When you gonna wake up and fight ?

As Robert Frost said in the last sentence of his poem The Road Not Taken: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”

Every day we are greeted with issues, decisions, challenges, and options. Each of these is a prime opportunity to face the divergence in the road and decide: Good or Bad. In truth, the decision in front of you is simply two moves on the chess board of Life. Each leads to another move from your opponent (Unhappiness), and then another move, and another, and so on. If you are not 99 years old, deaf, dumb, and blind…there is good news: you have a CHOICE.

Should I be happy or should i be ____(something else)_____?

Buddhists say that everything is void of Good or Bad. That it depends on your perception of the situation; and your situation as it relates to the actual occurrence.

That doesn’t mean that your life is a random event; like some macabre carnival game, pitching our fate with a random roll of the wheel. It means that the determination of Good or Bad is in the hands of the Beholder.

Because no matter what you Perceive to be obvious, you have a choice to behave un-obviously.

This is called Faith.

Faith is choosing to Believe in something you do not see at present. There is no factual data to support the Belief. As you deal with the vagaries and uncertainty of life, Faith gives you the option to Choose. Which path shall I take?

The common path, which is usually that of the flotsam and jetsam of humanity, or the less common path: The Road Not Taken.

The Road Not Taken is Faith & Optimism. Deciding to see the choice you made, whatever it may be, as Happiness. Then taking action, taking that first step down the road, which is: Strength, Empowerment, Life’s Journey, Intuition, Clarity, Power, Subconscious Victory, Will Power… all of which lead to Self-Mastery.

There are two alternatives to this Decision to Accept Happiness. One is that you see the step taken as something that chooses you; an Action you were not in Control of making: Destiny, Fate, Self-Defeat, DNA, Spiritual Forces, The Will of God, Familial Obligation, Race, Gender, Situational Economics. The other is to choose to do the same thing you have Always Done. This has the false appearance of being empowering for some people. If it’s the same thing you always say or do, then it is not empowering you.

Anything that dis-empowers you, that takes Control out of your Hands, and puts it into the hands of anyone or anything else (including your own habits), is dis-empowering. It is the Actions Leading to Self Mastery that Empowers you, and leads to Happiness.

For example:

* I drink too much. I will choose to slow down. (ding: a decision). * I will act upon this decision (ding: action). * I recognize failure is human (ding: reality). *I forgive myself before failure happens, if it happens; although not avoiding responsibility (ding: self-acceptance). * And I am taking this journey, this Step…because I BELIEVE I can Win (ding: Happiness through Self-Empowerment).

Try choosing to walk the Road Not Taken: not even necessarily the one not taken by others; but the road not taken by you, the last time you faced this very same issue. I know when I am finding problems in front of me and behind me, I go left or right. And if yesterday I stepped on dog-shit on the left, my decision is pretty easy.

Try Different-ness.

“If you don’t like something change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” – Maya Angelou

Some related links:

The Road Not Taken – Robert Frost

Meaning behind Shinedown’s Sound of Madness

Shinedown – Save Me video

Shinedown – acoustic version of Simple Man

DC Talk – Consume Me

It Ain’t About How Hard You Hit – Rocky Balboa

Artwork by Jonathan McCubbin, age 10

I was raised by an artist.   In the 70’s my Mom cut hair at a salon that also taught belly-dancing.  Nonetheless, she was an artist of hair.  Later, she became a nationally recognized Interior Designer.   Later still, a more conventional artist, with oil paints and a canvas.

My house, growing up, was always changing.  One day we had French doors that were white; the next day we had something else.

As a kid, I remember going to visit her at Ethan Allen, where she worked earlier in her career, and playing on the carpet samples for hours and hours.

Roles shifted, and as a young adult and fledgling entrepreneur myself, I convinced her to go into her own business www.janicemccubbin.com. This scared the crap out of her; yet further developed both her art and the quality of her client base.

I was also raised by a financial planner.   My Father worked for Smith Barney as a financial planner; specializing in options.  Puts and Calls.  He taught me about money.  How money is a tool.  It can be leveraged.  It can be dangerous.  It can be rewarding.   And It should be respected.

They both spoke to me for hours on end about their careers.  When I was lucky I would get to meet their clients.   Both of them served the wealthy.  The VERY wealthy.

And I was a sponge.  I learned.

