Beating the Reaper

“But we don’t beat the Reaper by living longer. We beat the Reaper by living well,” Dr. Randy Pausch, founder of the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University, before his death of pancreatic cancer. He urged graduates to find and pursue their passion

The Balance of Leadership

"One of the first things coach told me was that, as a quarterback, you're put in a position of leadership whether you like it or not," Locker said. "A leader doesn't seclude himself from others; he includes himself in whatever he can do and tries to benefit everybody else when he gets the opportunity. One thing he said that always stayed with me is that you've got to be able to have all the guys respect you and look up to you; at the same time you have to make them feel that you're at the same level as they are and you're not any better. It's a fine line to keep those two things in balance. It's something I'm constantly thinking about."
- University of Washington QB Jake Locker

What's Been on My Mind Lately...

Thanks to Jennifly for reminding me about this blog, and, consequently, the lack of updates. With everything going on with the company, I've been lacking in the self-reflection department.

I don't have the time to expound on these thoughts now (I'll get back to them at some point in the future - Lord Willing), but this is what's been on mind recently:

- the increasing number of black women who are cougars
- people who use the word "lame" (and for the person who thinks this is about you...it isn't)
- how it's sad that there are so many more "good" black women than "good" black men and what this means for my female friends
- helping minority businesses develop an "investor-ready" mindset
- the importance of supporting people
- how being happy, chasing your dream, and setting up your kids for success are 3 of the top 5 parts of life
- appreciation for the choices my parents made when they were teenagers and young adults


If enough people prod me on these topics, I'll delve into greater detail sooner....

For Those Who Care: I'm going to try my hand at live blogging Arts, Beats + Lyrics this Friday. Arts, Beats + Lyrics explores 7 themes in hip-hop and highlights urban art forms expressed through photography, graffiti, paintings fused with dj'ing, breakdancing, and live music.

The Wrong Questions...

Here's a great quote from Baback Nivi's twitter feed:

“The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong questions.” – Antony Jay

Need To Tap Into Your Intelligence...

Peeps,

I need your help...

1) Thanks to my boy d'b, we've got a new design for digitalguestlist.com. Do me a solid by going to www.digitalguestlist.com and letting me know what you think of the new design. Thanks...

2.) I'm really trying to figure out why people go to events, so I'll be posting a series of questions on the DIGITALGUESTLIST Fan Page. Can you peep out the questions and respond? Thanks

The first topic in this conversation is what things do you look for in a great event?

Discuss...

Joey Digital

Another Phrase I Don't Like - "I'm Looking For a Park"

[This is an open discussion. Any one should feel free to leave their four cents..]

Off the heels of my popular/controversial note on weave, I'm in the mood of speaking my mind on another thing that really bothers me - the use of the word "park" in relation to a personal car or truck parking space.

As in "I'm looking for a park" or "I just found a park. I'll be inside in a minute."

Definition from yourdictionary.com

park (pärk)

noun

1. Eng. Law, Historical an enclosed area of land, held by royal grant or prescription, stocked and preserved for hunting
2. an area of land containing pasture, woods, lakes, etc., surrounding a large country house
3. an area of public land; specif.,
1. an area in or near a city, usually laid out with walks, drives, playgrounds, etc., for public recreation
2. an open square in a city, with benches, trees, etc.
3. a large area known for its natural scenery and preserved for public recreation by a state or national government
4. ballpark
5. ☆ West a level, open area surrounded by mountains or forest
6. that arrangement of bands, clutches, etc. in an automatic transmission that disengages and locks the drive wheels of a motor vehicle
7. parking lot
8. an area set aside for a particular commercial use; specif.,
1. amusement park
2. industrial park
9. Mil. an area for storing and servicing vehicles and other equipment

transitive verb

1. to enclose in or as in a park
2. to store (military equipment) in a park
3. ☆ to leave (a vehicle) in a place temporarily
4. ☆ to maneuver (a vehicle) into a space where it can be left temporarily
5. ☆ Informal to leave in a particular place; deposit
6. Finance to transfer (securities) temporarily, as to conceal ownership

intransitive verb

to park a vehicle


People, it is called a "parking space" not a "park"!
You park a car! (verb)
You look for a parking space! (noun)

This isn't Yellowstone! Thoughts?

