NevBlog

Neville's Digital Surrogate Brain

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My Very First Business

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I consider my first REAL business to be House Of Rave (link), but before that were a bunch of other hair brained ideas to make money.

Of one of the very first was selling custom CD’s in 9th grade. I’m taking a guess this was around 1997 or 1998 that me and my dad outfitted the family computer (a 33Mhz CPU with around 600 MB’s of storage) with a CD burner.
This was a relatively rare thing…at least not many of my friends had access to a CD burner back then.
Around the same time MP3’s had come on the scene. Most people didn’t know what they were, but Napster was starting to make headlines here and there as an “illegal” file sharing service. I was all over Napster, downloading as many songs as I could over my dial-up connection and making CD’s for my personal use.
Well it didn’t take long for friends to see I could get ANY song and make a CD with different songs on it. I had something they wanted and couldn’t get elsewhere, so the natural laws of supply and demand kicked in and I started selling custom made CD’s!
People would make me a list of 17-20 songs on a sheet of paper…usually I’d already have the popular songs downloaded or on a CD already. The songs I didn’t have I’d download on Napster (keep in mind…I was still using a dial-up at the time).
I would sell the CD’s for about $1 per song, but would charge a little more if I had to download a lot of the songs. Generally the CD would cost them about $20 or $25. Close friends got special deals.

Making a CD back then wasn’t especially hard, but there were a lot of constraints I had on my old family computer:
  1. It was slow, so everything was sluggish.
  2. I only had 400MB of free space, so I couldn’t make a full 720MB CD at once, I had to chop it up into sections.
  3. I couldn’t store all the songs on the computer, so I’d have to delete something to make space, insert a CD with the song, rip the song to the computer, then burn the ripped song to the custom CD, then delete that file again. Process varied depending on the song source.
  4. MP3’s were so new, so I had to manually convert the MP3’s to huge .WAV files for the burning software.
Making a single CD with all these swaps, changes, deletes, downloads etc. could sometimes take almost 2 hours or boring work. Remember, this was an old computer and stalls were common place. However it normally took me 30 min to 1 hour per CD. I did this all after school.
The next day at school I’d show up with the CD, they’d show up with the money and I’d make a 100% profit since I had no expenses (my parents paid for the computer, burner and CD’s…unknowing I was making money off it)!
Due to all the constraints my limit was about one custom CD per day….and $20 for a CD was a lot to me, so I was fine with it.
Then one day I got caught. I didn’t even realize I COULD get “caught” for what I was doing. It just didn’t seem wrong. I made a CD transaction in my English class, and the teacher saw it….no big deal, I traded all my CD’s in class.
The teacher yanked the CD and questioned me. She got really furious and said, “I read an article about these “M…P……..3’s?” and they’re ILLEGAL.” It sounded like I was selling drugs in her classroom! I remember it pretty vividly because she was a teacher that never raised her voice, but all of a sudden SNAPPED when it came to MP3’s!
She took me aside after class and sternly warned that she wasn’t going to report me…but if I EVER brought an “M…P…3” in school again she would.
I remember thinking, “report me for WHAT?” Since the recording industry was so behind on moving into digital downloads, a whole generation of kids like me never thought twice that downloading a song might be punishable.
So my side hobby of selling CD’s went on for a while (although not in the classrooms of course) until more and more people had access to CD burners, plus summer came and there was no school. Eventually everyone knew someone with a CD burner and the small technology advantage I had faded. I made my cash and I was happy to not have to sit in front of the computer watching a status bar!

Learning from being drunk

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In college I was first exposed to people who would get drunk when they go out. It was always fascinating because:

  1. People would be normal
  2. They’d drink this stuff
  3. They start acting differently

After more and more drinks it was very easy to see people getting chattier, louder and generally less inhibited. It’s clear that alcohol is pretty good at spicing up a party, but why do we need it?

It always bugged me that some people HAD to drink to have fun. Maybe they didn’t have to, but it really enhanced their good time…but why?