Could I sum up my Mom or Dad’s career in one sentence??   ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!

That would be both offensive and presumptuous.

BUT… I can tell you one of the most important lessons I learned from these amazing people.

– and here it is –

Money is a tool; it has no soul. – But it can be made to dance, and sing.  It can be leveraged to create.  It can serve a purpose beyond itself.  It can feed people.  It can provide blankets to the homeless.  It can create a bridge for laughter. Love. Light.  But it does exist.  And it must be respected.

Art is expressive; it has soul. – But it can be made into a blunt object of force.  Words, paint, music, religion, expression.  It can be leveraged for power….and abused.  It seems innocuous.  But its beauty has both beauty AND a razor sharp edge.  It can create a bridge for laughter. Love. Light.  And it does exist.  And it must be respected.

Power can exist over people in many ways.   Their strength, and protection, is in realization of this truth.

P.S. The artwork featured in this blog is from my 10 year old son, Jonathan.

10). Don’t think about your future…live for today only. Don’t plan. Don’t cogitate. Don’t worry be happy. If spending every penny you make, and some you haven’t yet made, makes you happy…do it. If quitting college makes you happy…do it. If doing a lot of drugs and partying every single day makes you happy…do it. If you plan for the future, you might be disappointed. Don’t be disappointed…don’t plan. Instead, live for today! You might be dead tomorrow, so why bother.

9) Take no risks professionally or personally. Risks are stupid. Risk takers are stupid. Think about them all: Amelia Earhart, Howard Hughes, Donald Trump, Oprah. Shoot…if you take risks, you could end up dead, crazy, with really bad hair, or have a PR nightmare from your most recent $50 million donation. Who wants that mess? It is much easier to sit on your ideas forever, to play-it-safe, and to ride out mediocrity. If it’s good enough for the unnamed and unknown masses of humanity…it’s good enough for you. Grab another beer and bag of chips€¦life is waiting. It can wait.

Let other people make all your decisions. Stay safe…avoid ever being accused of being decisive. It is always the decisive guy that gets axed first in the movies…witness Samuel L Jackson’s character in Deep Blue Sea. You don’t want to be that guy do you? Crunch!! No way!! Sit back and let some other lime-light grabbing jerkwad lead the troops and paint his face blue…it’s much safer to be the schlep following all their decisions. Do you want to live forever?? Yes!!! Leaders die gruesome horrible deaths.

7) Never, ever read. Reading is over rated. If the subject matter was important, they would have taught it to you in Junior College. Besides, life isn’t fun or challenging when you are smart and well equipped for the variety of challenges life has a habit of throwing at you…it is much more fun to go into the unknown wearing only your underwear. Real men don’t read. Reading is a pansy sport. They read a lot in France.

6) Never accept responsibility. Deny fault, even when you look like a stupid a-hole. You will recover from being a stupid a-hole, but they will never recover from properly assigning blame and responsibility on the irresponsible (i.e. you).

5) The world revolves around you. Keep telling yourself that, it will come true someday. If it doesn’t come true by the time you are old and decrepit, buy some ruby red slippers and tap them together while reciting “It’s all about me, it’s all about me.” You will eventually get back to Kansas Dorothy, or at least your Mom and Dad’s home in Topeka.

4) Join a religious or tree-huggers group that backs up your moral conviction that money is bad. You’ll feel better about being a broke, lazy, stupid, schmuck when you are chaining yourself to a tree or sitting astride your valiant steed Ego, your moral high horse, with your trusted friend Judgment by your side. In fact, if you can tell people that you are following “the will of God”, or helping the green movement shoot.you can justify almost anything. What’s a little laziness, bias, castigation, or abuse of others compared to what other people do in the name of religion and eco-terrorism. I bet God invented potato chips and beer. If not, you know you saved a cow when you bought that Naugahyde couch you can sit and eat your organic chips and drink your micro-brewed beer on who wants real leather anyway.

3) Look for a job with a massive company, ideally the government, where you can hide safely amidst the masses and nobody in management will ever see your complete lack of efficiency and productivity. This is crucial. Good benefits and “job security” come with big companies. Just ask anyone who worked for Enron, Dynegy, Arthur Anderson, Eastern Airlines, or WorldCom. Let some nameless boob control your retirement account and your economic future. He will absolutely take care of you and put your interests first, employee number 32,789, he promises.