Help Me Understand Why Black Women Use Weave!

[This is an open discussion. Any one should feel free to leave their four cents..]

This is an extension of an earlier comment I made a few weeks ago. I won't get into my full theory right now but it goes a little like this:

facial features + hair = beauty
if hair = fake, then beauty = fake

seems logical doesn't it? i think even a computer would agree with me here.

I mean, seriously, why do black women use weave?
Why can't they use what they are born with (I'll leave God out of this for those of you who don't believe)?

I understand there are several justified reasons for using weave (hair loss, to spur hair growth, etc.), but, c'mon, ladies let your true beauty shine through!

An acceptable ratio of real hair-to-wave should be 75/25.

Ladies AND Gents please leave your comments. This discussion has serious repercussions...

Quote of the Day: Playing It Safe as It Relates to Innovation

The first step in achieving the impossible is believing that the impossible can be achieved. …

“You don’t play it safe—you do something that scares you, that’s at the edge of your capabilities, where you might fail. That’s what gets you up in the morning.”

- Brad Bird, Academy Award-winning director (The Incredibles and Ratatouille)

Uncertainty..

No one knows how things will turn out, and in that truism lies a font for optimism — if not opportunity.

The Beauty in Adversity

“Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, under prosperous conditions, may have remained dormant….It is courage, courage, courage, that raises the blood of life to crimson splendor. Live bravely and present a brave front to adversity.”
— Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus - the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus)

Ordinary People

Don’t look in ordinary places for extraordinary people...

The Herd Mentality

Following the herd is fine until they all run off the side of a cliff together.
- Glen Beck

New Ideas...

“I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.”

— John Milton Cage, Jr., artist, composer, music-lover, and innovator (1912-1992).

Success Ain’t No Annuity

[Taken from a recent post on www.foundread.com]

“Success is like anything worthwhile. It has a price. You have to pay the price to win and you have to pay the price to get to the point where success is possible. Most important, you must pay the price to stay there.”
— Vincent T. Lombardi

Success is no annuity. It must be earned, over, and over, and over

Sit on your duf, even a little, and you’ll find yourself riding out of town on it.

Delivery...

Below is an excerpt from an e-mail. Names have been omitted to protect the innocent, but the message is clear:

"You may not have seen this classic Cosby Show, but I will share as I think it is very relevant to...

This guy wanted to date Denise, the daughter and was talking to her father in the kitchen. Bill/Cliff Huxstable said something to the effect..., "are you hungry young man.... how about I step over hear and make you a nice dinner..... juicy steak, mashed potatoes w/gravy, steamed vegetables..... can you see it... let me go over hear and get it for you but I am going to serve it to you on this garbage can lid. It is not that I do not like you... I do not know you... but Denise has served you up (presented you to me) on a garbage can lid so no matter how good of a young man you are... "

Person A is trying to deliver a good message, but he is serving it on a garbage can lid (poor selection of time, place and delivery), where many are not listening to his relatively accurate message.

I try always observe the winners and losers in life to learn from them. Bad delivery is a loser strategy because it rarely gets the desired outcome. Compare this to folks that deliver garbage and lies, all dressed up in a way that folks listen and it gets results. Imagine what could happen if good messages get delivered in good/effective ways.

I hope you and I can both learn from these lessons and apply them when the time is right in our lives.

Joeyism

Belief stems from action...words matter not.
- Me

Thought of the Day: ‘Yes, you can!’

[Taken from a recent post on www.foundread.com]

Entrepreneurs often find inspiration in political leaders — as many of you did last week with our Churchill quotation. The effective ones have the ability to motivate us beyond any single set of circumstances, and over time.

