I’m still in Portugal and luck has shined on me. The weather has been great, the people have been great, and the experience has been new and adventurous. I’ll do a post on my Portuguese incubator, tech transfer, and entrepreneurial experience next but part of that has to do with the culture and possibly the food. In the interest of time, here are some highlights because I don’t have time to make the bullets work with the pictures:
The food is good but not the best in the world. They are known for their salted cod dishes, and I think I tried cod twice. I’m not a big fan of cod. The joke is that they have 1001 cod based dishes. However, the best meal and wine I had was at a restaurant called Fernando in the city of Porto recommended by one of my colleagues and we did have to bust the bank (our per diem for meal reimbursements was long overshot) on this meal but it was worth it. The grilled prawns were probably the best I had ever had. The red wine that another one of my colleagues selected was outstanding. The multiple ways they prepared the huge crab were delicious. I even took a picture of it and it’s the one accompanying this blog post.
The customer service is over the top. We in the US think we have good customer service but outside of maybe Nordstrom’s you don’t see this kind of customer service. They go out of their way to make sure that you have what you want. The best example is that the restaurant I mentioned above gave another of my colleagues a free bottle of the white wine he liked. They also let me try what they called a different kind of shrimp which was really a barnacle (I have pics of that too) despite me making a funny face at how weird they looked. Another example is a shop owner opening up especially for us to look at her knick knacks and port. A third is the Director of the Digital Media incubator spending the late afternoon with me to find some things for my kid’s school and good port! Her name is Fatima which I found a little coincidental because the girl Santiago falls in love with in the desert in The Alchemist (which I just wrote about) is called Fatima. Barely a touch was exchanged between them, yet they both knew. The book ends with Santiago finding his treasure and then going back to be with her. I know it is a fable, unrealistic romance, but us humans (especially us girl humans) fall for that kind of stuff. My whole point is (please excuse that aforementioned little reverie) is that you feel very much included in this culture.
I was disappointed that I never made it to a port/wine cellar in Porto. I hear they are lovely, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t get to try several ports and wines. I tried their famous Vinho Verde (green wine) and even though I don’t usually like white wines, I liked it. One of my colleagues recommended a type of white port tonic drink (can’t recall the name) that was really nice and refreshing. I am going to bring some port home!
They love their sports teams (i.e., football/soccer) and the gear is expensive but my son wanted a Portugal team shirt so what is a mom to do but buy one! 🙂 Their loyalties on the different soccer teams are fierce in different regions in Portugal so be careful what you say.
It’s been over a decade since I’ve traveled for business to Europe and technology has come a long way from internet connection, to Wi-Fi, to Skype. I can use Skype on my iPhone to call my kids for something like 2.1 cents per minute compared to $2 per minute if I used my regular plan. Of course I have to be in a free Wi-Fi spot and it’s not always clear but to me that is amazing. I’m sure I’ll still get phone charges because people have called and texted me and I don’t have a plan (and it wasn’t worth upgrading for the time I’d be here because international plans aren’t cheap). However Wi-Fi is in places I never thought it would be. I find this particularly cool because Wi-Fi Alliance has been headquartered at the Austin Technology Incubator for a few years now. The hotel I’m about to check out of has ethernet connection to the Internet but the microphone on my laptop isn’t configured/working so I can call out on Skype but people can’t hear me. Sigh.
The people still smoke a lot here.
They don’t take American Express in most places except for the hotels. Ah well. I guess I could have left home without it.
One of my favorite fables is written by Paulo Coehlo. It’s called The Alchemist (Amazon Link) A Fable about Following Your Dream and it was required reading in my class when I taught entrepreneurship at The University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business. It is about a shepherd boy who has a dream one night of finding a chest full of treasure. After meeting a gypsy and a king, he decides to trade in his sheep and follow his dream. Along the way he faces many challenges, gets in a rut, meets interesting people, never gives up, meets the love his life who waits for him, and eventually finds his treasure. When I first read the story the parallels to entrepreneurship struck me. Entrepreneurs often have to blindly follow their vision when others around them think they might be a little off their rocker. Entrepreneurship requires a lot of faith, hard work, and luck.
The reason I’m re-reading and writing about the book now (in an airport; finishing up in a hotel) is because I was on my way to Portugal for a business trip. It happens to be Entrepreneurship week in Portugal this week, and I was selected to go as part of a team to give a workshop on entrepreneurship to Portuguese technology transfer and incubator officers. I have traveled to many places but not Portugal and I’m excited about the opportunity. So far Porto seems to be a very beautiful city. On the way back, I’ll be spending a few days in Spain to visit my cousin Ashan Pillai (wikipedia link), a prominent viola player. Not only does he have his own wikipedia page, he also has a great website. The shepherd boy named Santiago (which also happens to be my son’s middle name) is from Spain and he travels to Egypt to find his treasure and discovers it’s not there!? It’s somewhere else and the book describes his journey where he does eventually find it.
