I was reading a book this afternoon and it gave the story of a couple in America who were working for a company. The company was not doing very well and the owner decided to close it. The couple could see potential in it and went to the owner to see if they could purchase it from him. He knew that they couldn't afford it and told them so. They borrowed and begged for the money and finally got the money together. Anyway, to cut a long story short, at the time of writing the company had 300 employees and was grossing $50 million a year. Not a bad effort I must say.
When asked they gave 10 things to the secret of their success. (By the way, have you seen that movie, a 1980's movie with Michael J. Fox in it? I quite enjoyed it) I will list those ten things and give my opinions on the 10 things:
1. Keep a single focus. I think that my mind tends to wander and it takes forever to get back on track, whereas if I knew where I was going and what I was doing and that was clear in my mind most days would be easier because I had a focus I knew what I should be doing.
2. Keep a long term view and think ahead. It is very easy to focus on the present and agonise about the past. I tend to do that all the time, that is agonise about something that happen 16 and a half years ago that probably no one remembers and if they did they would laugh about it anyway. Think forward, have vision, that's what great leaders have, vision.
3. Do not panic. Panic is just a waste of energy. Step back and have a look and make informed instead of rushed decisions.
4. Develop a network and inventory your assets. What this means is that your friends, family, ideas and talents are also your assets. It doesn't have to be just hard assets. So if you have some kind of talent then you can leverage that.
5. Think possibilities and believe in the possibilities. You got to have options and you brainstorm until you find the right one or ones for you and then once you have decided you have faith in your decision and go for it.
6. Conserve you money. Yep! Don't follow my lead and spend it like it is going out of fashion or as my mother would say, "fritter."
7. Always be careful with your special team. That is your family and friends. You whole world might crumble and you could be in the middle of a pile of s**t but your family and friends will always be around. Look after them and they will look after you.
8. Surround yourself with positive people. It can very tiring being around negative people. it can be so demoralising for the soul, so why do that to yourself? Surround yourself with people who see the glass half full and tend to have that great smile on their dials. You will feel a lot more positive about things and you will get things done.
9. Don't take rejection to heart. Everyone gets rejected and it is how you react to it that shows what kind of person you are.
10. Look at every problem as an opportunity. This is another way of looking at the glass as being half full. You have a problem, you could do as I do and run away and hide under the nearest park bench or you could go great, I have this problem in my life what is the opportunity I am missing here? What can I learn from this?
There you go, sounds easy, doesn't it? It could be, so lets get to work and build something spectacular.
Sunday 28 July 2013
Saturday 27 July 2013
Social Media - Is it Social?
Recently a friend of mine here in Japan invited me to join Empire Avenue. For those of you who don't know what Empire Avenue is let me see if I can explain it although I must admit I'm not 100% sure myself.
Empire Avenue is basically game in that other players buy and sell shares in you. At the beginning I thought that your online activity on sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ allowed you to get a higher price on your share price. I thought that this was directly related meaning if you tweeted then you price would go up. This is not true. The more social media activity you do the the more desirable your profile then people will more likely buy your shares and then your share price goes up. Confused? It took me about a month to work this out. I'm not confident I've got the whole idea but I suppose the whole idea of anything new is to dive in and work it all out later. If you study and study it you will never do anything and you might as well have done something else with your time.
Thanks to Empire Avenue I have started a Twitter account, I'm a lot more active on Facebook than I used to be in that I "like" a lot more, I try to post and share things and just generally use the site a lot more. A friend of mine introduced me to Hoot Suite which has helped me with Tweets. I'm sure if I tweeted manually I wouldn't tweet at all.
Social media is certainly here and here to stay. People are using it as a marketing tool or as a way to keep in touch with family and friends and you would think that with many people using Facebook and the other sites that everyone is happy with it but like other things there are always detractors and I met one of them yesterday. I have just spent a week with a couple of women and then I asked if I could connect with them on Facebook. They were both negative about Facebook in that one said she likes to keep he life separate meaning family, friends, work are all separate. Fair enough. the other woman thought that Facebook was not social at all and that was to the detriment of society as a whole because we hide behind our computers and don't get out and actually meet people. I can see her point there and I agree but social media does have it's place so the following are five reasons why I like social media and more specifically, Facebook.
1. It is easy to catch up with old friends and also keep in touch with family, especially cousins who may not be in your generation.
2. Information can be shared very easily. After the Tohoku earthquake in 2011, Facebook was an essential part of people's lives as information was sent back and forth.
3. It can be used for both social reasons and business reasons and in fact some larger business businesses actually have departments in which someone's job is to look after the social media of the business.
4. Even though you may never get to meet with the person face to face, it gives you an opportunity to connect with people from all around the world and get their perspective on life.
5. In terms of Twitter it allows you to have in one place a base to hear from people that you might admire or idolize and you can even interact with them by asking questions. We know with some famous people their security doesn't even let you near them.
Social Media is social if you use it to supplement your "off-line" life. When you start to find yourself sitting at a computer for 15 hours a day then you might have a problem when you go out into the wide world.
