That is one pissed off kitty. Guess he got tossed in the drink and isn’t real happy with that fact. But then no matter how ticked he is irrelevant. He’s still wet; in the water and needs to swim out of the situation to survive. In other words, suck it up and get the job done.

For those not familiar with the term, “suck it up” is defined by one online source (urbandictionary.com) as:

“To endure a period of mental, physical, or emotional hardship with no complaining.”

or as per the second definition:

“To cope with something unpleasant without complaining–usually because you have no choice.”

I would say that about gets it right.

I sent this picture to a number of friends and associates around the world in reference to the current world economic slowdown and the results were interesting. A lot found it amusing but the only group that universally found it funny were US business owners. A result that got me thinking about why that would be and is there anything of value in that observation.

OK, first for all the obsessive statisticians out there no the data set isn’t sufficient to really draw a conclusion to satisfy the requirements of Statistics 101. But then I learned a long time back it’s this sort of “gut stuff” that matters in business and besides I never met any rich statisticians. As per my earlier post, Opportunity Knocks, one of my beliefs is that successful entrepreneurs learn how to laugh at most of what life throws at you and move on. Be it an unexpected toss in the “drink” (as per our ticked off kitty) or a round of financial pain known as bankruptcy. They find a way to reasonably deal with the adversity and keep focused on the core issue of building the business.

When I was an active kayaker I had my share of “unexpected tosses in the drink” ( as in swimming in big rapids because you weren’t successful in rolling the capsized kayak) and just a year ago at the end of December 2008 I had to file for personal and business bankruptcy. A combination of economic slow-down and credit card practices that amount to a legalized criminal cartel in the US finally took their toll. My problem was I wasn’t a Wall Street banker or failed executive of a major corporation so I had to file bankruptcy instead of receiving government aid and bonuses but I digress.

This year (2009) I’m well into a solid rebound by redefining my consulting business and expanding into several new areas. And that picture above is my current background for my main Linux work station. That’s right, about 20 times a day when I see my desktop I’m reminded to “Suck it Up, Cupcake” and get on with being successful. What happened last week doesn’t matter.

Some folks will find all this rather “edgy”; in other words confrontational and lacking politesse. But there I believe is one of the traditional core attitudes that in general used to, and still may, make American businesses so successful. They knew (perhaps still know) how to “suck it up” when hard times hit and ultimately get the positive results. Wimps, whiners and victims be damned.

And you did what? Cartoonist Randy Glasbergen nails it dead on with this one. Opportunity is everywhere. It just might be speeding towards you in a form different from what you envisioned. Hmmmm…

There’s a little story about a man of faith who was caught in a terrible flood and was literally sitting on his roof top praying to be saved. Within an hour or so along comes a rescue boat and the captain pulls along side the man and tells him to jump in.

The man refuses saying he has faith and knows God will save him so the captain reluctantly leaves and heads out to rescue others. This scenario is repeated three more times as different rescue craft spot the man till finally the water rises and the man, now tired and weakened, quickly drowns while trying to swim away.

The man now standing before the Pearly Gates of Heaven, quite annoyed, questions the angel in front of him quite sternly and says, “I prayed to Heaven and yet I drown?” The angel, non plussed, shoots back, “Good gosh, what do you expect? We sent the boat four times!”

The little story is more than a cute joke; it’s literally a modern parable more than applicable to our times of economic and technological change. Those that have the vision to see the opportunities will likely prosper and those that are inflexibly bound to the past are almost surely to fail or at best struggle. Moreover this point applies not just to people but whole social groups, and even nations.

As a business entrepreneur I’m always asking questions like “why are some emerging economies, such as some of the former Soviet Block countries of Eastern Europe, doing well while others can’t create the opportunities for their very capable work force?” “What attitude(s) tend to be prevalent in those people and societies that have a demonstrated track record of successfully capitalizing on new opportunity versus those that don’t?”