When I read the latest excerpt from Sen. Barack Obama’s acceptance speech in South Carolina, where he won the Democratic primary on Saturday, I found myself replacing certain words in his text such as: ‘country’ or ‘South Carolina’ with ‘company’ or ‘project’; and ‘American people’ with ‘entrepreneur.’

It was a very natural — almost automatic — thing to do, a measure of how resonant Obama’s message can be — universal enough to be as applicable in a business framework, as it was when he spoke about race relations and health care reform to the throngs in attendance the other night.

Obama is talking about the very same ambition you pursue every day as a founder: to create something greater that what was there before you started — against the odds.

…in the end, we’re not up just against the ingrained and destructive habits… We’re also struggling with our own doubts, our own fears, our own cynicism. The change we seek has always required great struggle and great sacrifice. And so this is a battle in our own hearts and minds about what kind of [enterprise] we want and how hard we’re willing to work for it.

So let me remind you tonight that change will not be easy. Change will take time. There will be setbacks and false starts, and sometimes we’ll make mistakes. But as hard as it may seem, we cannot lose hope, because there are people [who] are counting on us…

There are those who will continue to tell us that we can’t do this, that we can’t have what we’re looking for, that we can’t have what we want, that we’re peddling false hopes. But here’s what I know…Yes, we can seize our future … and as we take this journey … the same message we had when we were up and when we were down, that out of many we are one, that while we breathe we will hope, and where we are met with cynicism and doubt and fear and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of the [entrepreneur!] in three simple words: Yes, we can.

Thought of the Day: Endurance

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
— Winston Churchill

Take a word of advice from Sir Churchill: Embrace your failures, they’re taking you someplace

Create a Success Habit

[This article is from a recent entry on www.foundread.com]

Today’s Thought of the Day is about creating what the 19th century business writer Napoleon Hill dubbed the Success Habit in his 1937 book, Think and Grow Rich. Hill wrote of being inspired by industrialist Andrew Carnegie, who believed anyone could achieve success by “a simple formula” of duplicating effective behaviors.

We’ve found other thought-leaders whose ideas compliment Hill’s Success Habit notion:


Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out… — Robert Collier


but…

One worthwhile task carried to a successful conclusion is worth half-a-hundred half-finished tasks. — Malcom S. Forbes

and…

Successful men and women become successful because they acquire the habit of thinking in terms of success. Get the success habit in the small circumstances you control, and soon you’ll be controlling the bigger ones. —Napoleon Hill


Don’t try to do everything, but do make sure that each of the small things you do every day has a directed purpose. When you find certain efforts to be effective, repeat them. Start small, and soon you’ll be succeeding at bigger things. This is how you forge a Success Habit.

What’s your Succss Habit?

A Heart-to-Heart...

Of all the things we think matter in life and in business — the strategies and maxims, tips and tools we write about here day in and day out — it is the people who matter more: The ones who inspire you; encourage you; assist you; instruct you; hire you; chastise, correct, cajole, laugh with, cry with … and in so many other ways, support you. They make what you do possible.
- Om Malik

Choices...

It’s the choices that make us who we are, and we always have a choice to do good
- Peter Parker

The Power of “I Don’t Know”

Editor’s Note: Serial founder Chris Lyman has agreed to share his Janitor’s Blog with us, which he writes as CEO of Fonality, the Los Angeles-based VoIP provider he founded in 2003. The first post we shared was about the law of diminishing returns at young companies Today’s is about the strength of admitting your weaknesses.

What a frustrating day.

I spent 2 hours talking in circles with an executive in what started as a simple question. I got a confusing answer to my first question and pursued that answer with more questions. The answers back to these new questions were even more confusing, and contradictory to the original answers, which morphed into a new set of questions.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Fast forward two hours and many heart palpitations later … and I finally realized that this executive simply does not know the power of “I don’t know.”

Do you have enough courage to say “I don’t know”? What about when the pressure is on and a boss or potential investor looks you dead in the eye and asks you a question that you think you should know? Do you then have the fortitude at that precise moment to look them dead in the eye and say “I don’t know”?

