American reaction to the Exxon Valdez oil spill in the late 80s. The nation suddenly became, on the average, much more environmentally minded. So what did we do? We bought “environmental” products. Recycled products, energy-efficient this-or-that, health food, etc. What did we not do? Actually change our behavior.

The more our life options get paraded around as consumer options, the more we forget that there’s a difference between the two.

• You want to lose weight, get excited and buy a bunch of books, magazines, DVDs, etc. on weight loss. Join a fitness site where you can log calories and workouts. Buy a book about a diet with an enticing name.
• Want to learn a new technology? Get a bunch of books, sign up for a mailing list.
• Train for a triathlon? Tons of triathlon books, a bicycle, funny triathlon clothes, triathlete magazine, etc.
• Want to learn a (human) language? Buy some software and books, music, movies.
• Want to learn an instrument? Books, an instrument, a case for the instrument, various accessories.
• Get more organized? Productivity books, a PDA, PIM software.

I do this all the time. I decide I’m going to do something challenging, and my first step is to load up on stuff related to whatever it is I want to do. My second step is to continue to load up on stuff related to the topic. And so on.

It’s a really good and true point.
Although you’re resolute about not falling in that trap it’s a much sneakier trap than you think.
The first time I noticed that type of behavior, I was a teenager.
Playing music, I collected many different music books and transcriptions. Most of them I never finished, a few I never even opened more than twice. Once I figured it out I decided not to spend the money for them. So I ended up getting those books from the library. (found a surrogate)

Every once in a while I’d notice I fell in the trap again, but I’d shrug it since at least it didn’t cost me anything.

The act of purchasing has a really weird effect and triggers.
Have you ever made a big purchase because you were so excited you were going to make so much money in your brand new job, that you haven’t started yet?

I have, a few times. One time it was so glaring that it burned me so bad when I realized the pattern, it never happened again.
I think you really have to have that one Eureka moment that is so glaring, so painful, so damning that can by itself change your future behavior.

For me it was the purchase of a 2*16 Mesa-Boogie Cabinet that cost me $1000 in 1990 in lieu of a job that I never started. It was so painful that the realization of it killed that impulse for good.

What about the impulse to load up on stuff that you’re momentarily interested? Much harder to control. Usually the damage is in the tens of dollars.

I found a solution a couple years back. Write down the purchase on your notebook/pda/iphone and give yourself a 48 hours cool-down period. Then revisit the list and 90% of the time you’ll come to your sense.

If you absolutely must make a purchase, buy only 1 item. Put the time aside for that week to dedicate yourself to it, and most of all you can’t buy any other related items or like-kind items until you’re done with this one.

If it’s a book, and you succumbed to purchasing the book. You can’t buy or read any other book until you’re officially done with that book. If half way through it you realize that you don’t care to finish it, donate it. Get rid of it. No half-measures.

After 3-5 purchases you’re going to really ponder every purchase, and make only the necessary one.

That’s my road toward a lean life.

Btw, a good book to read on the subject is Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational. The best book I have read this year so far, and I have read a few.

In my profession there is a lot of talk around FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) usually regarding adopting some new hot technology. What we don’t always realize is that FUD influences all aspects of our lives and that it has serious psychological ramifications.

Whenever we are not happy with something we cry for change. Do we always take the steps for that change to happen? No, hardly ever instead. What is stopping us? Many different type of fears.

Fear of change, fear of the unknown, fear of loss.

Fear of loss?

What loss? Most people don’t realize that we are just as much attached to our problems as we are sick of them.
We are trained to fear change, mainly because we are comfortable with the current situation. We are familiar with it. We know the current set of problems and we have developed ways to cope with it.

Fear of change.

One basic rule influences us whenever there is a change. The common believe is that change equals problems. Therefore FUD kicks in.

This kind of thinking must be eradicated from our mind and our lives, both professional and personal.
This is the type of thinking that keeps abused spouses in their unhealthy relationships. They are more afraid of change then being beaten to death. They have a way to cope with their beating they don’t know what the change will bring so they don’t make any. It’s what they know and are familiar with.*

While it is often true that change does bring new problems, it is also true that it might be a better set of problems. A set of problem that might be easier to cope with or one set of problems that you actually want.
Wouldn’t we rather have as a problem “what city in south of France I would like to vacation this summer?” vs “What do I need more: a car or health insurance?”

Change is part of life and we should embrace it, for it hopefully will bring a better set of problems.

Fear of the unknown.

While this concept needs no explaining it also echoes our upbringing. I believe that all fears are learned.
I witnessed first hand this through my daughter. She was completely fearless for good part of her first 4 years.
No fear of getting hurt, even after doing so. No fear of heights, No fear of water or anything. No fear of death itself.
Recently she learned to fear some things. Hopefully she’ll never fear change.

