The life as an entrepreneur

I'm 33.5 years old now. And I feel that I am starting from scratch once again. Back in 2006, I had the privilege to start my first real company. And after a year of relentless dedication, I saw the fruits of my labor as we started to generate money from something I created out of nothing. What I never told many people was that the motivation to start and work so hard in creating something came from a few audiobooks that I listened to. First one was Personal Power II by Anthony Robbins. And the other one being John C. Maxwell's 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. I've listened to a lot of audiobooks since, but these 2 were the most important ones for me. The information in Personal Power II, is really incredible stuff. My reasoning was, if he can help Andre Agassi, Serena Williams, Princess Diana, Wayne Gretzky, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, Bill Clinton, numerous fortune 500 CEO's, he probably knows something that I don't know. And he probably can get me some pointers.

For me, there were countless mind blowing revelations on how the most successful people in the world empower themselves to get everything they set their mind to, and combat all the things that get in their way. So if you're wondering how I got motivated to literally jump out of bed and work on a company for 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, and sustain that crazy motivation for over a year until I had a product that was ready to sell, there you have it.

The audiobooks I was listening to at the time were telling me, no one achieves success with their first company, and if you try and fail, you just ran a play and it didn't work out. The game is not over as long as you are alive. But as the large checks started rolling in, and we were looking to get a lot more, I kept saying to myself, "wow, I am so fortunate that my first company is successful. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones."

Well, long story short, my first company didn't work out. Many lessons learned. Lessons I would have never learned without going through the process. And by the end of that chapter in my life, I grew as a person immensely. And I'm proud of what I accomplished. But did I jump out of bed the next day saying, "no problem, this is what I'm going to do next"? No. With all the knowledge I've gained on how to handle crisis, no one said experiencing failure after you've given your soul was easy. I took a break for over a year soul searching, traveling, and taught English in Korea for a year. During that time, my dad passed away, and I realized it was time to get back to reality and continue on my journey I had set for myself more than 5 years ago.

The life as an entrepreneur is committing yourself 100% (not 80%, not 99.9%, but 100%), working smart, and working hard until you get what you want. There is no plan B. If plan A doesn't work out after you've given and tried everything, it is only then you make a new plan A. Dust yourself off because life is about to hike the ball to you once again.

I am listening to the audiobooks once again because there are many things I have forgotten about. But I realized that since the information feels more of a refresher, I am not as focused, but I should be. Having great knowledge, but not using it, doesn't really do anything. I am depriving myself the benefits of this information by not being focused. So I plan on using my blog, or at least a private blog, to try to extract every once of what these programs could offer.

This is where I am now. Beginning a new chapter. I'm working on something bigger, better, very different, but incorporating every lesson I've learned along the way. Watch out world!

I'm back to blogging

I used to blog a lot. I'm close to having 1000 entries if you count all the blogs I've started, then replaced because I wanted to start fresh because I would learn something about life and it would be such a powerful realization that it meant that it would be a new beginning.

Probably for a few years though, probably after the invention of twitter, blogging has served a different purpose for me. I stopped blogging essentially, and all my blog posts were about information that I found that was missing from the Internet, and I felt compelled to share that information to make the Internet more complete. That is what makes the Internet great. If it is not there, hopefully someone is willing to share their information. I'm happy to take a part in that process. And then I would do reviews and share my opinion about things. But what I stopped doing was self reflection, and that's always been a big part of how I grew as a person. So I'm going to get back on that.

My analysis of what happened at the series 2 finale of Sherlock.

Spoiler alert.

If you haven't seen it,
and don't want to ruin it,
stop reading here.

You've been warned.

So how did Sherlock fake his own death? He basically pulled off a traditional magic trick. Like any magic trick, you gotta understand that there is no such thing as magic. Magic is only misdirection, letting the minds of the audience follow continuity even when there are breakages in the continuous lines, and the magician going through extraordinary planning that the audience would never expect. Sherlock really jumps off the building, but lands without dying (obviously) on a cushioned surface. The tall buses provide provide cover as well as props to pull this off. People on the ground are in on the act. Even Moriarty notices that there is an unexpected amount of people on the ground, walking around, who would be witnesses to Sherlock's suicide. Molly, Sherlock's doctor friend, supplies a decoy body switch, covered in blood and all. They still would benefit from a little bit of distraction so Sherlock had someone on a bike crash into Watson so that the sniper's attention on Sherlock is distracted. For effect, Watson wasn't in on it. Poor Watson. He will be pissed and relieved that his emotions have been through the wringer.

This meant that Sherlock knew that Moriarty knew all along that he wanted Sherlock to commit suicide by jumping off a building. Why else would he want Sherlock to meet on top of a building anyway. And the death by suicide part was obvious. Moriarty wanted to destroy the public image of Sherlock by painting a picture of a man who couldn't live with himself after people found out he was a fraud.

Food for thought: Being gay is not a choice for the heterosexual man.

A true heterosexual man would never say being gay is a choice. Does a straight man choose to not wear a women's dress because he chooses not to? No, it is because he probably finds the thought naturally conflicting with his essence. It is only a secretly gay man that doesn't find this conflicting with his character that he would say he's not wearing a woman's dress because he chooses not to. It is this man who tries to convince others to choose to not be gay, just like he has.

Not that there is anything wrong with that. I'm glad Prop 8 is getting the boot. I'm tired of people who try to shove their religious beliefs down other people's throats by taking away their rights. Keep your mind on your own f'ing business. Especially when it is about strangers you don't know or will never meet. It is not your job to police something you don't understand. You should use that same focus and energy towards making your own life more righteous because you know you aren't perfect. Clint Eastwood would agree.