Do you feel like you are on a journey…an impossible one sometimes? I sometimes do….an interesting journey to find my treasure whether it be riches, love, or the tangible/intangible impact I can leave on the world.
One of the biggest takeaways from this book that I always hoped my students would think about is when you take a chance to follow your dreams “the world conspires to help you.” Have you ever noticed that sometimes when you are making a hard decision or pursuing a dream, a project, or a task and you feel ‘in the zone’ that things seem to become easier and people seem to show up at the right time to help you out? Some people call it coincidence or luck…which it is but it also makes you wonder. A few quotes/statements I like from the book are:
About the world’s greatest lie: “It’s this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That’s the world’s greatest lie.”
“The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon [that you are holding].”
“My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer,” the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky. “Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams.”
Of course like anything in this world the heart must be balanced with the head to keep things in order and to make progress but a company (or a person) without a heart, a dream, or a vision will not go very far. This is why I believe the Founder of a company should stay with the company as long as possible because they often represent the heart, which we all know is necessary for a human to survive.
For the skeptics out there (myself included), The Alchemist is after all just a fable and Santiago didn’t have a wife or kids while galavanting across the desert. Those are pretty big responsibilities. However, many famous fables, Biblical or otherwise, have inspired people to do many great things! So take it with a grain of sand…like the ones in the vast desert that lay between you and your treasure.
I recently finished reading Outliers: The Story of Success (Amazon link) by Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell also wrote The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (Amazon link) and Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (Amazon link). I have not read either of the other two but have heard much about them. They were and continue to be top sellers. I was sent a copy of Outliers by I’m guessing a publicist several months ago when I was more actively blogging. I didn’t get around to reading this one until just recently and it was a very interesting read. My overall takeaway is that I’m screwed. I’ll never be an outlier, but my kids might have a chance.
He proves through a series of statistics, research, and anecdotal stories that outliers basically have to a) be born at the right time, b) have access to the right resources, c) have the right support/encouragement, and d) have had 10,000 hours (approximately 10 years of experience) in a particular skill when a bunch of economic factors line up. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, and Bill Joy, founder of Sun Microsystems, had about 10,000 hours/10 years of coding under their belts due to a series of fortunate occurrences that enabled them to start their businesses at the right time. They were both born around the same time as was Steve Jobs. In Rockefeller’s day there were 14 other Americans including Andrew Carnegie and JP Morgan born within nine years of each other who were part of the top 75 all time richest people in the world.
I’m too old now to figure out how to get 10 years in of doing something like coding to make me an outlier. I have no idea if I was born at the right time. I do happen to like the year I was born. It’s a cool year. Currently my set up is all about encouraging/supporting my kids and as adults we don’t usually get that same kind of encouragement/support. The only thing I have been doing for a long time in different forms and fashions is writing. I took a huge break from singing. I have a lot of hours logged into thinking too much (not sure how useful that is) and I’ve been in the business world for some time. So my conclusion is that the odds are stacked highly against me being an outlier, but that’s OK because the odds are currently in favor of my kids being outliers. Well, I think most kids at their age have the potential to be outliers.
My son loves to play soccer and practices at least 3 times per week with games on weekends. My daughter loves swimming but only gets to practice once per week. My son wants to be a professional soccer player. At his age, I think I was lucky just to know how old I was let alone what I wanted to do when I grew up.
I also learned the importance of cultural ways of communicating in urgent situations. He describes how several plane crashes could have been avoided if the Korean pilots were not playing to a cultural notion of not defying their superior. It was worse fate to contradict a sleep-deprived captain or challenge a New York sky control person that risk death. I can see that playing out in all sorts of relationships…business and personal. I come from a culture where despite living most of my life in America, we were taught to respect our elders and not challenge them. I had/have a challenging nature so I had a harder time communicating in my family, but I also picked up some of those ways of communicating so I can appear passive when I don’t necessarily think/feel passive. In certain cultures, communication is rarely direct. It’s often implied and those who are seen as being in positions of authority or someone you don’t feel you can challenge, the person in the perceived lower position ‘hints’ or talks in non-threatening ways to influence the person in authority. Cultures who aren’t used to that can make false assumptions about people who communicate that way.
