Kamal went missing. We had been corresponding for over a year, ever since I started this blog. I’m very grateful for the great friends I have met through this blog. It has been a totally unexpected but much appreciated benefit of doing this.

Finally I was visiting San Francisco and after 100s of emails back and forth during the prior year, I was getting all set to meet Kamal Ravikant. But he didn’t show up for our planned breakfast. His brother, Naval, called him a few times. “He’s at home,” Naval said, “but he’s not picking up. His illness must be overwhelming him today.” Naval had a GPS specifically attached to where Kamal was.

(Kamal. Many commenters here have interacted with him through this blog)

Kamal was very sick. This had been going on for months. He had gotten more and more sick. Some days he couldn’t move or wake up. Other days he had enough energy to go outside but only for minutes and then he had to go back inside. Kamal’s sickness was chronic. The doctors couldn’t help him, he was infinitely tired, feverish, in pain, and it was getting worse.

I knew from our correspondences that Kamal had been going through a hard time before he got sick. His company, which had once been well enough to raise a significant amount of money, was faltering, perhaps failing. He had recently broken off a relationship. A close friend had died.

Often when we attach our happiness to external goals: financial success, relationship success, etc, we get disappointed. Even when things work out, everything cycles, the happiness is often fleeting.

When those goals break, the external pain immediately gets reflected into  our internal bodies. Our emotions break. We feel sad, disappointed, in pain. We cling to the past happiness, or our hoped-for goals that now have to change. It often feels like your arm is being torn off your body.

But Kamal was trying to hold it all together to be fair to everyone within his company – the employees, the investors, the customers.  He was clinging to the past, to the future. To everything and everyone except for his own happiness in the present.

So his emotional body couldn’t handle it anymore. His emotional arms and legs were torn off. And then his physical body broke. He completely broke down.  I noticed he had dropped out of touch a few months earlier and I hadn’t seen his comments on the blog in awhile. “What’s going on?” I wrote him. “I’m sick,” was his reply. He dropped out.

But then he started getting better. He started writing again and telling me what was going on in his life. He started commenting on the blog again and interacting with the great community developing here. He was alive again.  We finally ended up meeting.

“How’d you get better?” I asked. “What happened?”

“I’ll tell you the secret,” he said, “I thought I was going to die. I was just lying in bed and couldn’t move, I had a high fever, and was in too much pain. I really thought I was going to die. Finally, I just started saying over and over again, “I love myself.” He paused and started saying it right then as if still in the cure. “I love myself. I love myself. I love myself. I would repeat it all day. “

As Kamal then says in the just published book, “Love Yourself As If Your Life Depends On It” about his experience:

“And I got better. My body started healing faster. My state of mind grew lighter. But the thing I never expected or imagined, life got better. But not just better, things happened that were fantastically out of my reach. This I couldn’t have dreamed of […] I found myself using the word ‘magic’ to describe what was happening. And through it all I kept repeating to myself, “I love myself. I love myself. I love myself.”

In the book Kamal describes his transition from sickness into health and the other magical things that happened to him. He also gives a series of techniques and practices to try this for yourself in a variety of ways and finally he answers the dreaded question, what happens if you don’t love yourself? Can you still get this magic into your life?

“Think about it,” he said to me months later when we met in NYC, “when someone is in love, they almost magically look better. I needed to be in love with myself to feel better. So much of what had happened had weighed on me until I collapsed. Now I needed to love myself. It became a mantra for me.”

As someone explained to me the other day, the word “mantra” has two parts (in Sanskrit): “man” – thoughtfulness with zeal, and “tra” – to protect. So by saying “I love myself” over and over Kamal was protecting the thought, nourishing it, and the love was nourishing the rest of his body, his emotions, his mind, his spirit.

Kamal is now completely recovered. He also figured out the situation with his business and when I saw him in NYC it was as if a gigantic weight had been lifted off his shoulders.  He is so recovered that I can’t recommend enough the book about his experience, available on Kindle right here. The title: “Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On it”.  He used Amazon directly, uploaded the book and it became available within days after he wrote it.

I’ll let a quote from Kamal’s excellent book close this post:

“If a painful memory arises, don’t fight it or try to push it away – you’re in quicksand. Struggle reinforces pain. Instead, go to love. Love for yourself. Feel it. If you have to fake it, fine. It’ll become real eventually Feel the love for yourself as the memory ebbs and flows. That will take the power away.

