What does Mark Cuban say about startups?

December 4, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Startups | Leave a comment

Startups are a popular topic for discussion. I started a startup fifteen years ago. Most businesses fail in the first year or two mostly because the person in charge just doesn’t have what it takes to compete, or perhaps because there is not enough market for their service. In my opinion, a startup should be done by someone who knows his business inside out. The business might be new, but the business person should be seasoned. What seasoning? Cajun! The problem is that we normally do not have all of the skills we need, nor do most of us have the discipline that we need. Lastly, we normally create our startups in our 20’s or 30’s when we just aren’t seasoned! People who create businesses in their 50’s tend to do better. They have had a lot of experience going through problems at work, dealing with things, mastering people skills, hiring, firing, and seeing the long term effects of decisions. Young people just can’t duplicate that. But, what would Mark say if he were guiding you?

I read an article on Entrepreneur written by Mark Cuban himself where I learned what his “rules” are for entrepreneurship. It makes a lot of sense when you see it from the long run. Here are some of Mark’s points with my commentary below.

1. Don’t start a company unless it’s an obsession and something you love.
Honestly, if you are not obsessed with your work,how can you succeed? You need to take your work home with you, talk about it with your friends. If your friends don’t say, “Is your business the only thing you talk about?” Then you are not in the right space for success if you ask me.

2. If you have an exit strategy, it’s not an obsession
Warren Buffet buys stocks that he would keep for life. Of course he buys and sells just like the rest of us. But, he wouldn’t buy the stock if he didn’t have absolute faith in the company. Your business should be the same in my opinion. I have a friend who is always talking about exit strategies. I don’t want an exit strategy. My business is my baby. I agree with Mark on this point as well.

3. Hire people who think will love working there
It is not easy to hire people who will love working for me. My work is nitpicky and grueling. Everyone I hire I have trouble with. Why? Because they don’t love the work. I agree once again with Mark’s point (3), however living up to this standard is tough. I might have to go through one thousand people to find one who loves working for me. It might be easier if my job included photographing bikini models.

4. Sales cure all. Know how your company will make money and how you will actually make sales.
The best business model in the world doesn’t work if you can’t make sales. I started my company with a product that sold — advertising that works and courses that get you in business fast. But, not all business have realistic products to sell. Better see if your idea sells before you invest too much in it.

5. Know your core competencies and focus on being great at them.
I focus on the core competencies of my business. However, over time the competencies changed. Mark says to hire the best in your core areas. But, what if they are hard to find or don’t exist in a niche market? I hired people who understood my products well, used them for themselves with great results and were masters of selling my wares. My business did well as a result. I guess I followed Mark’s advice fifteen years before I read it.

6. An espresso machine? Coffee is for closers.
I disagree with Mark here. Sure, you don’t want a corporate culture of people who gossip all day in the coffee room. But, coffee is a stimulant, and many people need it to get that burst of energy in the beginning of the day. Small amounts of coffee have been proven to be good for your heart as well. I drink my coffee before I “go to work” which for me involves rolling out of bed and commuting five feet to the left where my computer is. I just have a Starbucks dougle shot.

7. No private offices. Open offices…
Mark claims that there is nothing private in a startup. By no offices, I think he means private rooms in an office suite.There is also no room for those who want swanky comforts like personal secretaries or flying first class. In my opinion, if everyone is not on the same page in a startup, you will have a lot of friction, disloyalty, and trouble. Even in a small business that has been around for a long time, users, cheaters, lazy people, and troublemakers can cause a lot of grief even if there is only one of them.

8. As far as technology, go with what you know.
I disagree with Mark here even though he is richer and smarter than I am. You might start off with technology you know. But, technology changes fast, and what is right for your startup may easily be very different than what you are familiar with.

9. Keep the organization flat.
Having managers that report to managers can create all types of complications. I’m not sure what Mark means by keeping it flat. If you are the owner, then everyone needs to either report to you, or you need to devise an internal system of checks and balances where everyone checks everyone else’s balances.

10. Never buy swag.
Having logos on company outfits is not critical in a startup. Perhaps that is the opposite of what a startup needs. Maybe everyone needs to wear atypical outfits. The main point is that people’s hearts need to be uniform in a startup — not their clothing.

