On the Brink.......

After six weeks of presentations, packaging, market research, product development, etc......I reached an agreement in principle to make, market, and operate a line of male products for a famous NBA superstar. I had been working with his manager, and we shared different visions, but were able to meet in the middle. I wrote up a contract, accepting 25% of a company that I started, operated, and lost sleep over. Two days later they backed out. I was very suprised, but not disappointed. I was giving up too much to begin with, and now I know I can do it with any other athlete.

There is a voice inside all of us that we would like to get rid of. Its the voice of self doubt and pessism. Its the voice that keeps telling me to quit and go get a job. Its the voice that tells me that I can't succeed, that there is too much mountain going uphill. I've heard this voice in the past...my senior year in college, when I took 6 full time classes, worked part time, and completed a full time internship. I almost lost my mind. And I heard it again, when in my final year of my MBA, I worked full time, went to school part-time, had a wife and one child at home, and travelled for business a few times a month.

I'm lucky, I'm able to turn the volume down on that voice and turn it up on the voice that tells me to keep going, not to quit, to keep pushing, to keep striving. It developed this way while jogging. The self doubt voice is for losers. You have to keep focused on what you want, and keep moving in that direction.

Like Ali McBeal, I have a theme song. I keep singing in my head:
"I'm the cream of the crop, I rise to the top" from Jump Around. I've heard of political prisoners in solitary confinement that sang the same song to keep them going the entire time they were in solitary. Aren't we all in solitary more or less?

The Giant in the Room

I graduatd from college 14 years ago. I don't keep in touch with hardly anyone from college, and always felt that my fraternity and I didn't quite work out. Why would it? I was a poor, shy, insecure kid from Queens, and alot of these guys were well adjusted, well socialized, outspoken kids from wealthy families. I was also not a jock, but alot of these guys were more than just fully grown men in college. I always felt smaller in their presence.

• Last night I went to a Holiday get together consisting of 40 men from the fraternity. It was fantastic. I felt like a giant in the room talking with some of them. Physically, I have gained 30 lbs (mostly muscle) since college, while still keeping a slim build. Some of these guys had gained a lot of weight, where no weight needed to be gained. Some were slouched over, and lacked energy, or even personality. Some lacked spirit, some were confused. They were mostly where I was a year ago. I felt like I could pick any of these guys up with one hand. Like me, alot of them were doing well. However, most of the guys looked miserable in their jobs, and happy to be with their college buddies again. I gave a speech. Everyone laughed, everyone approached me and said I stole the show, and they didn't know how funny I was. Over the years, I've become a good public speaker.....the one thing that always seems to fascinate people. How did I go from introverted to an good impromptu public speaker?


• It was great to see how people develop. Some of the guys peaked in college. Some didn't develop after college. They were still little boys. Success and the lack of success can show on how a person speaks, walks, sits, and smiles. I like the fact that most of the guys are either married with kids or engaged. Some are remarried.


• It felt like a giant because my of my attitude and disposition. My outlook on life is noticeably positive, and it lures people (out of curiosity) to ask me about my life. Then I tell them, and they are fascinated. Questions like how did this happen to you always follow.


• You can only compare yourself to yourself. How are you today compare to 15 years ago? Did you work on all the things you needed to? Did you develop your charisma, your personality, your leadership abilities? Or are you still the same guy. We must keep evolving and growing if we are to become all that we can. We must force ourselves out of our shells. I became an English major in college because I knew I needed to improve my speaking ability, my thinking, and my writing. This is something that I can't say enough about.


• You are always judged first by the way you speak, and what you say. Your abilities are secondary. This is what separates the CEO's from the workers. Notice how dogs and horses behave. There is always a top dog, established within 30 seconds of dogs meeting each other. All other dogs follow the top dog in a delta formation. Horses are the same way. All the horses in the stable always waited for Secretariat to start eating before they started eating. And he was often late out of the barn....just like me. Happy Holidays.
  
  

Pay Attention to the Rain

Many people learn, and get nothing from a failed deal, a failed meeting, a failed business, or a failed relationship. We are fail in life, but some people have the ability to see failure as an expensive education, and other people have to repeat the class.
Indulge me......I'd like to compare life to rain.
Sometimes we know its going to rain by the color of the clouds, and the humidity in the air. Sometimes, there isn't a cloud in the sky, but suddenly a thunderstorm erupts. Then, sometimes, it hasn't rained in a while (a month or so) and everyone starts discussing how much we need rain....and miraculously...its rains. You've come to expect rain. Its natural for you to think it will rain a few days every month.