There were several other interesting chapters in between but my final takeaway that I could relate to had to do with the color of your skin. Malcolm Gladwell is 1/2 Jewish and something like 1/8 Black Jamaican. His great-great-great grandmother was bought by a White slave owner in Jamaica who favored her. They had a son whose skin color let him escape slavery and get an education resulting in him marrying another ‘mulatto,’ as they call people of mixed race, and their kids were protected from slavery. Gladwell’s mother had an opportunity to study in Europe and she met his dad. The South Asian culture (as I believe the African culture is too) is very much into skin color. The lighter your skin, the better off you are or shall we say are perceived as more socially elite. People are still judged by the color of their skin. I notice it much less now than I used to even among my South Asian peers, but it’s still there. I’m often the only brown person in a business meeting and often the only woman too. Fortunately in the technology entrepreneurship world, there are a good number of South Asian brown men so I don’t always feel out of place in that regards.
So, Outliers was a good, fairly easy read with interesting factoids and observations. Now I will wonder if my kids will be seen as Outliers some day. They are already outliers to me!
While I find the time to write-up my takeaways on the recent book I finished reading, here is a poem from a friend name Shaku Selvakumar who blogs at Brown Girl In The Ring – Brown Girl grapples with work, life, family and striking that fine balance. How the world affects us and where we can affect change in the world. Reducing our carbon footprint and increasing our heart imprint.
She is brave enough to share her gems on facebook and on her blog. I am not as brave as she to share my poems and song lyrics as I fear most people would not understand them. I don’t know about Shaku but sometimes when I write, the words come out without me having to think too much about them. On occasion, I’ve gone back to read what I have written not remembering that I actually wrote some of those words. With her permission, I am republishing this wonderful poem of hers. I met Shaku many years ago through an organization called The Indus Entrepreneur now known as TIE Austin. One of her three daughters went briefly to the same home care my kids went to. She also worked for a company called Webify that was an ATI company bought by IBM. Although we haven’t seen each other in years it seems, I feel as if we are on similar journey’s.
Icarus In Flight
I have wondered
About the road ahead
It twists and turns
It craves and burns
I have wondered
About the flight of the Dead
Where do souls converge
In oneness or splintered to return instead
I have wondered
About the colour of Love
Is it green, or black, is it blue
Or blood, a reprieve of a fearless vow
I have wondered
About the path of Dreams
Lifting, soaring, flailing, crashing
Breathing barely, fearing a requiem
I have wondered
About the burden of Stones
Gathering, growing,
Silently groaning waiting to be thrown
Now I wander
Through rows of Marigold
Wading in murky waters
Looking for Lotuses to unfold
Who dared the Sun
And touched the Sky
The Gods did he slight
To be Icarus on his flight
I’ve been asked several times by people what business books I read, and honestly I don’t read too many of them. This could partly explain why I’m not a millionaire yet. Maybe I have ADD (which many entrepreneurs purport to having in some form or fashion), but a book really has to get my attention and ones presented in fable or story form seem much easier for me to read. I used to devour books (mostly fiction), but with all I have going on, I’m lucky if I can get through one book every few months. However, as things have started to settle down a little bit in my life (knock on wood), I’m trying to read more books.
Fred Wilson did a post a while back listing the books he recommends for entrepreneurs (e.g., Atlas Shrugged, Shakespeare) which resulted in a guy named Zachary Burt creating a wiki for people to list recommended books for entrepreneurs. Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse, is on this list and one of my favorites. I used to give all my Intro to Entrepreneurship students a copy of Siddhartha as a good-bye gift. It’s one of the few books I’ve re-read at different times during my life and each time I take away something slightly different and more.
I wrote a post a few weeks ago about a book I read during a much needed break called The Happiness Hypothesis and I just finished Outliers by Malcom Gladwell. I plan to write about books more often on this blog and highlight any connections I see between the content of the book to entrepreneurship and parenting. The books will range from business related, to fiction, to classics, to possibly space exploration but I believe you can learn something from one book that later can help you assimilate (consciously or un) something you experience in the real world or read in another book. I also plan to update the design of this blog and add a page listing book recommendations.
If you have any books you think I should add to my pile, please let me know in the comments or by emailing me. I will be linking to Amazon for books I read and for full disclosure, if you happen to buy a book from that link, I will eventually get a small dollar % of that purchase. To date in the three plus years I’ve been blogging, I have yet to receive a check from Amazon so I don’t anticipate writing about books will be a lucrative endeavor!
May all you mothers out there be appreciated today (and every day for that matter) for all that you do. There are too many things that we do to list here. Although maternal and paternal roles have changed throughout the generations of humanity, the mother’s role is still very important not only from a biological perspective but also a psychological one. As the saying goes, if mom is happy everyone’s happy! My kids gave me lots of hugs and loving today and kept the whining to a minimum so I was a happy momma. 🙂
This quote was in an article that hit my in box today: “I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit,” Hemingway confided to F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1934. “I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.” The quote was in an email that was referencing a post done by Copyblogger called Ernest Hemingway’s Top 5 Tips for Writing Well and is mentioned in his book Ernest Hemingway on Writing (Amazon link).