Being slightly nerdy I would select random people at a party and analyze their behavior from sober to drunk and in between. I would also do it with the best test subject I could find: myself. Now THIS is fun science :-)

I would take mental notes of what I was doing differently when intoxicated. There are a lot of good traits about being slightly intoxicate like the willingness to chat up strangers, feeling less nervous and not worrying so much about things. You tend to become a slightly more “fun” person when you’re a little tipsy.

There are also bad things such as not being able to comprehend things as well, loss of coordination (I can barely play the guitar if drunk), paying lots of money for alcohol, not remembering things as clearly, the whole driving issue and waking up feeling like crap.

So the novel of idea of NOT drinking, yet trying to emulate the GOOD qualities of being drunk popped into my head.

Over the years I’ve randomly decided to not drink on some days….no reason other than to just test pretending to be drunk. Not drinking is easy. It really isn’t that hard to refuse rounds of drinks because you can ALWAYS pawn off a free drink on someone else. You can also easily get a cola or other non-alcoholic drink to keep up the illusion. Almost 80% of the time the bartender doesn’t even charge me for a “plain Coca-Cola” or pineapple juice!

I’d try to mimic the “good” effects of alcohol when I did this, and to my surprise it actually works quite well with practice! It actually helps you have a lot more fun when you “pretend” to be drunk!

For example:

Let’s say you’re shy to dance, I know I used to be. I would always think “I wonder what people are thinking of me” or “I wonder if I look silly” over and over in my head. However if I was a little drunky munky I’d probably dance anyway, accept the fact I possibly look ridiculous, wouldn’t care what people thought and just have a good time.

So if I were sober and dancing, I would think WWDND? What Would Drunk Neville Do….and just do that. It actually takes some mental effort and practice to not emulate some drunky qualities, but it’s well worth it. It can also apply to many other situations in life.

This little technique has definitely helped me have a lot of fun over the years.

Now all this alcohol talk kind of makes me want a drink… :-)

Cheers!

-Neville

The Kramer Poster Shirt

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Kind of in the spirit of my self-made spray painted shoes, I went to a “T-shirt Deli” in Austin that serves up your very own custom created silk-screened shirts.

You can pick out one of their designs or make your own custom print on the computer or with paper and an Exacto knife.

If you make a shirt from a computer image, you can stick it in Photoshop, set the threshold option which will make it black/white then print it on a transparency. The guys at the shop then do their silk-screening magic from that.

I decided I wanted that famous portrait of Kramer from Seinfeld on my shirt, that thing always cracks me up!:

I know my way around Photoshop, so they let me loose on their computer and I erased out everything but his image. I set the threshold to 135 and printed out the transparency. The threshold filter gives the image a really cool/rugged look which makes Kramer’s portrait even funnier:

The guys then gave the transparency some sort of chemical bath, then started the silk screening process:

I know there’s tons of internet sites where you can upload your design and they send it to you completed in the mail, but watching the actual process before your eyes made it feel like you “made” the shirt rather than just uploaded an image. Plus it’s just plain fun watching the behind the scenes process!

They can place the design anywhere, so instead of the standard “middle-shirt” I had it placed offset on the side. The end result:

….my one-of-a-kind Kramer shirt!
I’m sure this is a copyrighted image, so I doubt you could sell these without some licensing agreement…but on a small do-it-yourself scale I’m sure it can’t be too illegal (Dear Sony Entertainment: please don’t have me killed, thanks).

Speeding Tickets = City Donations

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I’ve long held a rather odd belief about speeding tickets, which might be why I don’t particularly mind getting them.

First of all, any time I’ve got some sort of traffic ticket I’ve been actually doing something wrong, so there’s really no reason to bitch about it.

When you get a drivers license you clearly consent to following all the pre-set rules, and if you don’t follow them, you run the risk of getting a citation for it.

The other belief is that every time I get a traffic violation it’s like a “donation to the city.”

I like this point of view because 1.) It’s true and 2.) It’s a great way to not get frustrated about getting a ticket.

I’ve been to the Austin DPS many times to pay off tickets, and I must say it’s an exceedingly simple, straightforward and very easy experience (although I’ve tried schemes to get out of tickets before). It’s actually refreshing to see a government entity so on top of its game.

