Read ‘Em, Weep, and Laugh
Oct 13 2014

Below are some really great, entertaining, and thought provoking posts & articles.  Please check them out and let me know what you think.

Good at math (Seth Godin) – This post arrived in my in box after my 9 year old daughter told me she wasn’t good at math.  I told her she was too young to make that decision.  I told her that only after she has taken Calculus that she could she tell me she didn’t like math or it wasn’t her best subject.  She then asked me what Calculus was and she, her brother and I laughed out loud at that silliness. 🙂

Reconceptualizing Your Career  and Rethinking Career Management (Scott Uhrig) – Who hasn’t wondered what the heck is going on with their career?

People don’t resist change. They resist being changed. (gapingvoid) – A perfect cartoon to describe how people react to change.

Get Lucky (Fred Wilson) – Fred appears to be one of the luckiest people I know.  A famous VC and blogger, great family, good health, etc.  He links to an article Richard Wiseman wrote on lucky and unlucky people.  He said the money quote was “My research revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four basic principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.”

“How do I get rid of the fear?” (Seth Godin) – No, the right question is, “How do I dance with the fear?”

The 14 Habits of Highly Miserable People  (Cloe Madanes) – An entertaining read about honing your misery skills.

Happy Super Bowl Sunday & Groundhog Day!
Feb 2 2014

I’m not a big football or groundhog watcher, but this year the days have collided.  I don’t plan to watch any groundhogs, but I do plan to see part of the Super Bowl.  Because my son loves sports, we will be going to a friend’s place to the watch the game so he can be with others who like to watch football.   Ah, the things us mothers do for our kids that we don’t have the patience to do for other sports fanatics in our lives. 🙂

I’m hoping with the recent WordPress update, there won’t be spam links in my email feed, but it’s a crap shoot.  I haven’t been able to figure out the reason after asking several people and doing some research.  I think it’s beyond my technical expertise to figure out a fix in the near term.  I’ve managed to post about once per month mostly because I haven’t permanently fixed the spam issue and secondly because I’m still working on interesting topics to post about.  Here are some good reads:

Groundhog day and the Super Bowl – Seth Godin

The kids who need the most love will ask for it in the most unloving ways. – Katie Malinski

How to draw an owl – Seth Godin

The 14 Habits of Highly Miserable People – AlterNet.org

The Six Things That Make Stories Go Viral Will Amaze, and Maybe Infuriate, You – NewYorker.com

 Overcome the Eight Barriers to Confidence – HBR.org

…different people differently – Seth Godin

Life is not an adventure until it starts scaring you shitless. – Gapingvoid

Interesting Links And Random Thoughts – August 2012
Aug 12 2012

Until I figure out a strategy for this blog, which may continue to be known for it’s non sequitur personality like it’s owner, here are a few interesting reads and observations:

The 11 Ways That Consumers Are Hopeless at Math – The Atlantic

It’s Alright To Cry – gapingvoid cube grenade

Where does trust come from?  – Seth Godin.  “Hint: it never comes from the good times and from the easy projects. We trust people because they showed up when it wasn’t convenient…”

“I don’t even know what I’m afraid of” – Seth Godin.

I wonder if there is such a thing as brown/tan-gray/silver color blindness.  If so, I think I have it.

I’m so proud of my son for asking people to donate to mycharity:water, bringing clean drinking water to those without, instead of giving him birthday gifts.  He exceeded his original goal by $160 so far for a total of $360!  He never once complained or mentioned that he didn’t get any presents and was happy he could serve so many people & families.

Close friends and even co-workers can often know you and accept you better than your own family, who may only be able to see you in the box that you desperately and continuously tried to break out of most of your life but you let them keep putting you back in there until you couldn’t anymore.

Happy New Year – It’s Gonna Be Grand!
Jan 1 2011

2011 will be a great year.  It will be.  It has to be.  I say it proudly and loudly, so it must be so!  The economy seems to be getting a bit better (at least here in Texas) and many people are excited about the new year of the Rabbit (starting Feb 3, 2011 to Jan 22, 2012) and us leaving the hard Chinese year of the Tiger behind us.