Life is the same way. Sometimes, things are not going your way, but you have to realize, that this won't last. In business, you can tell when things are going to get busy, just as you can tell when things are slowing down. Call it the air in business, or the business environment. But can you control your own business weather?
The answer is yes. Indigenuos people all over the world have always had a dance or a ceremony to make it rain. In Georgia, they are experiencing a drought, so the governor calls for a day of prayer for rain,....the next day it rains.

In business and in life, you must do your own rain dance. Perhaps you aren't aware of how you do your rain dance.......maybe you have forgotten...here are some examples:

1- A Young Lady I know is approaching 30 (fast) and wants to get married. So she spends her weekends at singles meetings, clubs, bars, dance halls, lounges, match.com, various dating websites, etc. She's goes with her friends (who are also single.) While she's out at the rain dance pow-wow, she spends the evening thinking about, complaining about, and whining about how she and her friends can't meet any men. The first rule of the rain dance is to thanks the skies for letting it about to rain....[don't complain about the lack of rain.]

2- My sales team has been spending the month (its been very slow in real estate) talking about how busy they are going to be in the Spring. This is encouraged. Most other real estate offices are talking about their lack of business. Then they get depressed and go home early. My team is expecting it to rain....and it will.

3- I had a series of meetings with investors in October. Things were going well, then they backed out, probably due to the liquidity and credit concerns in the market. While were were talking, I felt great, like this was going to materialize. After it fell through, I started to review everything we talked about. After several days, it dawned upon me that they had mentioned a name, once, many weeks ago. A guy that has expertise in my type of business's situation. So, I carefully recalled the name, then looked him up on the internet. It was a gold mine of a lead, leading to something even bigger than I could have imagined. This is like watching it rain, and staring at individual rain drops.....you have to pick out the information that you are given and see where it takes you.

Its the holidays, and so many people are depressed and thinking about suicide. Everytime I read the news, I read about a several hate crimes in New York, or how someone killed their spouse. Yes...its the Holidays, the time of year when people go crazy because they lack the love in their life to make them feel normal compared to everyone else. Everytime they turn on tv, they are reminded that its time to buy something for you loved ones. Students in high school and colleges are committing suicide are alarming rates. More and more people are reminded that they are not loved. The message of the Holidays have been lost. Its just another commercial spending spree, instead of time to share the love.

Of Mice and Men.....

The One thing I can't stand is a broken commitment. I can put up with lots of people...liars, cheaters, incompetence, etc. But, when someone looks me in the eye and shakes my hand, I consider that a commitment, and a contract.
Remember the movie Jerry McGuire? Remember when Jerry was trying to sign the #1 draft pick (The Cush played by Jerry O'Connell.) Beau Bridges says "I don't do contracts Jerry, but I give you my word and its as good as oak." Then they shake hands. All the while, Bob Sugar was signing them, and they were lying through their teeth.
These type of people don't just exist in the movies, they dwell in real life. I consider myself a great student of people, but recently, I was fooled! Someone shook my hand and promised an investment, resources, and lots of money. Then, after several weeks of jumping through hoops, .....poof! they changed their mind. Here's my take on this:
This happens to everyone. It could be a business deal, a marriage, a relationship, a parent that breaks their deal with their child, etc. Its better I find out early the type of person I'm dealing with, than come to realize it when its far too late. The more I get to know this person, the less I want to know. This person is a rat, but I'm glad I found out while he was just a mouse. So what do I do?
I can't spend any time thinking about this person, or feeling cheated. I have to move on, and focus all my energy on the next deal. Lessons learned: I can only be the type of person that I want to be, and I can't believe anyone else to have my high ideals and lofty values. The problem with Boy scouts is that they are disappearing fast.
Luckily, another door opened up right away, and its bigger and better than the last one. The more time I waste (including writing this blog about it) the less time I have to focus on the next venture.........Time waits for no man.

No Accidental Tourists

I spent a good part of this year jogging, and getting up to respectable mileage in the hopes that I could run the NYC marathon (which was yesterday.) In the end I was not selected to run (120,000 applicants for 38,000 spots.) But I learned alot about life :
1) No one ever accidentally ran the marathon. One doesn't decide the morning or the night before the marathon to run 26 miles. Its not an impulse decision that can have completion as a result. You must train with deliberate purpose.
2) Along the same line of thought, no one ever accidentally succeeds in life. If someone by luck wins the lottery, there's a chance they will end up broke within 5 years of winning. Its happened to a lot of lottery winners. You can't just accidentally build an empire, or accidentally find love and a great marriage, or accidentally raise great kids, or accidentally start a business that grows leaps and bounds. You must purposefully acheive these things in life.
3) No one accidentally becomes a billionaire....And ....no one does it by themselves. No single person became a billionaire by themselves. There's usually hundreds if not thousands of people working for the same purpose......But one person gets the title. But its takes many to help him or her get that title.
4) I was shocked recently to learn that a lot of successful people do not affiliate with their friends from their past. Now I know why. Your friends from your past will often say "help me out." Everyone will be looking for a little help when you make it big. No one will regard your success as only yours, they will say they helped you along the way. Whether they did or didn't doesn't matter, you will need a new set of people to hang out with.