I’ve been to other DPS’s where I’ve had to wait in excess of three hours to give them my money. I don’t care about the money, but making me waste an ENTIRE day….That’s just cruel….very effective in getting me to avoid tickets…but cruel.

In Austin I almost don’t mind getting a ticket because I can easily take care of it over the phone, in person or internet. It’s easy, quick and the revenue goes towards a great city.

It almost makes me WANT to get caught!

——————————————

Now what I DON’T like getting caught by is those automated traffic ticketing systems. I wrote about my first one here that gave me a nice photo shoot. It’s so impersonal….although highly effective.

Getting caught by an officer is kind of a fun cat & mouse game. I wasn’t particularly mad about the last one because it clearly shows I blatantly ran a red. However I got another one of these recently, and after viewing the photos online I immediately cried “I DIDN’T RUN THE LIGHT!!” I was simply taking a right turn on a red light, I could clearly see my car turning right. I unfairly got a ticket!!

Turning right:

However unlike my last ticket, this ticket included a link to a VIDEO of my offense. Uh ohh! I immediately thought this would be pretty incriminating, but it really wasn’t. I didn’t speed through this light, I safely slowed down and took the right.

Video:

OK, I didn’t stop 100%, but I slowed down to like 2mph which is damn near stopped. I think this is actually an unfair and undeserved ticket. Yes, I didn’t COMPLETELY STOP AT THE WHITE LINE, but even if a cop was behind me, I seriously doubt he would’ve pulled me over for this.

A little pissed off, I did some research and came across sites like Camera Fraud and others who highlight all the negative and unfair things about these camera lights.

I decided to try semi-fighting this ticket, even though I knew I either pay $75 to get this over with, or drive to Houston, schedule a hearing, then work with a small chance of success to get this dismissed. I called the company in charge of the cameras and spoke to someone about it. I told her the call was being recorded for a news broadcast (just so she wouldn’t start getting snippy or hang up on me) and started questioning the video. Surely enough she started on the “You clearly didn’t fully stop at the first white line…” spiel and I quickly realized fighting this wasn’t going anywhere.

SO while I’ll go ahead and pay this $75, I don’t feel as good about it. I didn’t get the thrill of being pulled over or immediately told what I did wrong….plus I don’t think I did anything wrong.

However it’s easier to pay off the $75 than to actually fight this ticket.

…and like I said earlier in this post:

…any time I’ve got some sort of traffic ticket I’ve been actually doing something wrong, so there’s really no reason to bitch about it.

…and in reality I didn’t fully stop.

———————

On another note:
Despite me being slightly fumed about this latest ticket, I have to admit these traffic violation companies have an EXCELLENT business model!!

The cameras and infrastructure might be a little costly, but they constantly generate revenue for the company and the city. I imagine the biggest drawback to that business would be having to deal with government entities to get permission to post the cameras….and getting governments to give you long-term contracts so you can make your money back.

———————

On even another note:
I remember hearing about a couple of products that help distort your license plate from those cameras. I imagine as technology gets better it will make these methods obsolete, but for now I’m seriously considering buying this spray:

It seems like a great (and legal) way to say F*CK YOU to the speed cameras (although purposely running a red light one day with a middle finger out the window might be more fun)!

From now on I’d prefer my traffic tickets to come from an actual officer.

License and registration please…..

Spray Painting Shoes

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I like weird color shoes because they break up the seriousness of any outfit. I bought some white shoes a long time ago and they made everyone look, but then white shoes started to come into fashion (that’s right, I alone started the whole trend) ;-)

After a few years some of these shoes still fit and feel great, but look quite worn. They are past the stage of a simple cleaning due to years of heavy use.

I still wear them from time to time, but they don’t have the same “weird-looking shoes” effect they used to have. It’s also hard to tell by the pictures, but they look pretty dirty in person. So in trying to incorporate them back into the wardrobe I tried some experimental shoe cosmetic surgery using plain old spray paint.

Patient 1 was a pair of very comfortable Aldo shoes I’ve had for years. I still wear them when I need to do a lot of walking, but don’t want to wear tennis shoes. They’ve become pretty worn and dirty especially around the sides, backs and stitching seams. The brown spot top-right is a test-spray I did with the spray paint to see if it would bind correctly:

I bought some generic gold spray paint from Wal-Mart and gave them a quick spray paint coat. I covered the entire shoe, even the bottoms. They came out quite well!