My resolutions this year are to believe/trust in myself, believe in my kids, believe in the kindness and beauty in others, smile/laugh more, make others smile/laugh more, create songs and sing a song (Carpenter’s lyrics link).

Sing, sing a song
Sing out loud, sing out strong
Sing of good things not bad
Sing of happy not sad

Sing, sing a song
Make it simple to last your whole life long
Don’t worry that it’s not good enough
For anyone else to hear
Just sing, sing a song .

Oh and LOVE more!  As Hugh McLeod (@gapingvoid) cartoons Love, regardless of cost.  For those curious folks, here is what I wrote for Resolutions Past:

Once In A Blue Moon – It’s Complicated – 2010
Resolutions Anyone? – 2009
One Entrepreneur’s 2008 Goals – 2008

Happy New Year to all of you my loyal readers and everyone else who happens upon my blog when searching for something to help them with their life, their posts, their kids, or their businesses.  May you find the courage to follow your dreams…in other words your heart! <3  <— that’s a heart symbol for those of you who didn’t know that.

We’ve all heard the saying “You only live once,” so may you conquer your fear just a little bit at a time to live life (at least next year) grandly and to it’s fullest.  It’s not easy but it’s worth it…even if you get what “it” means for a few short minutes…you will never forget, can never go back, and will never compromise to the point that you lose yourself again.

Interesting Reads and Fortunes
Jun 13 2010

Here are a few interesting things that have hit my in box and show my penchant for Chinese food to read and think about:

Articles, Posts, & Cartoons

Why Change Is So Hard: Self-Control Is Exhaustible – Fast Company.

“People won’t change because they’re too lazy. Well, I’m here to stick up for the lazy people. In fact, I want to argue that what looks like laziness is actually exhaustion. The proof comes from a psychology study that is absolutely fascinating.”

“This brings us back to the point I promised I’d make: That what looks like laziness is often exhaustion. Change wears people out—even well-intentioned people will simply run out of fuel.”

I found the short article interesting from a business and personal perspective.  Organizations and people can handle only so much change/stress that’s why it’s even more amazing to me when entrepreneurial endeavors make it because the speed and quantity of change that a start-up and the people involved experience is enormous.  Burn out happens often and frequently.  I’m a fairly high (and usually efficient) multi-tasker, but when I’m trying to process a lot of change and exerting a lot of self-control, it can feel exhausting which slows me down.  I also see how it affects people/entrepreneurs in the work environment.

Entrepreneurial Fog – A gapingvoid cartoon.  As an entrepreneur who has had a very interesting set of experiences in her life, many of Hugh’s cartoons resonate with me.  I did a couple of posts a while back on some of his cartoons called Love and Entrepreneurs Part 1 and Part 2.

“Army Generals talk about “The Fog of War.”  No matter how good your preparation is, it all means little once the actual fighting starts.”

It seems to me that many things in life are foggy and one characteristic trait of entrepreneurs and great leaders is that they are comfortable with the fog…well maybe not comfortable with it but have the wherewithal not to let it completely overwhelm them like in some scary, horror flick.

Passing it On – A post by my favorite VC blogger, Fred Wilson about one of their firms junior investment professionals, Andrew, that is moving on after his two year stint, teaching their new professional Christina about “proceeds by class of stock.”  The teacher in me liked this post.  Although I’ve only officially taught a short time in my career (i.e., a handful of undergraduate classes in entrepreneurship), I’ve always liked to teach people things.  It must be in the blood because my grandfather and my mother were both professors at different times during their careers.  It’s always an amazing/rewarding moment when you see a student/employee/person ‘get’ something for the first time or you see them applying skills they may or may not have realized they learned from the class.  I sometimes hear from my former students via facebook and it’s really hard to explain the feeling you get when they mention how things they learned are still helping them today.  I really did want to comment on that post, but I think I’ll have to refer back to the ‘laziness/exhaustion’ article I mention above…when I finally had a few minutes, I felt the time to comment had passed.