My own list includes:

• Strong Sense of Humor: Being able to see much of what happens in life as funny. Both the obviously good and that which isn’t so pleasant. The event will be the same regardless but you can choose how to react. I find laughing about 99% of the time is a better choice. I gain energy from laughter; not lose it to whining.
• Courage: A willingness to take measured (key word) risk. “Betting the farm” (risking it all) makes for good drama in a movie or story. It’s pure foolishness in business. And speaking of drama….
• Low/No Drama: There’s a growing tendency, at least in my opinion, that people are increasingly overly dramatizing what should be seen as small events. Emotional mole-hills to mountains is the general trend. Successful entrepreneurs know you “blow past” (get over) the small stuff quickly. The big stuff is taxing enough. No need for frittering away energy foolishly in drawing out the trivial.
• Vision: Yes I know this word is used endlessly but is applicable regardless. Entrepreneurship, by definition, is taking risk on the new and unproven. It takes an ability to see first what the others don’t and act on it. I believe that’s called “vision.”
• Social Factors: A society that supports risk taking and entrepreneurship through it’s attitudes, laws and institutions. Examples of legal support is the presence of reasonable bankruptcy laws that let the unsuccessful business owner(s) get “back on their feet” to try again. Overly onerous laws that penalize failure simply teach would be entrepreneurs that the risk isn’t worth it; at least not in that country. The real serious ones then leave to find a more suitable environment such as the United States has traditionally been.
• Optimism: Having started a number of small businesses in my time I know you have to believe in success from the beginning. Yes in the back of your mind you know it can “go south” (fail) but you have to believe in your ability to make it work. Pessimism is little short of preordained failure as it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
• Action Oriented: Nothing happens until action is taken towards the envisioned outcome. Period. Wishing won’t make it so and neither will anything else but action. Success is achieved only by the “Doers.”

That’s my “No-Sub Seven” as I call them. The absolute must haves. The ones for which there are no substitutes.

What’s on your list that I’ve missed?

—-

Featured cartoon is from “Today’s Cartoon by Randy Glasbergen”, displayed with special permission. For many more cartoons, please visit Randy’s site at www.glasbergen.com

Preface: This little rant is somewhat for fun but contains a serious message. The large corporations like Comcast and Verizon who are now major players in providing Internet access would like to have a high level of control over the Internet. It was the openness and unfettered freedom of the Internet that has given birth to so many unique and successful ideas. Allowing large bureaucratic entities to have a high degree of control does not bode well for future innovation and economic development. Economic development that the US and other economies badly need. — Mike Shafer

As if you really didn’t know that the major service companies like Verizon really suck when it comes to having a clue about technology, at least Internet technology, let me not so gently burst your bubble. Having done IT consulting part time since 1986 and full time since 2002 I’ve developed a particularly strong dislike for the PHBs (Dilbertian Pointy-Haired Bosses – Exhibit 1 below) that make the “less than optimal” decisions that we “consumers” have to live with.

Exhibit 1: A Pointy-haired boss

For example Verizon has in the past been dubbed the master hell hole of spam bots since a high percentage of their Internet subscribers are relatively unaware users running some flavor of that security sieve called Windows with no or outdated anti virus software.

In response Verizon decides to force everyone to send out bound email on port 587 to utilize the authentication method in that service. In other words you have to logon to the Verizon mail server using a login name and password before the server will accept the out bound mail. Not a problem and in all a good thing to cut down on home machines infected with spam bots that are happily spewing out junk mail for all sorts of obnoxious topics on the standard SMTP (out bound mail) port 25.

However things turn to a posture of recto-cranial inversion (head up tush) when they simultaneously utilize an overly restrictive spam filtering service which for me has been nothing short of a complete PITA (Pain-in-the-ass for those of you not familiar with such idiomatic speech and acronyms) at times.

Exhibit two in the prosecution is the following, very time sensitive email I attempted to send to a fellow with whom I collaborate in the area of IT consulting.

NOTE: the hxxp and fake url below is intentional to keep this from appearing to be a broken link to Google’s search engine spider.

=== Begin Obviously Spammy Email:

Hey Tom,

CCL teleseminar in a few minutes. I’m probably just going to grab the
replay but thought you might want to grab it live.

hxxp://www.some-domain-name-here.com

Cheers!

Mike S.

=== End email

And this isn’t the first one. How much simpler can an email get and it was sent to one recipient. But I couldn’t get it to my associate in a timely manner because Verizon’s spam filtering decided “THIS IS SPAM.” Who in the hell are the people running these spam filters is what I want to know. Has to be the suits as no real geek could be that bad! And that’s the core point. The people who understand the technology (the Geeks) for the most part aren’t the ones making the decisions. Which is why we have to be on guard against letting *ANY* large group with it’s own agenda from having any major control over the Internet.