They actually look like a new pair of shoes now! I was very satisfied with how well this pair turned out:

Patient 2 is also an old pair of Aldo shoes I’ve had for years, and are starting to look dirty although this picture doesn’t show that too well. I’ve tried using “shoe touch-up paint” to clean them, but it’s no longer cutting it. These shoes are made out of some hard leather-like material, and I wasn’t sure how well the spray paint would bind to the shoes, especially in the crevasses and cracks of the shoes:

When I was buying spray paint at Wal-Mart I saw “Outdoor Reflective Spray Paint” that’s used for marking trees or painting road stripes. I THOUGHT this would look pretty cool, but it didn’t exactly turn out so well:

It’s not captured by the picture very well, but they actually look like someone sprayed over the original shoe. You could kind of “see through” the paint, and I wasn’t exactly crazy about how these turned out, you can still see all the scuff marks on the shoes:

This was kind of a fail in my opinion, so I bought some metallic blue spray paint and gave them a once over. A weird thing happened, the yellow and blue mixed to turn the shoes GREEN! I didn’t expect that to happen as I thought the blue would paint OVER the yellow, but this mistake ended up looking pretty interesting (and shiny):

 

So far these shoes have held up with their spray painted outer coats. The hard leather shoes lose a small amount of paint in the crevasse areas when I wear them a lot, but it’s so small an amount no one would notice. So now I have two “new” pairs of shoes for the cost of $2.99 cans of spray paint:

…and the “mistake” pair:

I like both of them, but the gold ones came out looking the best. The green ones are nice in my opinion, but I either get “those look awesome” or “those are the worst shoes I’ve ever seen” remarks about them. If everyone thinks it looks horrible, I generally like it more.

The coolest part is when someone asks me where I got them, I can say, “I made them!”

My 27th B-day!

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In celebration I’m taking friends out to watch the remainder of the Leonid Meteor Shower tonight!

I Ended Up On A German Book Cover

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That’s right, I’m famous. Uber famous!

A few months ago someone from a German publishing company contacted my business House Of Rave to possibly buy some of the wallpapers featured on the site. They wanted to use one of the pictures on the cover of an upcoming book about the techno club scene in the 1990’s till present (or something like that)…

They offered to pay me a nominal fee for the rights, but I declined (in order to keep the full rights) and requested a copy of the book plus photo credit if it was published using pictures I own. I figured since I own a rave company, I should probably help support the rave community in whatever way I can…and it seemed like it would be decent publicity too.

So I provided them the original high-res files to a few of the pictures they requested, and didn’t really expect anything to happen.

Just recently I got a package from Germany with two copies of the book, and they happened to use a picture taken by me, of me demonstrating a product! While you can’t clearly see my face, you can see the silhouette of my face (so excuse the opening line…my SILHOUETTE is Uber famous)!

Front Cover:

Back cover:

Side-by-side:

That white line divide near the bottom quarter of the picture is actually a giant dry-erase board in my upstairs living room.

Photo credit on inside jacket:

Here’s the German Amazon link to the book.

So a picture of my hands are on the front cover of a book. This reminds me of when The New York Times did a full photo shoot with me, then just used a picture of my nose…but they used a full picture of Jim!

Ok, I finally get what everyone’s trying to tell me:
I’m too good looking to be printed.

Quote Bank

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Whenever I come across a good quote from anything…a book, interview, podcast, magazine, TV show etc…I write it down either in a notepad, my Google Desktop bar or my iPhone.

Here is my quote bank:

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
–Aristotle

Constraint inspires creativity.
–Jack Dorsey

Whoever feels pain in hearing a good character of a neighbor, will feel pleasure in the reverse.
–Franklin

The best things in life make you sweaty.
–Edgar Allen Poe

“….we looked at a human life up close and saw that it was just an ordinary Wednesday, again and again and again—and that achieving life happiness was all about learning to be happy on a routine weekday.”
–WaitButWhy

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of.  You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.
–Albert Camus

Man is made for bustle and movement. A ship in motion, a fine woman dancing.
–Abigale Adams

People have everything we want.
–Earl Nightingale

Money makes people just more of what they were before.
–Biz Stone

Eating with utensils is like making love with your clothes on.
–Placemat in Indian restaraunt in South Africa from Diana Nightingale book

When asked if one should marry or not, Socrates responded, “You will repent it either way.”