11. Never hire a PR firm.
I cannot comment on this point as I have no experience with or without PR.

12. Make the job fun for employees
An engaged employee is much more productive and fun to be with than a disengaged one. Contests, parties, events, and other fun ways to work get people in the right mood. Conversely, not being mean to people is another good way to maintain a neutral mood. If an employee is so much trouble that you have to spoil the mood just to deal with them — perhaps you shouldn’t be dealing with them assuming you can live without them.

If I were Mark, I would include point 13: Have an insatiable desire to learn and master new skills and hire others with that same desire. Thanks for reading my commentary. Hope you liked it!

Outsourcing was first used as a business strategy in 1989

December 2, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Leave a comment

According to Robert Handfield’s “A brief history of Outsourcing”, outsourcing was not formally used as a business strategy until the year 1989. Outsourcing is the delegation of particular tasks or projects to an outside company or consultant. These days, outsourcing is very popular and standard, especially for large corporations who have global networks of skilled people ready to assist.

In the past, it was considered not advisable for companies to outsource critical tasks or core competencies. However, now many companies are doing exactly that. In my experience, smart companies in the United States do not outsource purely to save money. They divide their workload into segments or components. They find which tasks are the least critical and outsource only those. Saving money on important tasks can get you into trouble and can backfire as a strategy if the provider company doesn’t get the job done correctly and on time as that can cost you a client.

Traditionally, companies outsourced tasks they just couldn’t handle themselves. Publishers outsourced composition, printing, and fulfillment regularly. Outsourcing support services didn’t start appearing until the 1990’s with tasks such as Human Resources, Data Processing, Mail Distribution, Programming, Security, etc.

Outsourcing is a great strategy to deal with the problem of fluctuating demand. If your business is sometimes very busy and other times very slow, you can decrease your permanent employees and hire other companies to handle your overflow. However, the real costs for outsourcing are deceptive. Many companies quote particular rates, but the real price for them to get the job done within particular time constraints are hidden as many companies do not guarantee delivery times.

Outsourcing can also reduce training time. If there are certain tasks you want to focus on, then you can train people for those. You can outsource other tasks which are not worth training your own people to do. Many small businesses engage in multi-tasking and have dozens of tasks to do. New and even old employees typically only want to do two or three of the dozens of tasks, so to get them done it is often easier to find an outside consultant.

Is it better to do everything yourself at varying levels of competency or to hire twenty consultants who are each experts in their niche field? This is a question only you can answer. But, outsourcing to freelancers, overseas BPO’s or domestic companies will give you some insight into the quality of what you are paying for.

In today’s world, outsourcing could be for various reasons. Searching the world to find the best people to give you the best results is one of the reasons for outsourcing. Cost effectiveness is another. Overflow management will continue to be a reason as well. Strategic partnerships are a standard business practice among larger companies and corporations. The problem is that for smaller companies, it is hard to find reliable service providers as the high quality providers tend to be monopolized by larger outfits. So, as a small business owner, blindly mimicking the tactics of the big boys is not an effective strategy. You need to research companies one by one and sample their work to see who is a real strategic asset for you and who is just an unreliable buffoon!

How to be as successful as Scott Eddy on Twitter & get 500,000+ followers

December 1, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Social Media | Tagged , | Leave a comment

We all want to be huge on Twitter, yet so few of us get anywhere. I notice that the click ratio for my tweets is never that great even if the article is amazing. So, to get good clicks from links on your Twitter account you need a really large Account. Last time I checked, Scott Eddy had more than 671,000 followers. I started following him when he had only about 440,000 followers which was only two years back. I have six Twitter accounts myself. I had two for Notary, two for Outsourcing & Marketing, an acupuncture twitter and one for Travel. I found Scott Eddy while searching for interesting travel tweets. In any case, to get big on Twitter you need to have several ingredients in place.

1. Follow 1000 people per day.
In real life, it is hard to follow 1000 people per day. But, if you can identify which type of targetted profiles will be most likely to follow you back or even share your content, you will get a lot for your following time. You need to unfollow those 1000 after three or more days ideally. When your Twitter account is small, it might not be so easy to do this. But, as you grow, you can easily follow a 1000 and then scroll down 1000 deep in the people you follow to delete the old ones you have been following for 72 hours or whatever you deem the correct amount of time is.