It’s such a weird paradox. People have been trained to believe that “not knowing” makes them look weak. So, instead of owning up, they fake the funk, fast-talk, or engage in disfluency and other generally circuitous behavior.

In trying to look strong, they end up looking weak.

I wonder if folks think that others cannot tell when they don’t really know the answer? Don’t they know that even if our IQ doesn’t catch it, our EQ always does?

It drives me nuts in business.

Many VC rounds ago (I have raised over $20M in 4 rounds at 2 companies), I learned that the best strategy was honesty in raising money. I would walk into some shiny VC office in Silicon Valley. You know the kind, replete with a $20,000 conference table, a spate of Herman Miller chairs and automated shades that dim the room as they drop in unison with a rising projector.

I would walk in, wearing my only tie and would pitch my model to them. I would be adroit in tongue and expert in craft. Most questions I could answer in a Hollywood second.

But, if they asked me a question I didn’t know, no matter how much I thought that I should know it, I would tell them “I don’t know.”

And, I would look ‘em right in the eye when I did it.

It tells the audience that I know what I know and I know what I don’t know and that means you can trust that when I say “I know” I really do know and because I admit what I don’t know, I at least somewhat know myself and I certainly know that I need others.

To many of them, this answer was a shock to their system – not sure they often heard a CEO say “I don’t know”, and maybe it even confused them about us (I would bet that on most of Sand Hill Road, those three words are rarely uttered on either side of the table).

Most have been coached not to utter this phrase, to pretend you have all the answers. But, I always found, in the end, that “I don’t know” was taken as a sign of an honest and pragmatic executive. Investors invest in people. They have no clue if the damn business idea is going to work or not.

A mentor of mine said that true strength is vulnerability. I never knew that. ;)

Thought of the Day

[From a recent article on www.foundread.com]

“The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.”—Linus C. Pauling, American chemist and two-time Nobel Prize recipient.

Pauling’s Lesson:

Honor ALL of your ideas, even if it means just writing them down. Then engage as many of them as you possibly can. If you don’t who will?

A Revealing Truth...

Even the most successful, even iconic, entrepreneurs have difficulty “letting go.” In a way, we all want to be the King, not just Rich, of our startup domains.

Why Self-Delusion Can Help You Succeed

[Note: This article is from a recent entry on www.foundread.com]

Dating back to my days as a staff writer for Fast Company, I’ve been a fan of the executive coach and author, Marshall Goldsmith (he has written for the magazine many times.) I’ve been meaning to share an essay Marshall wrote for a presentation to the Conference Board last year. It’s called “The Success Delusion:Why It Can be So Hard for Successful Leaders to Change.” (Read the whole thing on Marshall’s website here.)

See if you remember the advertisement that Goldsmith describes below:


UNUM, the insurance company, ran an ad some years ago showing a powerful grizzly in the middle of a roaring stream, with his neck extended to the limit, jaws wide open and teeth flaring. The bear was about to clamp on an unsuspecting salmon jumping up stream. The headline read: YOU PROBABLY FEEL LIKE THE BEAR, WE’D LIKE TO SUGGEST THAT YOU ARE THE SALMON.

While intended to sell insurance, the ad seeded the notion for Goldsmith’s theory about The Success Delusion, or “how we all delude ourselves about our achievements, our status and our contributions.”

According to Goldsmith, most of us:


• Overestimate our contribution to a project;
• Have an elevated opinion of our professional skills and standing among our peers;
• Exaggerate our project’s impact on profitability by discounting real and hidden costs.

Many of [these] delusions can come from our association with success, not failure. Since we get positive reinforcement from our past successes, we think that they are predictive of great things to come in our future.


But as founders we can turn this conundrum on its head, and to our advantage. As entrepreneurs — the salmon of the world — “success delusions” can actually help us become more successful. We believe we can be successful, and so we are more likely to be so.