The great majority of people do not achieve unusual success; why would we expect that getting in the same line as them in any endeavor would result in any sort of remarkable success?
–Earl Nightingale’s Greatest Discovery page 118

When asked what it was like as a comedian to perform in front of 80,000 people, Steve Wright answered:
“It’s like swimming in the ocean.  It doesn’t matter how deep the water is.  All you can do is swim.”

“The business of life is the acquisition of memories”

Climb mountains not so the world can see you, but so you can see the world.

Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
–Anti

“If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.”
–Lao Tzu

“Sometimes I want to ask God why He allows poverty, famine, and injustice when He could do something about it, but I’m afraid he might just ask me the same question.”
–Abdu’l Baha

Good looks help and constitute an asset if the rest of the person is in balance.
–Earl Nightingale

The only thing about a man that is a man is his thinker. Everything else you can find in a pig or a horse.
-Archibald mcleish

Your stomach should be filled 1/3rd with food, 1/3rd with water and 1/3rd empty to be at your most productive.
–Muslim quote

If you can’t poke fun at yourself, you’re not much.
–George Steinburner

He who has health, has hope, and he who has hope, has everything.
–old Arabian proverb

The atitude must preceed the accomplishment.
–Nightingale

When a man doesn’t know which harbor he’s sailing to, no wind is the right wind.
–Senneca

You can’t have your Kate and Edith too.
-Statler Brothers

If it feels right, smells right and tastes right, it’s almost surely the right thing to do. It really is as simple as that.
–Captain Michael Abrashoff

Talking about men in their forties experiencing a mid-life crisis:
“Suddenly the past seems a humiliating reminder of risks untaken, women unconquered, and chances ignored.”
–Nancy Mayer

If someone says a particular person spoke critically of you, just smile and reply, “I guess they don’t know about all my other faults. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have mentioned only these”
–Epictetus

Books are the training weights of the mind.
–Epictetus

Man cannot remake himself without suffering. For he is both the marble and the sculptor.
–Alexis Carrel

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet attested their wealth stems in part from being born in America where “innovation and risk are rewarded”

Aristotle said, “Happiness is a byproduct of healthful and successful activity.”

Everytime you do something, you throw a boomerang. Eventually the result will come back to you.

It’s true some of the best things in life a free, but it’s funny….have you ever tried getting them without money?

To get a great idea, come up with lots of them.
–Thomas Edison

Write as well as you can and finish what you start.
–Ernest Hemingway

When asked for the formula of success, Andrew Carnegie said, “Put all your eggs in one basket, then watch that basket.”

The purpose of ANY organization is to help man enjoy a more meaningful existence.
–Direct Line 18B towards end

I cannot become who I want to be by remaining who I am.

The bedrock values instilled by Sam Walton and his early lieutenants were all-american values: Hard Work, frugality, discipline, loyalty, a restless effort at constant self-improvement.
–The Wal-Mart Effect

Sam was no genius…he was a workaholic. He was not driven by money, but by competition. He could be playing tennis with a one-legged man in a wheelchair and would show no mercy.
–The Wal-Mart Effect

Any business needs to concentrate on two things: order volume and avg order value.

Like an hourglass, only one grain at a time can pass through. If we go one grain at a time, slowly buy surely we can get an enormous quantity done.

Willis H. Carrier:
I have bee using this same anti-worry technique for 30 years:
Step 1.) Analyze the situation fearlessly and honestly and figure out what’s the worst that could possibly happen.
—-
Step 2.) after figuring out the worst outcome, I reconciled myself into accepting it if necessary.
—–
Step 3.) from that time on I devoted my time and energy to trying to improve upon the worst which I had already accepted mentally.

Two men looked out from prison bars. One saw the mud, the other saw the stars.