2. Interact
Successful people on Twitter always make a habit of answering people’s questions. They often retweet their fans if their fans have something tweet-worthy as well.

3. Follow people back
I made the mistake for years of not following everyone back. Most people will dump you if you don’t follow them back. It’s hard to grow a huge following if 70% of your followers dump you. It takes twenty seconds a day to follow people back.

4. Create a Persona
If people get to know you via your Twitter profile and blog, they will engage with you better. Making your tweets more personal, and having photos of what you do, where you go, and you yourself wins the game. My Notary blog helps people to get to know me. The result is that it is a lot easier to sell them courses, advertising and more since they feel they already know me. Scott does exactly this as he has great photos and blogs of all his travel as well as retweeting really great content created by others.

5. Post a diversity of content
Quality is king. If you post poor quality content, your followers won’t come to your profile regularly. However, diversity counts too. Post a few really amazing quotes, links to great blog entries from others, as well as your own personal content.

6. Use analytics to see what your audience likes
Each audience is its own animal. You need to study your audience to see what they like. As you find what they like, you can spend your time writing blogs that cater to their interests. On the other hand, if you write about what you think is fascinating, that enthusiasm could become contagious.

7. Post, Post, Post
Successful people on Twitter post around the clock. That way if you visit their profile regularly, you will always find new content. Nothing is more fun that finding new content from your favorite account. Additionally, you can reach people who are on different schedules if you tweet at all hours of the day or night. If you only tweet in the afternoon, you will never reach particular people!

8. Amazing photos
I rarely use photos on my social media, but I should. I do on my more critical paid promotions. But, amazing photos can draw in the crowds in social media.

9. Lists and keeping organized
Some people attract others by having amazing lists that they created. I use lists to follow others. I see that other people will have lists of thousands of followers. To me that is wasteful. I want my lists to be focused so I can only see tweets from people who I want to see tweets from. Lists allow you to organize tweets in many creative ways. The minute I started using lists, my growth rate was immediately enhanced.

10. How come nobody said that before.
Scott Eddy is the master of having quotes so good, yet so unique that I’m always saying, “How come nobody said that before?” I asked him if he made them up or found them. He said a little of both. Here are some examples:

“There should be a calorie refund for things that didn’t taste as good as you expected”
“Getting results from other people is one of the hardest things an #entrepreneur has to do #startup.”
“Friendship is so weird…you just pick a human you’ve met and you’re like “yep I like this one” and you just do stuff with them.”
“Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes!!”

11. Combining travel, social media and wine
Some social media profiles are too focused while others are about a particular person’s life and have no theme. Scott Eddy has a lot of travel related content, regular commentary on wine, as well as social media dn business tips with an entrepreneurial twist. I find that his combination of elements makes his profile one that I want to go back to regularly as I share all of his interests. I actually do something similar with my main social media profile. I combine general business, outsourcing social media, programming, and call center themes all into one profile.

12. Keep doing it
There is a lot more to know about Twitter than what I just described. But, if you put a lot of time into your profile and keep it going over years, you can accumulate hundreds of thousands of followers. My growth rate on twitter is exponential, and not constant. The more I have, the easier it is to grow. I believe this is because Twitter introduces more people to me the larger I become

What if you got your business advice from Yoda?

November 30, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Management | Leave a comment

In the world of startups, outsourcing and business, there seems to be a critical lack of common sense. People are in a huge hurry. Few invest in training their employees. In foreign countries they rarely even invest in a proper phone line where they will be able to hear their prospective clients. The business world is insane, greedy, and idiotic. So, what is the solution? After watching the Star Wars series multiple times, it seems clear that the only way to learn any good sense in business is to learn from a Jedi Master. Obi-Wan Kenobi would be a good choice, but Yoda has about nine-hundred years more wisdom than good old Obi-Wan. So, the choice is obvious.

What if you wanted to get an idea of what business to go into. What would Yoda say?

20 YEAR OLD: “Yoda, I want to start a business, but I need to know which one to start.”

YODA: “Search your inner feelings young one. The feeling that stays with you will be the one. Hmm.
Search you will, but find you will not. A work ethic you do not have. Success will not be possible. Perish you will — hmm! First you must learn to work you must. Do you know how to fix droids?”