Very little has ever being achieved without taking a leap of faith, without stretching ourselves outside our comfort zone. Whenever we do that, stretch out our comfort zone, it presents us with an opportunity for growth and learning.

The trick is realizing when you have been stagnating and have fallen back in a comfort zone. Whenever that happens it is time to stretch out. Maybe we should do a self evaluation every month or so, maybe even more frequently.

Be aware of why you’re not making the change you want to make.
Try asking yourself these questions:

Why am I not making this change? What is the belief that is stopping me?
Is this belief mine or somebody else’s?
Is this belief even/still valid?

By now you should know what to do. If not ask yourself the following:

What are the problems that might arise?
What are the problems that will go away?
What are the benefits?

The last 2 answers, if compelling enough, should make the decision making automatic and propel you into action. If you really want change, just focus on the last 2 and dive in.

Happy Change everybody.

* On a side note: The familiarity of the abuse is also why certain people attract the same toxic partners throughout their life. It’s what they know and they’re familiar with it. Subconsciously whenever you meet somebody that fits the prototype of your previous relationship you’re attracted to him because it feels familiar and “right”, even when it couldn’t be any more wrong than that.

It’s something that you cannot change until your mindful about it, or for some chance of luck you fall for somebody different or they do for you. Then the range of familiarity expands.

Btw, these rules apply to all types of life partners. It applies to your coworkers, business partners as well as romantic ones. But that again is another post.

This is evidence of an assumption on the health of programmers in general

The other problem that I can deduct from the choice in swags is that there is an enourmous disparity in the males to females ratio in the ruby community. We should do something about attracting more women to the joy of ruby.

Only one stack of shirts for women available at rubyconf 2008.

I personally think that the worst and most common reason is his #2 “Believing the Hype“. Andy is right about the hype. The internet is all about and nothing but the hype. We all know that myspace is nothing more than a phpnuke like website. That skype wasn‘t worth 6 billion dollars and fotolog is the simplest web app ever sold for 100+ mil?. But because they did that well we all want to repeat that wild success and (#9) copy it.

10 nonexistent revenue stream

Your only revenue stream (or exit strategy) cannot be that one to be bought out by google, microsoft or yahoo. I really hope that you will get bought out someday but somebody is going to fork a lot of money before that might happen. Fotolog doesn‘t run on a $6.99 plan @ godaddy, you need a bit more than that for 10 million users. 10 million users means lots of servers, lots of storage space and lots of bandwidth. It all costs money. Why would anybody buy you if there is no way to monetize your business.

9 Lack of differentiation

Be either the first mover in the market space, or be very distinctive. Don‘t be another me too.Think hard about what makes you different and work from there.

8 poor to horrible management

Inability to say no or shelter the development team from company‘s problems.

7 not enough resources

A team of 2 or 3 is enough to develop 1 site efficiently. It‘s not enough to design, develop, market and sell 3 sites at the same time, something gotta give.

6 Lack of self assessment skills

Many times I have seen people ignoring reality. I have seen both Managers and CEO‘s not understanding neither what they were requesting their team to do, nor the team skill‘s level. Too many times people just think they can build a better Ebay with 1 or 2 half ass programmer.

5 Lack of market research

“The problem with ebay/amazon/google is“ or “The reason why people don‘t use ebay/amazon/google” are phrases that I heard from upper management that don‘t use any of those services or have not done any research in regard but they were in charge of the market strategy and product development. Personal opinions are not fact do your homework.

4 Lack of self criticism

Not every idea that you‘ll have is golden nugget. Know when to quit. which brings to

3 Lack of focus

You don‘t need to pursue all of your ideas. Your application doesn‘t need to appeal to everybody from 5 to 99 year old. Your application doesn‘t need to have all the bells and whistles of all other competitors‘ product combined to be considered finished.

2 Unrealistic deadlines

Boss: We need to launch it by the end of the week.
Manager: Ok out of these 20 features which one should we prioritize
Boss: all of them

1 Unrealistic goals

We are going to reach 1 million paid users by the end of the month
If each of our users will invite 2 new users every day by the end of the month we will ….
There are 800 million people in china if we just get 20% of that in the next 2 months and they‘d pay us 2 dollars a month we‘d be set at that point somebody will have to buy us (see #10).
If you cannot see the absurdity in the above statement your people will and it will drive them crazy that you don‘t. They‘re effort will be geared towards bitching and not towards results mainly because they are not achievable.

It all goes back to believing the hype with no research. Fotolog didn‘t happen in a couple of months and neither did myspace, facebook, ebay or amazon. It all seems like an overnight success but they were all years in the making. People try to jump start success but it can‘t be really done. It seems that nobody wants to do the leg work and that‘s why everybody has the same exit strategy, to be bought out.

If your business doesn‘t have an exit strategy but has a revenue stream instead you are already in a better position then 90% of the startups out there.