And even more importantly, it will shift the wiring of the memory. Do it again and again. Love. Re-wire. Love. Re-wire. It’s your mind. You can do whatever you want.[…] The results are worth it. I wish that for you.”

[This is part of the expanded answers to my Twitter Q&A I do every Thursday from 330-430. I will have other answers in smaller blog posts. If you like these Twitter Q&A posts, please Facebook Like so I get a sense of how useful (or fun) they are. Thanks. And please provide additional answers for people in the comments. I am sure that will be appreciated.]

HITTING ROCK BOTTOM

Kunal ‏@pkunal2: Did you really hit rock bottom? I know the TDP got you out. What was the spark inside you to start that change?

ANSWER:

Everybody’s rock bottom is different. I’ve probably had three different rock bottoms in the past 15 years. Each one had different characteristics, but all had similar roots: insecurity, addictions of some form or other, money issues, going broke, family issues, relationship issues, trust issues.

But when I say I hit “rock bottom” I do mean ROCK BOTTOM. I think in your use you might mean “financial”. I’ve been poor and cool with it and poor where it was the worst thing ever and if I didn’t meet expenses I would just simply implode. I had zero dollars in the bank after having millions. I called a close relative who I had given 100s of thousands of dollars to just a few years earlier and asked for money to get through a weekend just in case an emergency happened. They said “no” and started screaming at me about what a loser I was. I hung up the phone. Six months later one of them was basically dead and I never really had a chance to say good-bye. Rock bottom is beyond bad. It’s underwater until the point you can’t breathe anymore and you feel like everything inside you will burst open.

Once you hit rock bottom once you’re always in a partial state of rock-bottom. You start to constantly fear it can happen again. But it was only bumping across that bottom a few more times that I managed to realize what it takes to move out of it, to look forward, and to invite abundance and happiness into life.

The key is to take a step back and it’s subtle. You can BE at rock bottom. Or you can take a step back and say, “I feel like I’m at rock bottom”. It’s hard to do that. It takes practice. But once you can do that you compartmentalize it. You acknowledge the feeling, push it over to the side, and begin the Daily Practice of improving yourself physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. You ignite the fire within, so you’re able to see the wonder and abundance that is waiting for you.  Pick just simple goals at first in each of those categories. Sleep 8+ hours, for instance. Don’t be around negative people. Write down ideas or read a book. And try a relaxation exercise for 10 minutes a day. That’s all. Then write down a mental “X” in your head. You did it! (If you want to do it online, try tdp.me).

Once you persist in doing those goals each day, make the goals a little harder. Write down 20 ideas instead of 10. Exercise every day. Relax for 30 minutes a day. Reserve judgments on people you think have wronged you that constantly swim inside of your head. And always acknowledge that that feeling of “rock bottom” is just that- a feeling. It’s not who you really are.

You are an impassioned person, a person with tears, a person who wants to succeed, a good person, a person who wants better in life for yourself and those around you. With the persistence to light that internal fire you will get there. And the concept of “rock bottom” will have proved to be your best mentor.

MARRIAGE CLASHES

jhvh111 ‏@jhvh111: Marriage – My wife is very type-A and I am very laid back – this frequently causes clashes, any suggestions?

ANSWER:

You and your wife are “splitting the difference”.  Realistically, she’s not all Type A and you are not always laid back. But sometimes couples split these things up. Like, one person will suddenly become messy all the time and the other will be neat all the time. This is “splitting the difference”.

(amazing they divorced and the Clintons are together)

So try to acknowledge that and meet her halfway. Try to surprise her every day. Some things you can do:

A) clean the dishes and do the laundry

B) get a notebook of about 100 sheets. Make it coupons of things she gets from you. Then hide them all over the house. Months later she will still be finding them and it will be fun each time. Fun for her and fun for you.

C) Make a blog. 20 posts. One photo per post. A few words per post. The title of the blog: 20 reasons I love you.

D) Think deeply of her interests. Find some unique but inexpensive gift you can give her that is related to her interests.

E) You say she’s Type A. Are you listening enough to her? She probably has many things to talk to you about. Ask her questions about the things she wants to talk about.