I wonder what Yoda would say to BPO owners who refuse to train their workers.

BPO OWNER: “Yoda, what can I do better in my business?”

YODA: “Answering the phone correctly your workers do not. How can you possibly succeed in business if you can’t even answer the phone correctly? Hmm! Double checking your workers output you do not. Sloppy work they do. Attention is not there. You will never be able to use the force with this attitude. Hmm.”

But, what would Yoda say to the more disciplined business owners. Would he have a different point of view?

YODA: “Where do you see your business 200 years from now? Hmm?”

BUSINESS OWNER: “Hmm, I never thought about that. That is so far in the future.”

YODA: “Far in the future it is not. In a blink of an eye it could arrive. Think you are there, and it shall be done — hmm!”

BUSINESS OWNER: “Wow. I’ll have to meditate on that reality. First let me think five years into the future.”

YODA: “Seek you must, first five years, then ten, then twenty. Hmm. Keep seeing farther. Find the consciousness that keeps your business ahead — it is the superiority of the consciousness that makes you win. It is by using the force that your consciousness becomes supreme. But, without discipline — this is impossible. Discipline you have — cultivating it you will.”

BUSINESS OWNER: “So, what is the best technique to develop the force within me?”

YODA: “Forget about that MBA program you must. Time it will take, knowledge you will gain, consciousness of the force and real life experience it will not teach. Learn to meditate you will. The force will develop within you. Also, learn to play the ancient Chinese game of Go from planet Earth you must. Earth has many people of wisdom. Too bad they destroyed their planet in a nuclear holocaust seven hundred years ago. Earth was once a planet of great beauty, but the humans there did not treat their planet with love — hmmm. Lost it they did. Escape they could not. Die they did. But, some of their culture was preserved — learn you must, benefit you will — hmm.”

A startup that helps startups

November 29, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Startups | Leave a comment

I heard of a startup that was created to help other startups. But, in reality, startups generally fail. When you do have a startup, you need the stability of a senior level person to make sure you do well. It is critical to have seasoned mentors guiding you and a way to get reliable staff. In real life, companies that do well have generally been around for a while and have a very stable following and a very reliable and stable staff. The only way a startup can do well is to break the mold and have a brand new way of offering a service that nobody else has thought of and also get their system to grow faster than the competition can catch up. I think that Uber is one of the best examples of this type of startup.

However, I feel that startups would do better if they had older and wiser people guiding them. And, it is a fact that entrepreneurs that do well are normally older and have decades of experience behind them. Entrepreneurs in their 20’s have a much lower chance of doing well than entrepreneurs in their 50’s. The key to success as an entrepreneur is not only having a new idea, but having tremendous drive, and very solid business skills as well as industry knowledge and experience. Someone in their 20’s by definition doesn’t have very much experience, and probably not very good judgment either.

So, what would startups need help with? They would need help finding help! HR would be the most critical task.

(1) H.R.
A startup that could help startups find reliable outsourcing companies and freelancers to help them do all types of tasks would be amazing. Tasks could range from call center, data entry, custom software, web design, social media and more. Not only would hiring be a task for the startup to do, but keeping track of whether the company was doing a good job, and if there were issues. The startup could also help replace bad freelancers and outsourcing companies.

(2) Market Research
It might be difficult for a new startup to be able to do market research. So, they would need a good mentor to help them research, or even do part of the research for them.

(3) Marketing
You can’t have a business without clients. But, what if a company out there would get clients for you and charge a commission after the fact? They would be your lifeline. In real life, there are many agents out there. But, how good are these agents, and how do you find them?

(4) Social Media
Social media is yet another aspect of marketing. But, if the startup could get you started on social media, that would be a tremendous service. However, social media work is expensive, and a startup working on a shoestring might be better off doing this type of work themselves.

(5) Strategy
People creating startups might have a lot of drive. Or, they might just want to escape the 9-5. It is also possible that nobody in their right mind will hire them creating the necessity for them to become an entrepreneur. Young people creating a startup might have a lot of drive, but might not have good judgment. Someone older and wiser with 30 years of business experience might be a God-send to keep them out of trouble in the strategic realm.