For some reason it reminded me of times when people talk about scar tissue as badges of honor in the world of technology entrepreneurship. A lot of shit happens behind the scenes of a start-up company. One in 10 make it big and most of the rest of them have some modicum of success or get to 2nd base or fail. But in those other 9, a lot of practicing, a lot of learning, a lot of scarring occurs that make the next iterations closer to masterpieces. Many successful entrepreneurs (and investors for that matter) I’ve met have a few ‘bad deals’ or shall we say deals that didn’t go as well as they would have liked under their belts. The masterpieces are created because of the ‘pages of shit.’ Without those pages, experiences, and scars the masterpiece’s wouldn’t have happened. This is true in music, writing, entrepreneurship, sports, etc.
Just think about how many baskets Michael Jordan must have missed in order to make as many as he did. Unfortunately, in the world of start-up businesses we can’t physically (time, money, etc.) get up to bat or shoot at the basket that many times. So we have to get through the pages of shit and heal fast so we can hopefully create some masterpieces.
As I was finishing catching up with some work emails and wondering what I could possibly do next that didn’t involve thinking, I started feeling a little inclined to write a post. But I didn’t want to think much about it. I then thought about singing and how much I have enjoyed the process of beginning to record some songs with my music teacher. Creating recordings and music is a creative and somewhat entrepreneurial process. It’s kind of fun to have headphones on with the karaoke music streaming in. You can sing and hear yourself singing in the headphones. Then when I’m done, he plays it back and it’s so interesting to hear my voice with the music behind it played back to me. It’s funny but what I think I sound like and what I actually sound like seem different to me. I haven’t decided which voice I like better…the one in my head or the one that I hear played back to me. 🙂
I’m first working on recording existing songs and then I hope to record at least one original song based on song lyrics I’ve written by the end of the year, but that is proving to be challenging with my other time commitments as well as finding the right guitar player (or keyboardist) to help make it happen.
As I was thinking about writing something, it hit me that it was already May and then the Camelot song The Lusty Month of May came to my mind. Yes, my thought processes are strange, but I love the songs from Camelot the musical and Julie Andrews voice is just divine. Below are the lyrics and here’s a link to a YouTube video of the section of the musical.
THE LUSTY MONTH OF MAY
Camelot, the musical
Tra la, it’s May, the lusty Month of May
That lovely month when everyone goes blissfully astray
Tra la, it’s here, that shocking time of year
When tons of wicked little thoughts merrily appear
It’s May, It’s May, that gorgeous holiday
When every maiden prays that her lad will be a cad
It’s mad, it’s gay, alive, a lust display
Those dreary vows that everyone takes, everyone breaks
Everyone makes divine mistakes
The Lusty Month of May
Whence this fragrance wafting through the air?
What sweet feelings does it’s scent transmute?
Whence this perfume floating everywhere?
Don’t you know, it’s that dear forbidden fruit
It’s May, the lusty month of May
That darling month when everyone throws self-control away
It’s time to do a wretched thing or two
And try to make each precious day one you’ll always rue
It’s May, it’s May, the month of “Yes, you may”
The time for every frivolous whim, proper or im-
It’s wild, it’s gay, depraved in every way
The birds and bees with all of their vast amorous past
Gaze at the human race aghast
The Lusty Month of May
Tra la, it’s May, the lusty Month of May
That lovely month when everyone goes blissfully astray
Tra la, it’s here, that shocking time of year
When tons of wicked little thoughts merrily appear
It’s May, it’s may, the month of great dismay
when all the world is brimming with fun, wholesome or un-
It’s mad, it’s gay, alive a lust display
Those dreary vows that everyone takes, everyone breaks
Everyone makes divine mistakes
The Lusty Month of May
With about 1,000 things to juggle I can’t seem to find the time to write blog posts, let alone read which spurs some of my ideas on what to write about. After I get home get the kids fed, bathed, homework-ed, piano-ed, put to bed and caught up on emails, it’s almost 10:00 pm and I’m sapped or is that zapped…oh whatever. So here’s a copy of what I wrote for the Austin Technology Incubator blog on the Idea to Product Competition I judged last weekend:
I had the privilege of serving as a judge in the final rounds of the Idea to Product (I2P) competition this past Saturday, April 24, 2010. I always enjoy judging this competition and seeing how many interesting technology concepts the students either invent or enhance based on an existing technology. This year marks the 10 year anniversary of I2P and I remember being part of the early discussions when the competition was forming.
