Previously, I’ve written about a new business taking 3 years. I think that’s a good number. There’s a lot you don’t know at the start that you will learn over 3 years. I try to get people to focus on a 3 to 5 year journey, since that’s far more realistic than overnight success, or a direct arrow up. As I reflect when writing on this blog, I can put a date of when...
I like this proverb quite a bit. I don’t think people realize the situation they are in when they owe money. You have this thing hanging over you and everything you do. A pet elephant that needs to be fed. I have made a decision to live debt free. Not only do I not carry credit card debt (paid off every month), I aggressively paid off my house. All large purchases are saved for in advance...
I’ve been watching the ongoing discussion of social media with great interest. It’s been an interesting decade since Facebook took over. I was an online pioneer, but the one place I never transitioned to were the big social media platforms. I resisted at first because I could see how much time people spent on them. This was apparent right away. I made a conscious decision that my time...
I read a lot of articles these days about maintaining a Work/Life Balance. It’s good that people realize the importance of having a healthy life outside of their work. I’m not sure when it started to be looked at as more important, but it’s something I’ve always lived. A friend of mine used to joke that I was “successfully underemployed” because my work week...
I came across a quote this week from Arnold Schwarzenegger about how he is NOT a self-made man, despite often being described as that. Everyone needs help and gets help to be a success. People like to say they are self-made, but leave out parts of their story. Usually those parts are not insignificant. I like to think of myself as bullshit free, and I like to think of myself as self-made because...
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson posted this recently, talking about how a dream of his was crushed but only now many years later does he see what opportunities opened up because of it. I really related to this because I have a similar story. I file this one under “Hard lessons learned”. Back in 2000 I was in the peak of my DJ career. I was performing around the world...
Recently, a visual metaphor appeared to me. I saw myself paddling a canoe down a river. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about “what’s next?”. The canoe metaphor gave me permission to just enjoy the journey, that this is exactly where I’m supposed to be, and there is no rush. As I pondered this metaphor some more, I also realized I can’t see far ahead...
In a lot of ways, creating a business is much like being an artist. There is no one way to create art, and certainly no one way to create a business. You can even fail at it, junk it, try again. Develop your craft and get better each time. For me personally, I’ve always followed my own path for how I wanted to do it. Most of the time I made it up as I went along. Sometimes it worked...
I feel like I’m in a unique situation. I write to share my experiences and lessons learned, but am doing so from a position of success. So much success, that I’m not looking to sell anything. So that allows me to be honest, and tell things like how they are/were. At the same time, these true stories I feel run so counter to the “instant success formulas” being peddled...
I still wrestle with feeling like I don’t know anything. I think it will always be with me. Like, my biggest financial success was creating some technology, yet put me in a room with a bunch of tech people as they throw terms around I don’t know and I feel like a moron. Part of it is because I went about it in a very unique way. I remember watching a food documentary, watching these...
There’s a simple trait I’ve seen amongst successful entrepreneurs, and it seems to separate those that achieve from those that just dream: Taking Action. From first hand experience and observation, those simple 2 words seems to make the difference. Taking Action means just do it, just go for it, just start it. Whatever your business is, do it. It does not mean “find more busy...
For a long time I struggled with acknowledging that I was having success in my life, but the way I achieved it, in a completely unorthodox fashion, always left me feeling like I faked my way to it. I recently came up with the correct word to describe myself and how I did this: Audacious. When I look up the definition of that word I get: Showing a willingness to take surprisingly bold risks. When...
This was originally posted at my DJ site, anabolic-frolic.com. StealthSeminar, a webinar software company I co-founded in 2010, just celebrated its users generating over 1 billion dollars (USD) using the platform. What’s more amazing is that the software that I created and has been used by over 20 million people owes its existence to my DJ past, and specifically technology I created to host the...
Young entrepreneurs have an advantage you lose later in life – time. I can clearly remember being around 20 years old, and making a decision to pursue my music passion, knowing I could spend a couple of years on it and see where it goes. I ended up sleeping on the floor of my small office for 2 years, poor, trying to make something happen. A lifetime later, I simply couldn’t make that...