2) Never ever learn from the mistakes you make, or the mistakes of others. That would require asking yourself hard questions and accepting responsibility, or humbling yourself to learn from other who may have experienced similar life and business issues to those you are currently exposed. Screw that. Humble pie doesn’t taste good. Instead, just keep making the same dumb mistakes over and over and over. Never change your formula. It worked for Thomas Edison…remember, he tried to invent the light bulb 10,000 times. I’m sure he never changed his test. It just worked one day because he bent the rules of nature to his needs. Persistence. Over and over, never change, but expect different results. Learn from Thomas Edison. 10,000 tests…then whammo…it magically worked.

1) Don’t work hard. Laziness is the secret. You’ve heard the saying about being a duck, calm on the surface but paddling furiously under-water? Screw that. Ducks are lazy. They float around all day, and sleep, and wait for kids to feed them bread crumbs. Be the duck. Float. Don’t even paddle…shoot…who knows where you would end up if you did that! Float down life’s river. Eat the bread crumbs thrown by others in your slovenly direction…because bread crumbs from little booger-picking kid’s hands are much better than fois-gras. Who wants fake grass anyway? Ducks eat real grass. Ducks have it made.

Ps – Don’t be the lead duck. The wind hurts his face when he’s flying. It is way better to be the duck in the rear. Yeah, the view never changes, but it’s better to have your duck bill up someone’s back-side than to be buffeted by the cold, harsh, winds of taking on what lies ahead. Duck-holes are warm; who wants cold duck lips?

So there you go. Follow this sage advice and you will succeed mightily at being unsuccessful. You have to be good at something maybe you have finally found your calling!

1. Develop a personal brand.
2. Learn the language of early stage finance.
3. Determine the viability and demand for your product or service.
4. Sell, sell, sell.
5. Recruiting, partnering, outsourcing, and hiring away your weaknesses.
6. Support your sales efforts with marketing & branding.
7. Learn how to manage others…and yourself.
8. Balancing cash flow in daily operations.
9. Why are you doing this and what is the exit? - You should have your goals outlined LONG before you get started. Granted, life changes and sometimes your goals, needs and desires change as well….but the lack of a goal will likely cause you to wander in the desert for 40 yrs and get a really bad sunburn. What motivates you? Money, your ego, a desire to survive / thrive / grow, to prove yourself, control…what? Define this and you will have a much more clear vision for what actions you should take and when you should take them. Last comment here; you should study how, when and why an “exit” is likely to occur and how, when and why you will pursue this type of event, or if you should simply build your business for lifestyle opportunities.
10. The end is the beginning - Finalizing the list is the simple idea that your business is NOT your child, it is NOT your spouse and it is NOT your sense of self. Learn to see your business as a fantastic and fun ride, a great learning opportunity, a financial vehicle for you, your employees, investors and vendors, and simply stated…the business is owned BY you…it should not OWN you. Someday, the business might go away (through acquisition, failure, or simply winding it down). What will you do next? Will you do it again? What have you learned and become through this phenomenal and gut wrenching thrill-ride? Are you better, did you make the lives of other’s better, are you smarter, wiser and hopefully broader in your resources and mental bandwidth than before? While you may well build the next Koch Industries and find the next Anna Nicole….or you might have to start over. Make sure you learn from every experience, manage your personal finances and lifestyle, try and strive for some balance in your affairs, and work towards your goals daily.

Rock and roll !!!!