The Idea to Product® UT Competition is an early-stage technology commercialization plan competition, hosted by the Murchison Chair of Free Enterprise, which was started at UT in 2001. In the Idea to Product® Competition students create links between emerging technologies and market needs required to support later stages of commercialization. The I2P® Program educates students about creating viable products and services from technology, and has served as a stepping stone for entrepreneurship. Previous teams have produced work that has increased research funding, licensing of technology, and creation of new ventures. The competition has also served as a commercialization forum for faculty and members of the community. Faculty have been able to consider societal needs of technology and members of the community have been given an early preview of cutting-edge technology. The competition is sponsored by the Cockrell School of Engineering, the College of Natural Sciences, several engineering departments, along with several student organizations. Supporters of the event include the National Science Foundation, NCIIA, MOOT CORP, the Austin Technology Incubator, the Office of Technology Commercialization, Fish & Richardson, P.C., and the Herb Kelleher Center for Entrepreneurship.
The winners of this year’s University of Texas competition (the global competition happens later in the year) were:
It was a really tough decision choosing the top 3 because in all the years I’ve been judging the competition, these were some of the best presentations I had seen. It was obvious the students worked very hard and were probably up many a late night! Check out the http://www.ideatoproduct.org/ut/ site to see videos of the presentations.
Digital Proctor helps online universities assess whether someone might be cheating using unique keystroke identification technology. They even have paying customers! CoolCore Technologies has access to technology that rapidly reduces therapeutic hypothermia after a heart attack, stroke, or traumatic brain injury. Most brain damage is done within 90 minutes of an incident and cooling down the body can significantly reduce death and long term brain damage. SpectraPhase has technology that is a real-time glucose monitoring catheter for inpatient care usage. It gives continuous, ultra-high accuracy readout of changes in patient blood glucose levels.
We at ATI wish them great luck in pursuing commercialization of their technologies (if they choose to do so)! I2P is a great way for students to get feedback on the commercial viability of their technology and product ideas, and I look forward to serving as a judge again.
Well it doesn’t solve everything, but for a kid it seems to take away pain. No matter how many times I explain to my kids that a band aid is supposed to just cover a wound so dirt won’t get in it or so that blood won’t spurt out everywhere, they still think it takes away pain. My daughter has a long scrape on her leg from trying to move/drive one of those big drivable electric rechargeable cars at a friend’s birthday party last weekend. Strange on many levels I know…she seems to have a little bit of tomboy in her like her mom. But before the driving incident she was making bracelets. When she first showed me the scrape she was calm about it. Then I took her inside the house, and she started saying how much it hurt. We cleaned it up and put a band aid on it. Then she was fine and went back to playing.
As soon as I take off the band aid because the scrape needs to be cleaned or to replace the band aid, excruciating pain all of a sudden appears! She refuses to take it off when taking a bath. She will only let me take it off for a few minutes to put Mederma or Neosporin on it and put another one on. I say to her “Why don’t we just leave the band aid off so the scrape can breathe? It’s not bleeding, and we really shouldn’t be wasting band aids.” Her response is to whine and moan in agony about how much it hurts and how much she needs the band aid because it hurts so much. She’ll even start limping and saying she can’t walk without the band aid. I sigh, give up the useless discussion and put another band aid on it. She smiles and goes off on her merry way.
Oh if band aids still held such pain relief magic for grown-ups, I would be putting them over my heart and head every day! 🙂
One of the perks about blogging about parenting and business is that I sometimes get stuff and am asked to blog about really cool things. Disneynature’s PR folks reached out to me asking if I would be willing to blog about their new movie OCEANS coming out on April 22, 2010 (Earth Day). I said of course! I have seen some of the previews in the movie theater and it looks amazing! Plus my ears will enjoy listening to Pierce Brosnan narrate. 🙂 I plan to take the kids to see it as soon as I can!
Start by checking out the OCEANS trailer (Click the link to see the trailer in High Definition). I included just some of the great pictures they offer to bloggers, and here’s the info:
Disneynature, the studio that presented the record-breaking film “Earth,” brings OCEANS to the big screen on Earth Day, 2010. Nearly three-quarters of the Earth’s surface is covered by water and OCEANS boldly chronicles the mysteries that lie beneath. Directors Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud dive deep into the very waters that sustain all of mankind—exploring the harsh reality and the amazing creatures that live within. Narrated by Pierce Brosnan and featuring spectacular never-before-seen imagery captured by the latest underwater technologies, OCEANS offers an unprecedented look beneath the sea in a powerful motion picture that unfolds on April 22, 2010.
