I'd say the business became more of a mental weight on my shoulders, especially now that a powerful competitor has entered the market here in Columbus. So instead of wasting my time and negative energy worrying about this, I'm done. I have some left over inventory and two potential buyers, so very soon I should be rid of all liabilities.

One other common recurrence in my blog postings was working with a team. I've missed the energy, momentum, and excitement created when working with a group of people all motivated in line with the vision of a company. For my latest venture I've been placing an emphasis on putting the right team together, and things are coming together. I'm talking with a few people, all excited about the opportunity, and already introducing me to new contacts, opportunities, etc. I met with one of them on a recent trip to New York City this past week, which was incredible to say the least.

Also in regards to a team, I recently took on a consulting gig with a local company here in town. I have mentioned in this blog that I've been looking for a part time job for some time now in order to be able to pay my bills, etc. I've actually been looking for a long time now, having offers, but not taking them because they didn't pay enough money and they weren't helping me grow as an entrepreneur. I thought at one point that I was going to be working for a past investor at his company however he stood me up on two occassions at which point I decided I didn't want to work for him anyhow. It's funny though because if he didn't no show for the two different meetings I probably wouldn't have fallen into the opportunity that I took. My position, which I start on Wednesday, is to help a local company here in town take some product concepts from ideas all the way to commercialization. I'm really excited, it's a new path that allows me to learn and grow while also being paid.

I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, and I feel like as long as you don't give up you can put yourself in the position to take advantage of the opportunities that you were looking for.

Other than this, I recently spent a week up in New York City. I met with four people up there, two of them very successful entrepreneurs. Actually successful is an understatement. These guys just had it, unlike any others their age that I have ever met. The meetings went well, and I feel I'm learning more and more what it takes to make it in this field.

Memorial Day

Memorial Day has come and gone, another summer here again. I can't believe how fast time flies as you move through life. I was just sitting here thinking about a task that I know I have to complete, however continue to put off. Something I was reading recently described a tactic to fight through times like these. If there's something you're putting off in life, ask yourself why? It seems that everything we do as humans revolves around two things, pleasure and pain. If I'm avoiding something than I must associate some sort of "pain" with taking this action which overpowers the "pleasure" that I would get from taking this action. Anyhow it's powerful stuff and it concerns me how we can associate so much "pain" with an action in the short term when in the long term it will bring us so much "pleasure". I think it comes down to laziness and lack of self discipline. If we don't get a handle on concepts such as these than summers will continue to come and go, and life will continue to pass us by.

Anyhow enough of that, not much new on the entrepreneurial front. I know my latest business plan needs a lot of work and I am working with someone right now on tweaking it in order to get it ready for financing. I've also been going to job interviews in order to get some more money coming in. It was so weird at first to be meeting with HR departments again, I was hoping I would never have to do this again. Big Reality Check. Gotta do what you gotta do, but I'll never give up the dream.

Memorial Day Pics:

Up Before The Sunrise

Much thanks to Steve Pavlina and his different blog posts on changing your everyday habits. I've been testing a few of them out in order to help me become more of an early riser, and I've been seeing results. It probably sounds simple to most people, however being an entrepreneur there's nothing that I have to get up for in the morning because I can start working at anytime. I'd say I fell into a bad habit of lying in bed a little longer than I should be, but that's all changed recently. It's about 5 a.m. right now and I'm up and heading to the gym!! I feel great, and I'm looking forward to seeing how I feel throughout the day.

I Was Running

"Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle - when the sun comes up, you had better be running"

I've been trying to get up earlier on a more consistent basis. Another thing that I've experienced as an entrepreneur is that when you don't "have" to get up at any certain time because you don't have a job to go to, it's easy to just go back to sleep. Why waste the morning though, it's one of my favorite times of the day and I've been getting up earlier and earlier lately. It's 7:30 a.m. right now and I'm up and running. I thought that was a great quote, and I've used it to motivate me to get started early on a more consistent basis.