If you needed ANY other reason to keep the major players like Verizon and Comcast from having too much control over the Internet than this should do it. If not then please take a few minutes and visit Save the Internet. Ah hech why not visit it anyway!

• What is Net Neutrality?
• Save the Internet

If you don’t think age is largely a state of mind and attitude is everything than you probably haven’t met the likes of Yuichiro Miura. He’s the Japanese alpinist who set the record in 2003 for being the oldest climber to summit Mount Everest when he was then aged 70.

He’s now preparing for another record hoping to summit Everest in 2013 at then age 80.

Having done a bit of rope work in the late 1970′s when then in my mid-20s I’ve always had an interest in climbing as I love the alpine regions of the world. However at the time flying and kayaking held more sway and the few tentative snow slogs in South America (Peru) I was supposed to go on never materialized.

Moving forward thirty years and I’m thinking the time has come. I’ve been toying with the idea of taking a shot at Mount Everest at age 65 which is still a bit over eight years hence.

I figure that’s sufficient time to develop the rope and related mountaineering skills, a bit of which I already know, and moreover to build the actual mountaineering experience. I suspect starting with some of the easier peaks of the western US such as Mt. Rainier and Mt. Hood are good training grounds and then, when ready, take a shot at Mt. McKinley before deciding if I’m ready for Everest.

I would like to hear from anyone entertaining the same and/or more importantly those that have “been there – done that!”

For those interested in the topic here’s a link or two:

• Alpinist Alan Arnette’s blog on climbing
• National Geographic article Everest at 50

In 1939 a 14 year old German boy and his family fled to New York City to escape the growing repression of Nazi Germany. Some of his family weren’t so fortunate. My friend Fritz Ottenheimer, now 84, had this on his office wall and I thought it a worthy thought to share with all. Fritz was kind enough to agree with my sharing it here.

I’ve been living with intention for some time now. Fritz captures succinctly in simple prose the meaning.

The Essence

I am unlike any other person in the world.
So are you. So is everyone.
All of us are granted a magical moment of being
Between two unfathomable eternities.

Life is precious.
Life is precarious.
Why do so many
Waste so much of it
In anger and pettiness?

I want to live life fully;
Enjoy it,
And share it with others–

While I can.

Fritz Ottenheimer, 2009

Thanks Fritz and Goldie. My life if richer for knowing you all.

In 2005 I managed via a mountain bike accident to completely do in my right ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament). Not having medical insurance I had to grin and bear it and let it heal as best it would untreated which took about two years.

After spending almost three years progressively getting more out of shape in early 2008 I started riding my mountain bike for serious distance to strengthen the knee and started training again at karate last spring.

For building back core body strength I’ve been working on a goal of 100 crunches on my Roman chair sit up bench and for the upper body of doing 100 pushups.

Here’s a fun site I discovered for attaining the goal of being able to do One Hundred Pushups.

While on the topic of cool adventures here’s one for all you adrenalin junkies that like to white water.

I was an active kayaker from 1975-1980 (Class IV+ Int.) and am looking to get back to it in summer 2010. I had the opportunity to go on a Colorado River trip in March 2008 but due to finances and other issues had to forgo that chance.

From what I understand with the lottery system it can take 2-3 years to get a permit from the National Park Service to do the trip. As such I’m either going to apply for one next fall for the 2011 season or will be looking for someone who has a permit for that time period and is looking to fill the slots.

The trip is about 250 miles (400km) in length and about 20 days seems to be the average time period for being on the river.

Shoot me an email if you’re interested or have a trip already scheduled and are looking for additional folks to come along for the ride!

Enjoy the video!

The boys from the British TV show “Top Gear” set out to find “the greatest driving road in the world” and while it’s pointless to argue the superlative it’s hard to argue that the Davos to Stelvio run isn’t some darn fine asphalt, not to mention the gorgeous landscape.

Having become rather enthralled with the idea of doing at least one “cool thing” each year I’ve marked this for my 2010 event.

I’m working on getting folks that want to do this together for a week long trip in late summer 2010 (circa August-September). If interested shoot me an email and we’ll chat.

The quick itinerary is to fly to Zurich and arrange for your ride of choice. It appears that renting a suitable vehicle is fairly straight-forward in the area.

Davos is about 150 km SE from Zurich and there the fun begins.

Here’s the YouTube video. Enjoy!