“See OCEANS, Save Oceans” Initiative: Disneynature will make a donation to the The Nature Conservancy in honor of every guest who sees OCEANS its opening week (April 22-28, 2010). These funds will help save coral reefs in the Caribbean Sea. The details of “See OCEANS, Save Oceans” can be found on The Nature Conservancy’s website: http://adopt.nature.org/coralreef/saving-a-coral-kingdom.html. 400,000 advanced tickets for OCEANS have already been sold, meaning that Disneynature’s pledge to make a contribution in honor of everyone who sees the motion picture between April 22-28 has already translated to more than 790 acres of marine protected area in The Bahamas—and that number is still growing with advance ticket sales on the rise for opening week. More information about this can be found here: http://bit.ly/biTym3
Actor Pierce Brosnan To Narrate: Pierce Brosnan, an outspoken environmentalist active in promoting ocean conservation efforts, will narrate Disneynature’s OCEANS. Pierce has lent his support to the International Fund for Animal Welfare’s “Save the Whales Again!” campaign, as well as worked with environmental organizations including Sea Shepherd, California Coastal Protection Network, Ocean Futures Society, Oceana and Waterkeeper Alliance, among others.
Walt Disney was a pioneer in wildlife documentary filmmaking, producing 13 True-Life Adventure motion pictures between 1949 and 1960, including “Seal Island” (1949), “Beaver Valley” (1950), “The Living Desert” (1953) and “Jungle Cat” (1958). The films earned eight Academy Awards®.
To help spread the word about the importance of furthering education about the oceans, Disney has created informational trading cards as well as a Facebook quiz application that families can experience together. There are 15 trading cards in total, and they will be updating the site with new cards each Monday. You can download the trading cards.
The quiz application can be found on the official Disneynature Facebook Fan Page. Once you’ve completed the quiz, you can post your score to your Wall, allowing your friends to see how blue you are, and encourage them to take the quiz.
Additionally, several educators’ and activity guides can be downloaded via the official website by clicking on the “For Educators” Tab.
Back late last year (November 21, 2009 to be exact) this quote fell into my in box from Jeffrey Fry’s daily quote email list: “The spirited horse, which will try to win the race of its own accord, will run even faster if encouraged.” –Ovid. I think I’ve met Jeffrey (also an entrepreneur) twice, but we’ve exchanged several emails about our life’s journey’s.
That quote hit me for some reason. And I just now realized that quote came in almost exactly a year after I stood at the Entrepreneurial Ledge (I wrote that post on November 20, 2008 with tears in my eyes) after having heard that the first company I founded had gone out of business. I subsequently heard that the assets had been sold to a manufacturing company and some of the people went to work for that company so the technology in some form has survived. I know that some people might find it cheesy or maybe even ‘girly’ to be so affected by such news because after all, it’s just a company. But to me it was like a baby. The people were important to me and I cared about them. I have heard many of my entrepreneur friends refer to their businesses as their baby. They equate the experience to one of giving birth to and nurturing it as best they can. Starting a business is a wild financial, emotional, and physical ride very much akin to rearing kids!
At any rate, after letting that quote sit in my Outlook Inbox for a few days or weeks…I can’t really recall, I sent the following email to my fellow Director’s at the Austin Technology Incubator.
I think this [encouragement] is an important part of what we do. As an entrepreneur (spirited horse) you have so many forces trying to bring you down, being critical, double guessing you, etc. that even the slightest amount of encouragement can keep you going and running faster.
Because our incentives are not set up like most investors/VCs, we can be liberal with our encouragement which I think is a huge intangible benefit we offer towards the success of our companies/entrepreneurs.
Giving someone (or a group) positive energy helps them see things they might not have been able to see or better said makes it easier for them to see things because they don’t feel threatened by criticism/limits. I’d say a good example of this is what’s happening with [XYZ Company] with their big business model change. But I can point to a few more companies as well who when encouraged and highlighted have increased their odds of success.
But that’s just me. I believe in energy flows/vibrations at the sub atomic level and if you’ve noticed scientists have been proving and writing about this phenomenon. And as someone who broke her arm at the age of 13 riding a big, black ex-race horse (whose name I think was Jude) who was inadvertently encouraged to run faster by another horse, I speak from experience.
I do believe that encouraging someone can go a long way to the success of that individual and/or the company. Of course, encouragement has to be tempered with reality. I don’t believe in the “let’s all win a medal for lifting a cup to our mouths” encouragement that some kids are subjected to because I think that sets them up for huge disappointment later. As we all know, we don’t get medals just for showing up to work. In fact, I like playing board games with my kids because someone has to lose and they have to realize that sometimes you win and sometimes you lose and in many cases the person who wins is determined by who draws the first card (e.g., Candy-land)! Plus when one of them starts to say ‘that’s not fair,’ it’s prime teaching time to let them know many things don’t seem fair in this world but they just have to deal with it.