(6) Financing
Startups typically need cash from somewhere. I always started my businesses by bootstrapping. I never borrowed, and I build my businesses little by little. You can invest $100,000 in a business you know nothing about and you’ll lose your money fast. But, if you build little by little, you learn the business well by the time you have spent $100,000. You’ll also know if you have income by the time you are ready to invest any serious money.

(7) Finding Partners
As a general idea, partnerships are very risky as no two human beings are going to go the same direction their entire lives. However, if a startup specialized in finding you the right partner to cooperate with, that might really make a huge difference in your life.

That’s all for now. There are probably a lot of other tasks a startup helper could do. But, that is a good beginning!

Jamaica has more female bosses than anywhere else in the world

November 20, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Success | Leave a comment

This fact may surprise you, but 60% of Jamaica’s managers are women. Part of the reason for this phenomenon is that men become attracted to the musical culture and sometimes to crime, while more women are on the straight and narrow. Moreover, the lyrics of the music today in Jamaica celebrates criminal activity which further perpetuates the problem. Additionally, I might add that in the motherland of Africa, women tend to lead families and get things done while men fall into bad habits. On the other hand, in Islamic parts of Africa, the men have to do everything for the woman — according to a Muslim West African who I met at Beni Hana while enjoying the seafood special.

In the United States only 43% of managers are women and in Japan the number is a mere 11%. While the success of women in Jamaica is wonderful, is this a sign of achievement or an indication of an underlying problem? Men are not doing that well academically and have a much higher crime rate than women in Jamaica. This trend seems to mirror sociological trends in the black communities in the United States in many ways as well.

Jamaican and Caribbean culture is laid back as a rule. However, women have more motivation to earn. Perhaps it is instinctive so they can support their children or children which they will bear in the future. Or perhaps they are not attracted to the idea of smoking ganja for the rest of their lives. Other developing countries have similar behaviors in the slums. India for example has many men in slums who fall into alcohol dependency while the women tend to stay sober. Men in Indian slums will often beat up their wives to get money for alcohol or hooch which is India’s dangerous form of moonshine. While I was in India, an elderly lady went blind from ingesting tainted hooch. The mafia who brewed it put in too much battery acid which is how it gets its kick. I hope they remember to put just the right amount of battery acid in their next brew of pooch so that nobody else needs to be hospitalized.

My friend once told me about an organization that specializes in micro-loans. These loans are for people (mainly women) in the third world living in abject poverty to be able to afford small investments to get a tiny business going. Some needed some metal bowls to sell their goods in outdoor markets. Others needed to be able to buy some basic inventory. The needs were so simple, yet out of reach without wealthy people from the West giving them a chance. Most of the borrowers were women. Why were the men not interested in getting ahead? Had the men given up or had they given in to substance abuse?

Other Caribbean countries are also experience some similarities in these types of trends as 70% of the students in Universities across the West Indies are women.

I personally feel that there is a reason why religions like Judaism and Islam ban intoxicants or “sorcery” which could be interpreted to include drug production and use. Drugs not only ruin lives, but ruin entire societies. Worse yet, the effects of drugs on society empower women — and what could be worse than that?

How does outsourcing work?

November 16, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Leave a comment

There are different models for outsourcing. Big companies dominate this arena and often open up their own overseas offices or partner with others who have a reputable office overseas. Other companies hire individual freelancers domestically or overseas. It is also common for American or British companies to hire BPO companies in India, The Philippines, Romania or Africa to do a variety of tasks. Many BPO companies specialize in one type of task such as call center work while others can do anything from telemarketing to payment processing, bookkeeping, ecommerce set up and PHP programming.

The way outsourcing typically works is that a company in an industrialized country will need help getting some repetetive work done. They will often source companies overseas who can do the work for a fraction of the price domestically. Sometimes a quote will be given for a particular job while other times a long term service contract will be set up. Call centers often want you to commit to use a single rep for a period of one year while others will lease you an employee on a day by day basis. Programming houses typically charge per hour, but they can also bid for finished projects. The problem is that the specifications need to be very clear if someone is bidding on a completed project, and what if there are bugs in the program or if something doesn’t function correctly?