Fortunes

A while back I did a series of posts based on fortunes from fortune cookies I had received and one post almost resulted in me being mentioned in a New York Times article.  As I was searching for the  links to my previous posts on the topic, I discovered one I did on November 2, 2008 called Business Is Like War; Easy To Begin But Hard To Stop where the fortune actually said “Love is like war; easy to begin but hard to stop.” I compared Love and Business in an actual table format!  How…how…business like of me.  The end result was most businesses and marriages fail (as people tend to define failure – something ceasing to exist) in some form or fashion.  This is when I sometimes look back on what I’ve written and realize I forget that I actually wrote it.  Those words seem to describe the disillusionment I was entering into or maybe it was the illusion I was waking up from at the time and that was over a year and a half ago.  Weird.  Anyway, here are some fortunes I or others have recently had the fortune of receiving.  Like some others, I think that the fortune cookie industry has run out of fortunes and has decided to move into giving mere random statements:

You are a fun-loving person and will find much happiness.

Life is like playing the violin in the public and learning the instrument as one goes on.

Love is the greatest gift of all.

You will be showered with good luck.

Be careful or your true idiocy will shine through. (I’m half joking on this one because someone I was sitting next to got something similar to this, but I can’t remember the exact words but the gist was the same.)

Chocolate covered raisins cure all ailments! (Yes, I made that one up because I’m about go eat some)

I’ll blame it on the entrepreneurial fog and change exhaustion as to why I’m not interested in doing full posts where I create compare/contrast tables on any of the aforementioned fortunes. 🙂

Gapingvoid Cartoons – Love and Entrepreneurs – Part 2
Feb 25 2010

So now to part 2 – the Love series by @gapingvoid.  Check out Part 1 on Entrepreneurs.   In this post, I’m linking to some of Hugh MacLeod’s daily newsletter cartoons that highlight my favorite of his Valentine’s 2010 love series.  These particular cartoons touched me.  He has a way of taking words and using color, lines, space, and feeling in a unique way.  Please click on the image to go check out how to buy a print.

I liked the first one because it made me think of term sheets and love at the same time.  As an entrepreneur, when you raise money, you are presented with a term sheet (or create one yourself) and you negotiate terms until you come to an agreement with the person giving you money.  This cartoon to me represented yearning with a clear stated desire of wanting to be with someone while being vulnerable and trusting enough to let them name their terms.

The second one rings true to me because you know when you meet someone who is passionate about what they are doing or the story they are telling, you feel the love.  The stories and the people who you tend to remember most exude passion and love.  All great stories and works of art have love involved. What would the human condition be without love?

As for the last one, I just thought it was very cute and reminded me of being young, shy and having a school girl crush on someone.  As a little kid, I was naturally outgoing but was shy as a pre-teen and teenager, but I have always deep down been a very passionate person.  I never felt like I could express my passion legitimately through my writing and singing when I was younger for a variety of ‘life logistics,’ support, and inspiration reasons. But now I’m discovering that not feeling safe to express it, pretending to be someone you are not, or going through the motions for so long leaves one empty and longing for more.  I became less shy externally as I got older, but that shy girl is still in there and she’s working on being brave about love!

Gapingvoid Daily Cartoons – Love and Entrepreneurs – Part 1
Feb 23 2010

So some of you may know Hugh MacLeod who is the guy behind @gapingvoid.  He started a series of original cartoons via his daily newsletter at the beginning of this year.  I’ve found several of his cartoons so appropriate for entrepreneurs and passionate people in general.  You can buy prints of his art.  In this post, I’m linking to some of his cartoons that highlight entrepreneurs.  Please click on the image to go check out how to buy a print.  In Part 2, I will share some of my favorite in his Valentine’s 2010 Love series. Be still my beating heart. 🙂

I know that many entrepreneurs feel delusional at times.  I certainly do and I have found myself doubting recently whether I am really an entrepreneur given the characteristics mentioned in my Are Entrepreneur’s Born or Made post.  Plus, I seem to be in between entrepreneurial gigs right now.  We have to believe against all odds that what we are doing is going to work when in the vast majority of cases, it doesn’t work out the way we expected…but we keep trying and in many great cases the stars align and the people appear to support you and it does!

I also believe that entrepreneurs are artists.  They take a blank page and create something that didn’t exist before that often ends up employing other people to share in the dream.  Entrepreneurs and artists come in all shapes, sizes, and vocations from technology, to cartooning, to non-profits, to singing, to painting, etc.