F) You say you are laid back. Maybe you are implying there are things she wants you to do that you don’t want to do. Maybe she wants you to worry more about money. Ask her how you can help her feel more calm about what it is she is worried about. Read books together about the things she is worried about.

G) Go tango dancing. When you tango dance there’s one rule: It’s the man’s fault. The man leads. So if the steps mess up then it’s your fault. Learn how to tango together and that will help get you less laid back and her less Type A. At least while you are dancing.

H) Wake up before her and make her coffee. Make her morning as easy as possible. She’s TYPE A for God’s sakes. She needs your help getting ready for the day.

I) Why don’t you try being Type A for awhile. Worry about the things she is worried about. Plan the things she is overplanning. Take some of the Type A burden off of her so she realizes it’s not all up to her.

J) Be artists together. One day when you have some free time take out some paper and watercolors and paint a little. That will slow down her mind and get you doing something you probably don’t usually do. And it’s something you can do together.

Be in love with her.

WHITE LIES

Lee Springer ‏@springer7217: What do you think of “white lies”? Do u tell them often, or do u expand your endeavors when you speak? What abt the gen public?

ANSWER:

NEVER even tell white lies. If you are late for something, don’t give a “white lie” excuse. Just say, “I’m late.” When someone is wearing a dress you don’t like you need to be constructive in criticism, if you say anything at all (often silence is better than saying anything). This forces you to THINK instead of LIE. Imagine that; the two choices we often have when confronted with being honest is to either THINK BETTER or to LIE.

(the smallest lie turns you into a liar)

Once you stop all lying the universe starts to believe you.  The universe itself will know that every word out of your mouth is truth. So the universe then begins to bend in your direction since IT KNOWS you can’t say anything untrue.

By the way, this is very different from so-called “radical honesty”. The kind of honesty where you say to your girlfriend, “I like you but I’d really like to have sex with your sister”. That might be honest but it’s harmful. First make sure no matter what you do, think or say – before, during, and after, you aren’t harming anyone. That’s the first step towards real trust not only with others but with the Universe. Then be honest. The two together force you to think, to be clever, to be constructive, to truly give of yourself. Give and you will receive.

FUN AND DAILY PRACTICE

Kamal Ravikant ‏@kamalravikant: Can you talk more about why you added fun to daily practice?

ANSWER:

Kamal!

First, in summary: I wrote a post about “The Daily Practice”. My theory is that we are not just one physical body with a heart that pumps blood and oxygen to the rest of the body. My theory is that we are four bodies, all need to be nourished, all need to have their virtual blood flowing not only up and down themselves but through each other. Any blockage and you will find suffering, depression, lack of ability to complete work, lack of ability to be happy. The bodies are the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual bodies. I describe how to develop them slowly and surely in the above post and in my book, “I Was Blind But Now I See”. 

Kamal, though, is referring to tdp.me which is a pre-pre-pre release version of a site I intend to release where people, for free, can track their progress in The Daily Practice and also participate in a community of like-minded people. In there, I not only include the ablility to add goals for each category (body) but I include a “Fun” category.

Thing of an egg. An egg is called the perfect meal. An egg has a lot of protein, few calories, little fat, and is rich in vitamins and minerals. An egg and an apple and you have a total meal.

What parts of life that can be considered Fun also nourish simultaneously all four of the bodies mentioned above. Any ideas in the comments are welcome. I’ve been trying to think of this list. Yoga is certainly one. Tango classes, believe it or not, is one. Its physical, its emotional (you are dancing with someone you hopefully like), it’s mental (it’s hard to keep track!), it’s spiritual (you have to learn to surrender to the steps, to the other person, to your own insecurities). What are others? Certainly laughter is one. Laughter keeps you in the present moment and has numerous health, emotional, mental, and spiritual benefits.

What are others? Fun is often the best way to acommplish every aspect of The Daily Practice. Tell me more fun things that are like “the egg”

.

IDEAS FOR SOMEONE BROKE

Samuel Gearhart ‏@samuelgearhart: Cool summer ideas for a broke 22 y/o who just graduated?

ANSWER:

Broke, 22 years old, just graduated.

Man, you are watching the sun rise right now. It’s got every color in the spectrum and a few others that, as you get older, you will no longer be able to see.