As with any other business arrangement, it is much easier if you know the people you are working with. If you have gotten reliable results from them for a year and you know the staff members personally, you are much safer with them than with a stranger regardless of what the contract says. A contract is only a piece of cyber-paper and doesn’t specify how good the “quality” will be. And if your contract is violated, how can you possibly enforce it if the company you are using is in Mumbai?

Doing some Twitter analytics. Click rates per 100,000 impressions.

November 15, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Analytics, Social Media | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

In the old days, I would just tweet my blog posts. I would write multiple tweets for popular posts. But, I would retweet posts that got more attention on Twitter. This turned out to be a good idea and a bad idea. After inspecting my analytics, I learned that we weren’t getting many clicks from Twitter.

My recent experiment was to post all of my blog entries. There are about 800 of them, so I posted them one by one. The ones that got clicked on were ones that I did some testing on. I tested a few dozen posts to see how well they would do if I published them multiple times to attain 100,000 impressions. I have 9000 followers on one of my business Twitter accounts and 19000 on the marketing account. I posted tweets on the smaller one, and then retweeted them each five times on the larger account over the course of 30 hours. The total number of impressions would be slightly above 100,000. I learned that some of the posts I had been ignoring for years did very well on Twitter. A few posts got two or three clicks when published with 100,000 impressions while many only got one.

I also learned that the average click rate for blogs published once on Twitter (instead of five times in a day) was roughly 1 in 98,000 impressions which is an interesting stat to know. Now I know what to expect when my Twitter followers grow to a few hundred thousand hopefully in a few years.

Doing well on Twitter takes a lot of work and there are a lot of things to measure and a lot of ways to measure various analytics and metrics. So, try to think about ways you can measure what is going on with your Twitter account.

The angels decide your fate in business

November 14, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Leave a comment

Many of us feel that our business success depends on us. Others leave it to luck or market conditions. When people do poorly, they often blame it on the economy. The truth is that our success depends on us, but also on consciousness, and even on the angels.

We are not alone in this world. There are spirits and angels all around us. You might not see them (and you might get locked up in an insane asylum if you do see them) but they were there. A lot of who we meet, what we do for a living, and what happens to us is decided above. It is a common expression that marriages are made in heaven. Even the unhappy marriages are often made in heaven as a way for us to work on our spiritual problems. Relationships force us to learn to deal with others better and to deal with ourselves better as well.

When I tythe by giving to charity, my sales go way up. This is because giving to the poor is a spiritually recognized activity prescribed by most religions. When you give, you open up channels that will send you more money and other valuable help from the universe. In a sense, by giving, you become a conduit, and you become more like God himself as God spends his entire existence doing work and creating for the benefit of others. My biggest mistake in business in the past was not giving enough. Additionally, I will say that God is very particular about which charity you give to. If you see huge rewards for giving to particular charities, then perhaps that is where God wants you to channel your finances. If you didn’t get much benefit in terms of good luck after giving to a particular charity, it might be corrupt in some way that is not visible from the surface.

Another huge issue with success in business is consciousness. When I hang out in wealthy places, that often helps my business make more money even though I am not doing business with those wealthy people at the wealthy places — I pick up their consciousness just by being there. When I do a little sales every day instead of leaving it all to my sales lady, our total sales go way up because my mind gets into the consciousness of sales. I have twenty tasks that I have to do daily including Twitter, Blogging, managing programmers, site admin, etc. But, if I include an hour of sales — miracles happen.

Basically, the point of this blog is to tell business owners to focus their mind on whatever the most beneficial things are for your business. Sometimes that might mean sales, or marketing, or site design. Other times it means hanging out in wealthy places. And give to charity. God rewards those who do his work. God’s work gets done through our hands, and he will be a lot nicer to you if you are one of his helpers.

You don’t get to the next level in business by being in a hurry

November 13, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Management | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Some people think you get ahead by being in a hurry. Others think they can slack off and still do okay. The truth is that you need to work very hard, but not be in a hurry. I remember reading how Warren Buffet observed that it takes nine months for a baby to be born. You can’t use nine women working as a team to get a baby in one month. Certain things in business just take time. This doesn’t mean you should slack off during this time. You should work hard and let nature take its course.