Greek proverb: The best things are the most difficult.

To make things more pleasant for others is a reason for being.

The best laid schemes o’ mice and men often go astray.
–Robert Burns

Wise men ne’er sit and wait their loss, but cheerily seek how to redress their harms.
–Shakespear

“Only hurt people, hurt people.”

A man is what he thinks about all day long.
–Emerson

Our life is what our thoughts make of it.
–Marcus Aurelius

I had the blue because I had no shoes,
Until upon the street, I met a man who had no feet.

Find a problem, then ask the opposite.

Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.
–Dr. Seuss

It’s nice to be part of something that will last a little longer than you will.

Doctors give up a year of life to specialize, but they reap the rewards for decades to come.
–The Dip – Seth Godin

Scarcity creates value.

Never retreat. Never explain. Get it done and let them howl.
–Benjamin jowett

We could be playing cards right now and I’d want to kick your ass. Not win, but kick your ass. There’s a difference.
–Tiger Woods

When asked, “What is your idea of happiness?”…Alfred Hitchcock replied, “A clear horizon.”

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it daily.
–Zig Ziglar

Don’t write about what your readers want you to write about. Write about what you’re passionate about.
–Mark Cuban/Tim Ferris

If you don’t know what to write about, write about what makes you angry, but don’t attack people.

Excellence is not an act, but a habit.
–Plato

Talent is the desire to practice. You love something so much, you’re willing to make a large sacrifice for it.
–Malcom Gladwell

It doesn’t take any more time or effort to dream a big dream than a small dream.

I’m a great believer in saying yes and not no.”
–Richard Branson

It HAS to be something you like, or you WILL bail.
—Joe Liemandt

The first man gets the oyster, the second man gets the shell.
–Andrew Carnegie

You don’t go in the studio and think, “Ok, what would people want to hear me sing about.” I go in there and think, “Ok, what just happened this weekend? You just gotta keep it real with yourself”
-T-pain interview (Yes, I just included a quote by T-pain…you can learn something from everyone)!

If you could put a silver bullet in one competitor, which one would it be? You’ll quickly find out who the best is
–Warren Buffet

If you risk something that is important to you, for something that is not important to you, it’s just foolish.
–Warren Buffet

Build a moat around your business. When I invest in a company, the only guidance I give the managers is to continue building that moat. Make it bigger, make it deeper, throw crocodiles in it.
–Warren Buffet

The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage.
–Paraclese

If you stay ready, you never have to GET ready
–Will Smith

Take what you love to do and apply it to something profitable.

Almost everything you do should be building upon somthing which you can look back at in its entirety and be proud, or sell.

If your competitor is so dull they can’t come up with something original about their own products or services and have to steal things you create, they won’t be competition for long.

Define success:
A=X+Y+Z
A= Success
X = Work
Y = Play
Z = Keep your mouth shut
–Albert Einstein

The best people in any field are those who devote the most hours to what the researchers call “deliberate practice.” It’s activity that’s explicitly intended to improve performance, that reaches for objectives just beyond one’s level of competence, provides feedback on results and involves high levels of repetition.
–Malcolm Gladwell

Rules prevent disaster, but they ensure medicrity
–Barry Schwartz

There is only one goodness, it is knowledge. There is only one evil, it is negligence.
–Socrates

It may be that taking the focus off your own happiness is what makes happiness possible.
–From a satire article in Cracked

We tend to play things ridiculously safe…it seems as if some people think they’re going to live forever.
–Earl Nightingale

When asked where all his success comes from, Ted Turned simply replied, “Thinking. I read and I thought.”

Stanger, if we pass each other and you desire to speak to me, why should you not? And why should I not speak to you?
–Walt Whitman

If you’re just a distributor, where will you be in 5 years when the major suppliers begin vertically integrating?
–Ted Turner

In chess, a 1 or 2 ahead player always gets beat by someone who looks 7 or 8 moves ahead. I always wanted to think a few moves ahead of the competition.
–Ted Turner

When asked about the secret to longevity in show business, George Carlin replied, “Productivity.”

Lasting a long time is a function of pleasing a wide range of people.