Our grand delusion is typically built upon one of four basic beliefs:

Belief 1: I Have Succeeded

Successful people have one consistent idea coursing through their veins and brains – “I have succeeded. I have succeeded. I have succeeded.” This strong belief in our past success gives us faith to take the risks needed for our future success.

Belief 2: I Can Succeed (this is the Belief/Delusion that I think might most apply to founders)

Successful people believe that they have the capability to have a positive influence on the world – and to make desirable things happen. It’s not quite like a carnival magic act where the mentalist moves objects on a table with her mind. But it’s close. Successful people literally believe that through the sheer force of their personality, talent and brainpower, they can steer a situation in their direction.

It’s the reason why some people raise their hand and say, “Put me in coach” when the boss asks for volunteers – and others cower in the corner, praying that they won’t be noticed.

This is the classic definition of self-efficacy, and it may be the most central belief driving individual success. People who believe they can succeed see opportunities, where others see threats. They are not afraid of uncertainty or ambiguity, they embrace it. They take more risks and achieve greater returns. Given the choice, they bet on themselves.

Belief 3: I Will Succeed

Successful people are optimists. Anyone who has ever been in sales knows – if you believe you will succeed you might not – but if you don’t believe that you will succeed you won’t! Optimists tend to chronically over-commit. Why? We believe that we will do more than we actually can do.

Belief 4: I Choose to Succeed

Successful people believe that they are doing what they choose to do, because they choose to do it. They have a high need for self-determination. When we do what we choose to do, we are committed. When we do what we have to do, we are compliant.

Think about which of these success beliefs apply to you. The catch here is to leverage these beliefs/delusions into a willingness to take risks, and try new things — not, to rely on them to “resist change” or delude ourselves into thinking that we are the Grizzly, when we ought always to be vigilantly thining of ourselves as the Salmon.




Download the full text of Marshall’s essay at http://www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com/html/marshall/resources.html

Consider other of his writings, too — they’re available for free!

Do You Want to be Rich, or be the King?

[Note: This article is from a recent entry on www.foundread.com]


It matters because if you want to be The King of your startup, some new research out of Harvard Business School suggests your days are likely numbered.

HBS’s web magazine Working Knowledge has another useful piece today that addresses the reasons why founding CEO’s are so often replaced by their boards of directors. It also reveals a frustrating paradox: “when founder-CEOs do really well, that also increases the chances that they’re going to be replaced.”


The Founding CEO’s Dilemma: Stay or Go? is based on a new work co-authored by Noam Wasserman, a professor of entrepreneurial management at Harvard, and Henry McCance, Chairman of VC firm Greylock Partners. We’ve highlighted a few important points, including the authors’ Rich or King Test, which they borrowed from Onset Ventures. Take it to see if you’re replaceable or irreplaceable founder.

Says Wasserman to Working Knowledge:


Typically, early in the life of a company—when it is developing its first product or service—the founder who conceived of the idea and began developing it is the perfect person to lead the company … However, when that milestone is reached … The challenges within the company change so dramatically…

Now, the product has to be sold: You have to create a sales organization, manage multiple functions, deal with customers, handle more complex financial issues, and deal with a very different set of challenges for which many founder-CEOs are not equipped. … it is precisely their success that has increased the need to replace them at this point.


Of course this pattern is exacerbated when a founder-CEO brings in outside investors. VC’s, says Wasserman, “often make the assumption that the person who started the company is going to have to be replaced along the way, and may therefore have a quicker ‘trigger finger.’”

Then Wasserman shares one way to tell if you are more, or less, likely to be replaced:

The Rich vs. King Test


We teach a case in our first-year entrepreneurship course on a Silicon Valley VC firm called Onset Ventures … called the “Rich versus King” test. It gets to this essential trade-off around what drives an entrepreneur: Is it the need to control the company (that is, to be King), or is it the drive for success, particularly financial success (Rich), which may require that the entrepreneur step aside once certain business milestones have been reached? Onset does not like to invest in founders who “want to be King” out of concern that they will not want to be replaced if such a step is required in order for the company to be successful.