1. Develop a personal brand,
2. Learn the language of early stage finance,
3. Invent a bionic product or service,
4. The five W’s (and one H) of sales,
5. Recruiting away your weaknesses – We all have strengths and weaknesses; not everyone is as perfect as Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton. However, we don’t have to wallow in our own filth just because we lack the genius of Sergei Brin or the fluid sales skills of Bill Clinton…we can simply hire, recruit or partner away our problems!! This starts with recognizing your limitations, understanding the basic roles that every company requires (even startups), and then being a strong enough person to realize that strength comes from resolving problems and not by ignoring them or pretending these weaknesses do not exist. If you can’t sell…you can’t sell. If you stink at finances…admit it and move on. A few key words: Partnerships -be careful and lay it all out early. Hiring – be careful and lay it all out early. Outsourcing – be careful and lay it all out early.
6. Feed the beast – Marketing & branding. Not yourself, but your company’s products and / or services. Pick a niche, and announce to the world your amazing expertise and the gifts that you bring to humanity through your new venture. Ideally, this is a well crafted, well thought through game plan for expanding the world’s knowledge of your company. Marketing is the support system for sales. Your carefully branded message, supported by well developed marketing efforts feeds your sales staff, who in turn feed the company. One final note about marketing and branding: the web has introduced a new paradigm to this venue, currently being ignored by many ad agencies and pr firms. The web eliminates, in many cases, the idea of the “integrity of the media”…but the social web reverses that and empowers the people’s message. That means they are definitely going to talk about you online, and that will be perceived by many as “truth”…might as well join in and try to guide or manage the message.
7. The secret to managing people - Many hundreds of millions of dollars are spent (and earned) every year as business owners and managers try to figure out that elusive target of managing others to efficient and profitable performance. Most of these otherwise fantastic books and speakers miss the key point of management…leading by example. Leverage, through technology, capital or people is the easiest way to insure your business can grow or at least sustain as you sip Bahama-Mamas on the beach. You will never be able to leverage people if you do not know how to recruit, train, motivate and lead them (i.e. manage away mediocrity). Truth is…they tire of the speeches, the harassment and the “motivational” ass-kicking. What they really want to know is…WWJD…What Would Jefe Do? Do you come in late and expect your people early? Do you refuse to sell, service, or dig into details? Do you set the right example…nearly all of the time? If you don’t, you should expect them to follow suit. They will do half of what you do when they are duplicating positives and 300% your efforts when duplicating negatives (because that is usually more fun). You better get GOOD at managing others, managing managers, and managing yourself. BTW – when managing others, consider Machiavelli’s book The Prince, which can be summed up with, ‘It is best if one is both loved and feared. Given the difficulty of uniting both in one person, one ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he at least avoids hatred.’
8. Learning to snorkel – Last year, I snorkeled for the first time on a trip to Belize (stayed at Francis Ford Coppola’s Turtle Inn…awesome). OK Boo-Boo, I may be a little slower than the average bear…because it took me a while to figure out that I had to breathe through this tiny little apparatus, and if I went nuts wearing myself out…the hole never got any bigger for me to suck oxygen through. I had to keep it unobstructed and had to bring it above water every now and then. Cash flow to your business is an awful lot oxygen to a slightly overweight man ten feet under the water…you need it to survive and you better pay close attention to its availability. Recently a restaurant opened close to my office. It was busy, had decent food, and looked like it was going to be successful…then one day it closed down with no notice. Happens every single day, probably the most common destroyer of businesses (especially new businesses)…the owner ran out of money. Some businesses eat money faster as they grow more and more successful. My company, Pop Labs, has a similar financial model. Our cost to provide service is much higher during the first 3-6 months than the cash flow brought in by a new client. Thus, our success eats more cash than the business spins off on new clientele; the more successful we are, the more cash we need. You MUST manage cash flow daily; insure you have enough for your payroll, client services, key vendors, etc. Guess who gets paid last? You. Isn’t being the owner awesome!!

Just two more to go…nine (9) and ten (10) are about your goals and obligations. Leadership ain’t easy, nor is ownership; but when done right…it generates safety and security beyond the simple appearance of a “good job” or good benefits. If you are serious about starting a business…get ready to fight, every day of your life, for a while…because, as Tom Hank’s character said in A League of their Own, “If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great.”

The Five W’s (and one H) of SALES. Many a great idea has died a slow and painful death due to no cash to buy food and drink for the human beingswho are building this new enterprise, many an army has lost the war before ever entering battle from a lack of supplies. Business is no different. Cash is oxygen. Cash flow is created through the production of sales. I must admit, this is a subjectI can wax poetic about for a while. Sales can be one of theleast appreciated, albeit oftentimes highestpaid, career paths in existence. Bottom-line though is this, new businesses need to generate cash. Cash can be easily generated from sales. Sales don’t happen by accident though, and they rarely happen virally. They happen through a planned target for customer acquisition and servicing. Thus…Rudyard Kipling’s poem:

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

The Five W’s (and one H):

• What are you selling?
• Who willbuy it?
• Why would they buy it?
• How will you sell it?
• Where will they buy it?
• When will you sell it?