To make more money: Motivate yourself by trying to solve peoples problems, not looking to sell them something.

If you give a child too many gifts, he will take them for granted. However we have been given a gift beyond measure (power of the mind), and we do much the same.
–Earl Nightingale

Beauty without intelligence is like a masterpiece painted on a napkin.

The man who has least fear for his carcass, has much time to consider others.

Conform to their style and they’ll remember you a day. Create your own style and they’ll remember you forever.

Humans must always have a carrot on a stick
–Maslow

Everybody is creative, and everybody is talented. I just don’t think everybody is discipined.
–Al Hirschfeld

Nice people with common sense do not make interesting characters. They only make good former spouses.
–Isabel Allende

It’s a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.” –W. Somerset Maugham

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
–Mark Twain

Creativity starts when you cut a zero from your budget.”
–Jaime Lerner

At the age of 24 I began setting clear, written goals for each area of my life. I accomplished more in the following year than I had in the previous 24.
–Brian Tracy

The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.
–Vidal Sassoon

If you sleep you can have sweet dreams…if you work hard you make dreams come true.
–Professor Kwag

Train yourself to let go of the things you fear to lose.
–George Lucas

In the words of William Arthur Ward, “Study while others are sleeping, work while others are loafing, prepare while others are playing, and dream while others are wishing.”

——update: 10-05-2009———

When investing, pessimism is your friend, euphoria the enemy.
–Warren Buffet 2008 shareholder letter

People don’t like gadgets, they like experiences. iPhone ads never highlight the technology or show the charger.
–Steve Oskoui

Stop thinking about how to get from people, and start thinking how to create value for them. Massive amounts for them.
–Eben Pagan

If you will take your best ideas, give them away, then people will presume what you’re selling is worth more.
–Eben Pagan

Strong men are honest about their desires.

Our capitalistic society ensures there will be competition.

I have told so many of my students that when you’re 1% unhappy it’s time to get out. Now it’s time to follow my own advice.
–Perry Belcher

Loving the twitter spam messages promoting worthless MLM and easy money systems. Whatever happened to hard work and a killer product?
—Mitchell Harper

Everybody says my website is a little like McDonald’s…it may not be healthy for you, but everyone likes it.
–Perez Hilton

The way we manage her brand is plan it out like a lawyer would create a case plan, then follow that plan.
–Paris Hilton Inc. Movie

Living with a woman is like working backstage.
–Ray Croc biography

If you want to conduct an orchestra, you must turn your back on the crowd.

I work with many CEO’s and celebrities and one common trait among these patients is they all imagined themselves attaining success before realizing their goals.
–Excerpt from a self-hypnosis book

Success leaves clues. Study people you admire or want to be like.
–Tony Robbins

If merely looking up past financial data would tell you what the future holds, the Forbes 400 would consist of librarians.
–Warren Buffet 2008 shareholders letter

Favorite Books

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I love reading books. I’m particularly into non-fiction books and auto/bio/graphies of great people. I spend a massive amount of time in the public library reading and have gone through hundreds of books. Rarely do I recommend anything to anyone except the absolute best books I’ve come across.

Books are possibly the highest ROI investments you’ll ever make in your life, as you can often learn a lifetime of lessons from a person in just one sitting.

As Epictetus said: “Books are the training weights of the mind.”
Below are some of my favorites:

Felix Dennis – How To Get Rich
Quite possibly the most fun I’ve ever had reading a book! A self-made wealthy man himself, he’s the owner of Dennis Publishing which owns Maxim, FHM, The Week and other magazines. There are maybe five books I’ve EVER read twice…this is #1 on that list.

Earl Nightingale – This is Earl Nightingale
Earl Nightingale is a rather obscure name today, but he is by far the absolute best personal development writer/speaker I’ve heard. Zero B.S. and filled with fantastic content. Most modern self-development programs are based on this. You should definitely listen The Strangest Secret (link) to get a taste. This book is mainly a transcription of his spoken essays he’s so popular for. If you can find a copy of his program “Direct Line” I suggest you buy it. I couldn’t find it anywhere except a bit torrent network.