There you go. As I said before, social media is here to stay. All I want to know is, what is it going to be like in 10 years time. That will be interesting.
Empire Avenue is basically game in that other players buy and sell shares in you. At the beginning I thought that your online activity on sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ allowed you to get a higher price on your share price. I thought that this was directly related meaning if you tweeted then you price would go up. This is not true. The more social media activity you do the the more desirable your profile then people will more likely buy your shares and then your share price goes up. Confused? It took me about a month to work this out. I'm not confident I've got the whole idea but I suppose the whole idea of anything new is to dive in and work it all out later. If you study and study it you will never do anything and you might as well have done something else with your time.
Thanks to Empire Avenue I have started a Twitter account, I'm a lot more active on Facebook than I used to be in that I "like" a lot more, I try to post and share things and just generally use the site a lot more. A friend of mine introduced me to Hoot Suite which has helped me with Tweets. I'm sure if I tweeted manually I wouldn't tweet at all.
Social media is certainly here and here to stay. People are using it as a marketing tool or as a way to keep in touch with family and friends and you would think that with many people using Facebook and the other sites that everyone is happy with it but like other things there are always detractors and I met one of them yesterday. I have just spent a week with a couple of women and then I asked if I could connect with them on Facebook. They were both negative about Facebook in that one said she likes to keep he life separate meaning family, friends, work are all separate. Fair enough. the other woman thought that Facebook was not social at all and that was to the detriment of society as a whole because we hide behind our computers and don't get out and actually meet people. I can see her point there and I agree but social media does have it's place so the following are five reasons why I like social media and more specifically, Facebook.
1. It is easy to catch up with old friends and also keep in touch with family, especially cousins who may not be in your generation.
2. Information can be shared very easily. After the Tohoku earthquake in 2011, Facebook was an essential part of people's lives as information was sent back and forth.
3. It can be used for both social reasons and business reasons and in fact some larger business businesses actually have departments in which someone's job is to look after the social media of the business.
4. Even though you may never get to meet with the person face to face, it gives you an opportunity to connect with people from all around the world and get their perspective on life.
5. In terms of Twitter it allows you to have in one place a base to hear from people that you might admire or idolize and you can even interact with them by asking questions. We know with some famous people their security doesn't even let you near them.
Social Media is social if you use it to supplement your "off-line" life. When you start to find yourself sitting at a computer for 15 hours a day then you might have a problem when you go out into the wide world.
There you go. As I said before, social media is here to stay. All I want to know is, what is it going to be like in 10 years time. That will be interesting.
Saturday 13 July 2013
The comeback
Hello everyone. Regular readers of this blog will note that I haven't posted for a few months and for you fans out there, I apologise for that. However, I would like to use this forum to talk about something that happened to me recently.
I returned to Japan about a month ago and last night when it seemed about 1000% humidity and I was literally swimming in my clothes I questioned that decision but I digress.
I'm reading a book, well I've just started it really. Basically what it is saying is that it only takes a minute to change your life. That sounds all very dramatic, doesn't it but it is true. Usually something will happen, or someone will say something or you will have an epiphany and you are forced into action.
I had that the other day, I won't go into details but someone said something to me that really got to me and I thought about it and the more I thought about it the more I wanted to do something, not to prove this person wrong but to prove to myself that I can do things if I put my mind to it.
So as the book says I had that one minute where I thought f**k, I better change here. I know that it is slow process and things won't happen over night but if I remember that minute and what was said to spark me then I should be on the right track.
That is the secret as I wrote above, it is to keep remembering that moment and to act on that because if you don't and if I don't you and I might as well go and live in a cave somewhere and only come out to hunt deer and collect wild berries.
For those of you who are curious to what the book is I'm reading here is a link to it on Amazon. As I said I'm only a short way through it but hopefully this book and what was said to me the other will provide that spark to bigger and better things.
Watch this space!!!
I returned to Japan about a month ago and last night when it seemed about 1000% humidity and I was literally swimming in my clothes I questioned that decision but I digress.
I'm reading a book, well I've just started it really. Basically what it is saying is that it only takes a minute to change your life. That sounds all very dramatic, doesn't it but it is true. Usually something will happen, or someone will say something or you will have an epiphany and you are forced into action.
I had that the other day, I won't go into details but someone said something to me that really got to me and I thought about it and the more I thought about it the more I wanted to do something, not to prove this person wrong but to prove to myself that I can do things if I put my mind to it.
So as the book says I had that one minute where I thought f**k, I better change here. I know that it is slow process and things won't happen over night but if I remember that minute and what was said to spark me then I should be on the right track.
That is the secret as I wrote above, it is to keep remembering that moment and to act on that because if you don't and if I don't you and I might as well go and live in a cave somewhere and only come out to hunt deer and collect wild berries.
For those of you who are curious to what the book is I'm reading here is a link to it on Amazon. As I said I'm only a short way through it but hopefully this book and what was said to me the other will provide that spark to bigger and better things.
Watch this space!!!
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