But the right amount of encouragement, with a nice side helping of humorous perspective, can help someone (e.g., an entrepreneur) immensely especially during times when it seems like the rest of their world (investors, board members, employees, family) is pulling them down or doesn’t see or feel what they do. I think the mere act of believing in someone, helping them focus on their strengths, and being there for them during a tough time, can have a huge impact on their ability to reach their full potential.
As usual the gorgeous photo is by my good friend Sandy Blanchard. When I look at it, I see a flower that was encouraged by the right amounts of sun, rain, and nutrients to open up and present such stunning beauty to the world…
This weekend the Austin Technology Incubator is hosting 3 Day Startup (3DS). Bart Bohn, Wireless/IT Director, is the guy at ATI who facilitates and oversees this really cool event. 3DS is where 40+ University of Texas at Austin students from all different colleges get locked in to ATI and have to come up with a business. They work hard to flesh out ideas, build pitches, create prototypes, and sell their ideas. I dropped by yesterday (Saturday) late afternoon and stayed through evening to see what companies were forming and to ask questions and give them some advice. It’s great to feel the energy in the building as these budding and wannabe entrepreneurs use their creative juices to come up with what could be viable business opportunities. Some were interesting and others were well let’s just say a bit off the mark.
Tonight (Sunday) they presented their ideas in front of a panel of investors and entrepreneurs to get additional feedback. I was really impressed with the progress some of these teams made in their presentations from last night to tonight. Some of them were awake for close to 60 hours! I was never one for all nighters. In fact, I only pulled an all nighter once in my entire undergrad and grad years and it wasn’t even for a class. It was for some dumb consulting challenge in graduate school where about 1/3 of the night I was laying on the sofa exhausted and annoyed that we were working on something that seemed futile. I always figured that if by 2 or 3 a.m., I didn’t know the material, I wasn’t going to know it, and I just hoped that the answers would come to me when test time rolled around. Fortunately, enough them usually did because I wasn’t a crammer and usually paced my studying.
The spring flowers in Texas are blooming and this year they seem extra beautiful. I just had to share an iPhone picture of some bluebonnets, the Texas state flower, growing outside of the place I work. They seem to be extra big and extra blue this year. Flowers always remind me of rebirth…of Spring…of new beginnings. There are patches of bluebonnets and other Spring flowers all over the city, and whether it’s a tradition or required by law, they do not get mowed until they quit growing.
If only we could appreciate the beauty of people like we appreciate the beauty of flowers. I guess the difference is that flowers come and go so we see them anew each year and most of the people in our daily lives we see often. We seem to have a harder time appreciating the beauty in something or someone we see everyday…unless of course they make us smile inside or out. 🙂
I actually finished a book from beginning to end when I went out of town for a much needed week long break a couple of weeks ago. This may not seem much to many of you but to me, I haven’t been able to concentrate (or have the time) to finish any book in a few years it seems like. The book I read is called The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom (Amazon Link) by Joseph Haidt. Many of us search for happiness and never find it or are looking in the wrong places. We’ve all heard the saying that happiness comes from within. Well that’s partially true according to Haidt but there are so many other factors.
He performed extensive research and referenced many of the great thinkers, psychologists, philosophers, doctors, etc. to come to some conclusions of his own. I think many entrepreneurs are happy when they are able to see the tangible results of their efforts, but many think they will be happy if only they were to accomplish this one thing. But as we all know, there’s always the next thing, and we as a species have a hard time enjoying where we are and what we have accomplished. We have a hard time being happy with who we are because we compare ourselves to others.
The author directs you a couple of times to the website http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/Default.aspx run by Dr. Martin Seligman, founder of Positive Psychology at University of Pennsylvania, so you can assess your own level of happiness. “Positive Psychology is a new branch of psychology which focuses on the empirical study of such things as positive emotions, strengths-based character, and healthy institutions. His research has demonstrated that it is possible to be happier — to feel more satisfied, to be more engaged with life, find more meaning, have higher hopes, and probably even laugh and smile more, regardless of one’s circumstances. Positive psychology interventions can also lastingly decrease depression symptoms. The research underlying these rigorously tested interventions is presented in the July/August edition of the American Psychologist, the journal of the American Psychology Association.” You have to register to do the surveys.
Here is the review of the book by Publisher’s Weekly from the Amazon site.