Epictetus – A Manual For Living
I’ve bought two pocket sized copies of this book and lost both of them in airplanes. Any translation of this still fits in an exceptionally tiny book. There is an outstanding amount of timeless information in this book packed into quick, short passages that make you THINK how to apply them to your life. There is literally zero room in this book for B.S. advice and useless philosophical analysis. If you have a problem, quickly flip through this book and I bet some sort of solution will arise. Written about 1,900 years ago and still 100% applicable.

 

Napoleon Hill – Think and Grow Rich
This is a classic. I’d be surprised if you HAVEN’T read this yet. I’d bet money this book has restored countless relationships, made millions of millionaires and saved many lives. It’s been around since the 1920’s, so enjoy the slight racist and sexist remarks (don’t buy the “21st century version” which may be censored)! :-)

What Would Happen If I Die?

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*Don’t worry, this isn’t some weird online suicide note. It’s just a thought process of what would happen if I were to suddenly die.
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It happens all the time, every day, and has happened billions of times before me, so it’s safe to assume that at some point I will die.

If I had my own way, I’d prefer to die when I think it’s time (I’m a big fan of assisted suicide in old age). I think:

If I’m 80+ and all of a sudden bed-ridden from whatever cause, I believe it’d be a good time to go. Why slowly die and burden my family and self? Sure I could go on longer, but like a good comedian, I’d like to go out before the audience forces me out.

The same would be true if my life were to be dependant on others for basic functions, or if I am a vegetable. So if that situation arises in the future, I am publicly asserting it’s absolutely 100% OK with me to pull that plug! Anything that happens which burdens my family too much…yank it. No question about it.

Just for fun I ran out a thought experiment:

Cause: I’m crossing the street eating an ice cream cone when BAM I get hit by a bus. Dead.

Effect: Here are some of the effects I see happening:

  • Family/friends would be sad.

  • My blog would continue to exist (wouldn’t it be weird to be reading this blog even though I was DEAD)!?! In fact, in a weird way I’d be immortal for the 3 or 4 months my hosting company wouldn’t pull down my dedicated server for non-payment. I bet my blog would actually SPIKE in traffic as word gone around you could read a “ghost” blog! I also presume a lot of people would leave R.I.P. comments (along with spam links trying to profit off the traffic…even in death spam would be a problem)!

  • There will end up being a lot of pissed of customers at my business. While I don’t have much to do with shipping orders etc, they all pass through me. Without me there, I’m sure the business would continue accepting orders for 3-4 months before the hosting company pulls the plug. Unless someone intervened to get all the bills paid and orders sent. No one would actually be charged any money from the business, but they wouldn’t get their orders either.

It’s obvious that my main concern about dying is the ease to which my family can absorb that hit. I don’t want to die, then on top of that have THEM go through the legal work, taxes etc. to clean up my affairs. Now that I think about it, it’s actually quite selfish of me NOT to have a plan in place.

Which brings me to the conclusion I need a solid will (or at least a defined set of instructions left with the person with power of attorney over me). I need proper instructions in place to determine what will happen to my physical assets, money and businesses if I die. I’d also like every possible organ and body part harvested and donated quickly as possible (why the hell would I still need them)??

Action to take:
1.) Make a proper set of instructions to execute in the event of my unexpected demise.
2.) Legally give my parents power of attorney over everything I own if I kick the dust.
3.) Properly register as an organ donor. Apparently there’s a special registration for this…I personally think EVERYONE should automatically be an organ donor UNLESS they specifically apply NOT to be.

A few years before he died, Benjamin Franklin wrote up his own epitaph which I think is totally badass (this is the original so forgive the weird syntax):

The Body of
B. Franklin Printer
(The the Cover of an Old Book
Its Contents torn out
And stript of its Lettering & Gilding)
Lies here, Food for Worms,
But the Work shall not be lost;
For it will (as he believ’d) appear once more,
In a new and more elegant Edition
Revised and corrected
by the Author


A few people I told about this post thought it was “too much of a downer.” Why? Death is such a normal part of life, I see no reason why not to plan in case it happens, or admit that it will inevitably come.

I think Steve Jobs said it best in that famous commencement speech he made:

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.