I remember when I was twenty I was in a huge rush to get ahead in my life. But, at that time in my life I was a complete failure. I was mediocre in everything that I did. Now, in my forties, I am still far from perfect, but I work hard and am always driving to get ahead. However, I realize that success and getting to that next level is not something I can control the timing of. There are some years that are good years and other years that are slow. I try to learn from what I did during those good years and learn from mistakes as well.

On a converse note, many successful managers do less. They find ways to supervise the right people for each task that they need to have done. If they are overworked, they won’t have time for critical things or for putting out fires. Whether you work hard or work smart, the point is to be on top of everything and make sure quality work gets done. After that — just let nature take its course.

Here is a remedy for sluggishness you’ve never heard before

November 12, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Motivation | Leave a comment

I feel sluggish all the time. But, I need to be an over-achiever to run my business. So, I find remedies for my sluggishness. I actually have many remedies.

Hiking
I love a good hike. Of course, if you over do it, hiking can drain your qi energy and leave you feeling depleted. But, a good hike in a natural place can help your body absorb the good energies from nature which along with physical exertion can help you feel recharged. I try to hike once or twice a week. I often go into the desert to Joshua tree to hike even when it is 100 degrees!

Cupping
Now, here’s one you’ve never heard of before unless you’re Chinese. Gua-Sha or suction cupping is a way to open up clogged blood vessels. If your blood circulation is not good, you will lack energy. I do cupping once a month or so, and often feel very recharged after doing it. It leaves bizarre looking purple looking marks on my skin which go away in a few days. If you are not stagnated, you probably don’t need cupping. As always, consult your medical professional before doing any cupping.

Fruits & Vegetables
Yes, having too much meats and breads leaves me feeling fatigued. But, having bananas, apples, dates, veggies, and freshly squeezed juices helps a lot.

Going to the Financial District
Why is this on the list? My surprise finding of the year is that going downtown for a few hours actually helps me get my energy up. I live in Los Angeles which is a big city. We have a financial district with a lot of really tall buildings. People in those buildings work and work and work. Most of their activiites are on repetitive tasks and there is not much creativity unless you go east to the artists district where there is a little too much creativity. I noticed that I feel recharged for about four days after visiting our financial district. I’m not sure that the same effect would be felt in other cities. But, it is worth trying it out. I am actively involved in feng-shui. Many people think that feng-shui is about arranging your furniture which is the tip of the iceberg. Feng-shui is about understanding qi energy and how it affects the people around. Downtown has some fast moving qi, and my sedentary lifestyle needs some fast qi to get me moving. Many people put up with long commutes and expensive parking just to have their office downtown. Perhaps they work more efficiently downtown, or just do it to fit in. Or maybe the feng-shui nourishes them in some way that allows them to stay in business while business that operate elsewhere are more likely to perish. Hmm. It’s the old chicken and the egg syndrome — did they move downtown to do well, or did they do well because they moved downtown?

Change your brain by the people you are with

November 11, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Innovation | Leave a comment

I remember a Rocky movie from long time back. Rocky astutely observed that if you want to be smart, hang around with smart people. If you want to be cool, hang around with cool people. Yogananda came up with the same observation except without that classic Phili Italian accent.

When I’m with my writer, I notice that my comedy skills get a little better over time. He noticed that my writing skills are slowly improving as well. He has known me for two years, and there has been a lot of improvement. God knows what I’ll be like in another two years. Then there are other people who just make me up set within minutes to the point where I can’t think at all. There are others who are very decisive. Hanging around with them can rub off on you.

I always wonder what the effect of hanging around lackidasical people is. Does it make me more lazy, or does it make me more impatient because I can’t stand their laziness? In the long run, if you get too used to dysfunction you will stop noticing it which is the beginning of your downfall. You need to be around people with high standards otherwise you won’t have decent standards.

If you want to raise the bar, picture yourself hanging around with the Queen of England. I’m sure she has the highest standards for class in the planet. Imagine having eat with her and talking about the people who work for you in your business. She’ll probably recommend you fire them all as none of them would be up to her standards. Sometimes royal standards don’t work in the real world, so don’t try to be too big for your britches, however, being exposed to the highest standards could do you a bit of good — and so would a few crumpets and Earl Gray Tea!