The only founders who can assure their ability to continue as CEOs are those who don’t raise outside money from Onset and its peers.

Of course, that outside money is often necessary to build a valuable company, so King-motivated founders usually have to give up a lot of potential growth to remain King. In the entrepreneurship class, I push students to think hard about why they are choosing to be founders to begin with, and then to make conscious choices that are consistent with those motivations. The founders who get into trouble are often the ones who make decisions without regard for “Rich versus King,” and who therefore decrease the chances that they will achieve their goals because they haven’t made choices consistent with their motivations.

Quotes I Can Identify With...

"You've really got to get under my skin to get me to snap," he says. "But if I snap, God help you." - Bo Jackson

"I love trophies, but f--- 'em. They're for old men, for guys living in memory," he says. "I'm talking about: Are we competing today, every minute, in everything we do in practice. Are we letting loose and daring to be great here and now? And can we sustain that? And repeat it. Trophies are great, but we're trying to win forever."
- Pete Carroll, Head Football Coach, University of Southern California

"At some point -- maybe after your parents have died and you're not trying to please them anymore -- at some point you have to decide what truly matters to you and what you believe in. And then you have to have the balls to commit to it."
- Pete Carroll, Head Football Coach, University of Southern California

"There are always setbacks, unforeseen circumstances that arise. They come in different guises, different forms, and you just have to deal with it," he says. "I didn't think for a second we were going to lose. I was allowing myself to lose focus a little bit, maybe. But we don't fix that by making changes. We fix that by staying on course. We get back to football, to Competition Tuesday, to what we do and how we do it, with more emphasis and focus than ever. It's a belief, it's not letting anything into your mind-set that will keep you from that belief."
- Pete Carroll, Head Football Coach, University of Southern California

Carroll calls timeout and convenes with the offensive coaches down at the north end of the sideline. He told me once there are only a handful of moments in a game when you really have a decision to make. "And what you do is you gather yourself and your experience and you let something bubble up. You trust what you know. You rely on your intuition."
- ESPN writer on Pete Carroll, Head Football Coach, University of Southern California


"We have to find guys who really want to be a part of something special," Stevens says. "They have to want to earn a quality degree, enjoy what Butler University and Indianapolis have to offer and hopefully compete at a high level in basketball. We've been fortunate that we've been able to find guys who fit those roles."
- Butler University coach Brad Stevens

More Words To Live By[2]...

"An 0-4 start is going to do one of two things to you," said Brees, who helped the Saints tie a team record with 32 first downs, 25 on pass plays. "It's either going to throw you in the tank or it's going to give you an edge. ... It's only made us stronger. It's only made us tougher mentally, and now we're in a position where we're hardened a little bit. We've been tested a little bit and we've fought through it, and now's our time to make that jump."

- New Orleans Saints' QB Drew Brees

More Words To Live By[2]...

"An 0-4 start is going to do one of two things to you," said Brees, who helped the Saints tie a team record with 32 first downs, 25 on pass plays. "It's either going to throw you in the tank or it's going to give you an edge. ... It's only made us stronger. It's only made us tougher mentally, and now we're in a position where we're hardened a little bit. We've been tested a little bit and we've fought through it, and now's our time to make that jump."
- New Orleans Saints' QB Drew Brees

Another Quote

"It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere."
- Voltaire - [François Marie Arouet] (1694-1778)

More Words That I Live By....

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

- Theodore Roosevelt (From a 1910 speech in Paris)

The Atlanta Hawks MUST Draft....

PG Mike Conley from Ohio State...or else I will lead a boycott!

 

 

New Blog Topics?

I'm at somewhat of a crossroads with the blog right now. I'm not sure which of the following topics I should expound upon next:

• The Ramifications of the Indoor Generation
• Do The Right Thing?
• How I Got Started With This Whole Entrepreneur Thing
• The Biased Sports Media (read: ESPN)

In the meantime, I encourage you to take a minute and google Darfur. That country's current genocide is a true travesty. I simply wanted to bring to your consciousness