I often think of myself as a poor kid from Astoria, Queens. Thats not how I think of myself anymore. These days I see myself as an up and coming New Yorker. Its sounds better, and it feels better, and perception will always be realty.
Change how you see yourself if you really want change in your life.

Puts your Guns on the Table

I'm often shocked when I hear that a student was caught with a gun at school; Or that a student was arrested for bringing a gun to school. I'm shocked because when I grew up in the 80's, alot of kids brought guns to school. It was normal. I remember being in JHS, and watching a kid pull a gun out in the cafeteria. Then another kid said "thats a puny gun", and pulled out a 9mm glock. Everyone oohed and aahhed. It was just show and tell.
In high school, and keep in mind I went to the elite Brooklyn Tech, there were plenty of guns. There were at least a dozen gangs, and hundreds of gangmembers. Quite a few of these guys brought guns to school regularly. I often felt that I needed a gun on the subway. Once, on the senior ski trip, my roommate brought a 44 caliber hand gun. It was cool.
No one ever actually used the gun. Sometimes, they didn't have bullets. But knowing that there was a likelihood that the other person had a gun made you less likely to pull yours out.
These days, it seems that only the mentally ill have guns at school. No one normal brings a gun to school anymore. And now, schools have security and metal detectors. Twenty years ago you just walked in to school, knives, guns, brass knuckles, etc. Kids used to fight other kids. These days, they are shooting at the system, which includes kids they do not know, teachers, professors, etc. Twenty years ago, kids got into real fights, against other kids that they knew personally, and had arguments over girls, boys, name calling, etc. These fights were 30 seconds, someone pulled out a gun, everyone ran.
I look at Virginia Tech, SJU, Columbine, and see kids fighting the system. Its so different. Its overall safer now, but more crazy. I never worried about a lone gunman randomly shooting me or my classmates. I was concerned that I might accidentally step on someone's sneakers on a crowded subway, and that might lead to trouble.
Its just very different today. I really don't follow the news anymore. Its often crass, depressing, and draining. The media plays on fear and sells advertising based on fear content. I worked for an NBC news affiliate and spent 4 years writing in high school and college newspapers, and now I avoid the news. The news is that the more things change, the crazier things get.

IF WE ARE RELATED....WE SHALL MEET

My favorite book is "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill. I consider this a must read. Napoleon Hill ends the book by saying that if we are related (in thought, destiny, desire, etc.) we shall meet in this life, on this earth. How true. People are like magnetic fragments floating down a stream. Sooner or later, the like pieces find each other and cling to each other. You end up having clusters of magnets, some that attract each other, some that repel each other. Which brings me to my point....
Why do I keep bumping into some people time and time and time again? There are people from high school that have I have bumped into accidentally throughout the past 20 years. There is no one from college that I have accidentally bumped into, although much more people from SUNY Albany live in the New York metro area. I often try to discover what we have in common, why the magnetic pull of gravity has us heading on a collision course. Sometimes its easy to figure out.....I start thinking about someone from my past, and out of the blue I'm having coffee or drinks with that person. Sometimes its not so easy......I kept bumping into a high school classmate several times after high school, until it lead to a get together that gave me the idea to start my Men's skincare business.
Then there is the opposite...why can't I get rid of some people? Its because there is still something pulling us together....some common desire or thought or unresolved issue. Perhaps I keep bumping into this person because I do not know the answer yet, and when I do, I won't have to keep hearing from this person.
Complex yet true. So why not bump into the people you want to? Why not think about the person or people that you would like to actually meet. I started thinking about Bill and Hillary Clinton, and 4 months later met them. I watch 30 Rock and NBC, started thinking how funny Tina Fey is and how I would like to meet her....and voila! My son gets a call to be an extra on 30 Rock and I'm with him staring at Tina Fey (who is actually very serious.) My wife watches friends every night, she is still obsessed with the Ross and Rachel relationship, and voila....today she is with my son meeting David Schwimmer (he's doing a scene with him.) This continues to happen. I sit and think about meeting people that can help and guide me to the next step .....and it always happens.......I find myself having lunch with the CEO of a large cosmetics company. Did I have to travel far? We met by an introduction from my landlord (at the office) who knew him from golf......and we meet across the street from my office.
Perhaps we can't rid ourselves of the people in our lives because all we do is think about them, whether negative or positive. We can't mentally let go of them, so they can't physically leave. Like ghosts......like memories.
I also noticed today that people that keep birds as pets in a cage....rarely leave their house.