Since a couple of weeks have now passed since I read it and life has gotten in the way, the details are no longer clear to me but some of the things I remember are:
I found it odd/irritating that most of the experiments referenced (e.g., monkey’s taken away from their mother and put in cages with wire frame mothers, babies being left alone to cry, etc.) were done by men. Freud, Spock and others thought babies should be sent to a baby farm away from their parents. There were a couple of women (Anna Freud) who also bought into some of this stuff, but I wonder if she had children at the time. I guess to me it seems obvious that happiness is partially influenced by your relationship with your parents/family and the amount of support/love you get from them. If your primary caregivers don’t accept you for who you are and don’t provide an environment where you are encouraged to discover your passion, it can make finding that inner happiness harder. There are those who make it to the top of the proverbial ladder who are still unhappy.
I resonated with the example he used of the elephant and the rider. My favorite animals is the elephant and I used to collect images of them. According to Haidt, we forget that as humans we are both the elephant and the rider. As rational thinking beings we believe we are the rider controlling everything but if that elephant (base, primal, survival) decides it wants/needs something, there really is not much the rider can do other than find ways to train the elephant to move in another direction. The elephant can be responding to fear, love, soul starvation, body starvation, boredom, etc. but the rational rider has to think of the long term effects of reacting to those urges and guides the elephant to safer ground. As a flawed species, we don’t always do the right thing, our elephant desires are much stronger than we are and we fall off. But then we must get back up on the elephant and try again, because if we don’t the elephant runs a muck and tramples a bunch of people in its way.
A study done on 4 year olds and marshmallows is an indicator of a person’s ability to achieve and in some way feel more happiness. I, of course, asked my kids the question and they passed. The study has a grown up in a room with a 4 year old and the grown up shows the 4 year old a plate with one marshmallow and another with two marshmallows. The grown up tells the 4 year old that he/she is going to leave the room for a little bit. If the 4 year old waits until the grown up gets back, the 4 year old can have two marshmallows. If he/she can’t wait, then he/she could ring a bill bringing back the grown up who would give them the one marshmallow. Those 4 year olds who could wait, did better overall in education, test scores, etc. and by exercising self restraint tended to be happier individuals. I’m not quite sure the direct tie, but when I asked my kids if they would wait, they both said they would so I temporarily felt a little relief as a potentially good mom. 🙂
The big takeaway is that people usually can’t or don’t make significant changes in thinking or relating to people if they can’t train or convince the elephant why it’s better or at least cause the elephant to react in disgust to something. Trying to convince the rational rider why it’s important to lose weight if he/she is fat is intellectually easy, but until the elephant is trained/convinced/physically disgusted it usually is a moot exercise to attempt to lose weight just based on rational thinking alone.
At any rate, it was a really good, though provoking read. I started two other books The Art of Choosing (Amazon Link) by Sheena Iyengar and Outliers: The Story of Success (Amazon Link) by Malcolm Gladwell which I plan to blog about soon. The Art of Choosing (like The Happiness Hypothesis) were my uncle’s books and I had to leave them with him when I came back home so I’ll have to get my hands on a copy so I can finish it.
May you be well. May you be happy. May you be free from suffering. These phrases are part of the loving kindness meditation. Here’s another Amazon link to The Happiness Hypothesis.
I’m still in Portugal and luck has shined on me. The weather has been great, the people have been great, and the experience has been new and adventurous. I’ll do a post on my Portuguese incubator, tech transfer, and entrepreneurial experience next but part of that has to do with the culture and possibly the food. In the interest of time, here are some highlights because I don’t have time to make the bullets work with the pictures:
(Amazon Link) A Fable about Following Your Dream and it was required reading in my class when I taught entrepreneurship at The University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business. It is about a shepherd boy who has a dream one night of finding a chest full of treasure. After meeting a gypsy and a king, he decides to trade in his sheep and follow his dream. Along the way he faces many challenges, gets in a rut, meets interesting people, never gives up, meets the love his life who waits for him, and eventually finds his treasure. When I first read the story the parallels to entrepreneurship struck me. Entrepreneurs often have to blindly follow their vision when others around them think they might be a little off their rocker. Entrepreneurship requires a lot of faith, hard work, and luck.
(Amazon link) by Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell also wrote 
(Amazon link) and 
(Amazon link). I have not read either of the other two but have heard much about them. They were and continue to be top sellers. I was sent a copy of Outliers by I’m guessing a publicist several months ago when I was more actively blogging. I didn’t get around to reading this one until just recently and it was a very interesting read. My overall takeaway is that I’m screwed. I’ll never be an outlier, but my kids might have a chance.
(Amazon link).
(Amazon Link) by Joseph Haidt. Many of us search for happiness and never find it or are looking in the wrong places. We’ve all heard the saying that happiness comes from within. Well that’s partially true according to Haidt but there are so many other factors.
(Amazon Link) by Sheena Iyengar and 
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