You must make a plan for your salesand revenue generation….or you better make a plan on moving back in with Mom and Dad. There is a big reason that many businesses post their first dollar on the wall…because that first dollar is symbolic of something. Not that you will be a millionaire, or that you have all your problems solved (woe ye merry man who doesn’t realize the problems have just begun); rather it symbolizes that you have actually gotten someone to buy your poorly-thought-through, undeveloped, PNQAFAYEIWBASAYGSMC (possibly-not-quite-as-fantastic-as-you-expect-it-will-be-as-soon-as-you-get-some-more-capital)product or service. In other words, “Hot Damn, I sold sumthin!!!” Note: That dollaralso symbolizes hope and dreams and optimism…all crucial.

In summary, you’ve got to make a plan for sales. What will you sell? Will you personally sell it or hire someone? What are the sales growth expectations and how will you fund that plan? What will the product / service generate in short term and long term receivables, are their annuities, what percentage of clients will convert from a prospect to a client, how will you find prospects, what is the sales life cycle (i.e. time to close), how much will you invest in your proposal to a client to buy your product / service, how will you recruit salespeople, what expectations will you manage up front in the buying process, is this product / service profitable enough to justify the sales expense, etc, etc, etc.

Lots and lots of questions you must ask yourself about the sales process, not to mention the service side (profits, costs to provide service, refunds, service personnel, etc.).

A couple last minute points here:

You will likely need to start selling, to generate revenue, before your product / service is “ready” or “perfect”. That is OK. Remember Guy Kawasaki’s Rules for Revolutionaries, Don’t Worry Be Crappy. Remember the next Rule. Don’t Stay Crappy….Release, Release, Release (new versions). I just visited with some Entrepreneurs yesterday who told me what differentiated them from the other products on the marketplace was the fact that they took 2.5 yrs to develop it prior to launch. I leaned over to my co-worker and said…’rich parents’. In the absence of serious early stage funding and rich parents…most Entrepreneurs have to start selling prior to being fully ready.

Price your product / service higher than _______(whatever you were about to price it at). People see more value in higher pried items than in cheap stuff. Witness why you don’t buy most of your friends gifts from the $.99 store, despite the cool wrapping paper and awesome Halloween decorations they have available all year long.

Even if you areThe Greatest Salesman in the World, you will someday get tired,sick, or tired AND sick of selling. The larger your business grows, the more important it is youhave a defined plan for scaled growth that is no longer dependant on your own incredible skills. In other words, avoid thetypicalproblem suffered by most Surgeons…lots of money but no free time to enjoy the cash flow.

So…get cranking. The Five W’s (and one H) are calling. Plan your work…work your plan!!

1. Develop a personal brand – Beyond the idea of networking, you need to make sure people in your community know who you are and associate you with something other than a fun guy to drink Heineken with on Friday night. This is old-school networking, combined with personal business development, add a splash of social media (LinkedIn, Virb, etc.) and “wallah”…you have branded yourself as the “Go-To” guy or girl in the community for ___________ (something besides ‘a good time’).
2. Learn the language of early stage finance – Can you say “Ramen Soup”? In reality, whether you are funding this with your credit cards, the hard working dollars your family has earned over the balance of their lives, that old Star Wars collectibles figurines set you just put on Ebay, or from a serious legitimate investor…you need to speak the language of early stage finance. Understand your growth projections…uh…have growth projections. Income Statement, Gross vs. Net, Balance Sheet and all those other nifty words you heard your Professor using while you were still kinda dreaming about that Heineken. Along these same lines; how are you planning on living during those lean early weeks / months / years? Make a plan now, because a failure to plan in this area will lead to your untimely and, likely, short-lived demise.
3. Invent a Bionic product or service – BETTER – FASTER – CHEAPER !!! That is your mantra. Not..”I know some guys in Boise are doing it and making a killing man…pass the Heiney”. Plan early on differentiating yourself. Talk to prospective customers, suppliers, vendors, and SOLVE a PAIN in the marketplace. That will make much of your business life a tiny bit easier. Do a Google search, make sure 300 people in you neighborhood are not doing the exact same thing. If so…it is easier to change course in the beginning than after you have started building your army.

More to come…I’ve got to hop on a plane and order myself a $5 Heineken.