Let’s summarize what you’ve just finished. From the age of 6 to 22, for 16 years, you’ve been chained to desks. You’ve listened to 6 hour a day of boring lectures. You’ve had to work hard every night at work that might’ve seemed meaningless to you. You’ve had to take tests that made you feel either better or worse about your self-worth. You’ve had all your hormones erupt all at the same time in every direction, an explosion, a frenzy of adulthood that burst you open and sliced through your heart.

You survived.

Now you’re 22. You’re broke. But you’re rich. Because for the first time you can taste a little freedom. You won’t be force fed the words and mythologies of our ancestors who passed those words down through our decaying standardized school system. You’re free.

You’re watching the sun rise. And you’ve got all the colors at your disposal.

Devote every day this summer to art. To ART. I don’t necessarily mean painting, or writing, or sculpting. I mean ART.

Wake up and say, “i’m going to create today.” What is creation? Who knows?

Do something you never did before. Explore somewhere you’ve never been. Take a camera and photograph. Take a pad and draw. Take a journal and write. Make a crank call and splice it with a popular song. Write a letter to the President. Make a time capsule to your grandchildren.

Ignite the fire.

The fire that has been stifled while you’ve been chained to the desk for 16 year.

Meet people you never would’ve dreamed of meeting.

But make every day a day of Art. Say it: “I’m going to create art today.”

How do you ignite so that art flows through you, so that value flows through you and creation flows through you. So that it becomes a reflex instead of a hard-to-use out of shape muscle? You exercise it. You stay health. Use tdp.me to track your practice (pre-release, but the site created to track The Daily Practice).

Use it to track you as your transform your life from static and standard to a flowing work of Art.

Please, please, please paint with the colors that I’m too old to see. And then show me.

DEALING WITH UNCERTAINTY AND WHICH IDEA TO CHOOSE?

Gregory DSouza ‏@gregdsouza: How do u deal with uncertainty to pursue what you love when u are interested in many things. But maybe the best at ONE!!

chris ‏@chris_peacock1: what if you have 5 what you great ideas which do pick first

ANSWER:

Two answers. Diversity and Time Management

Time Management. This is what you are really asking. If an idea didn’t take up so much time you wouldn’t be so concerned about the uncertainty of it. Wake up ten minutes earlier. Go to sleep ten minutes later. Don’t watch TV. Believe it or not: don’t eat dinner. You don’t need it. Don’t drink alcohol. Don’t take on wasted meetings. Most meetings amount to a big ZERO. Don’t hang out with friends more than once a week. Don’t read books that don’t move your forward on your idea. Don’t play games online or surf more than you need to. Even if you just do the items I describe above you’ve probably saved 50 hours a week. Now take one day on the weekend to work. Don’t go to family events that are boring. Don’t do things that you can delegate (for example, you get a bed from ikea – get a local handyman to build it. You just saved yourself 3 hours).

Most people are awful at time management. They sit around at night toasting their friends over late night dinners, desserts, alcohol, walking, flying, saying, “I wish I had more time for my novel/idea/job/family/etc” and they just killed eight hours. KILLED. Those eight hours are dead. Then they wake up late, hungover, realize it wasn’t really that fun the night before and then that morning KILLS another four hours. KILLED 12 HOURS.

(Uncertainty might also be a way of telling you you need to shake things up)

Diversity. What you really need to do is do all of your ideas. You say you have many ideas. You can bring down uncertainty by doing all of them. It’s not true that if you spread yourself too thin you will do none of them well. If you do time management well and if you learn how to delegate and filter out the useless activities you will be able to do each one activity as if you were anyone else doing that one activity full time!

When I did stockpickr.com, which I successfully sold, I was running a fulltime business and also experimenting with ten other websites and writing a book. This had a cost. I had no friends (but that is always temporary). I was a bit of a mess in a lot of ways (but that was temporary). But I produced a baby idea that grew into a nice success very quickly.

You will experience such growth if you follow the two ideas above.

CHANGING THE WORLD

Gregory DSouza ‏@gregdsouza: Everyone I know now wants to change the world with their new ‘app’ how do u actually change it?

ANSWER:

When I was in college my roommate was a “Trotskyist” like many people in college often are. I’m not even sure what that means. I was working at least 50 hours a week at jobs and struggling to pay all my expenses while taking six courses a semester and 3 courses a summer so I could graduate early and with less debt. His dad was a wealthy doctor so he never sweated it. He was very focused on changing the world. He was upset about “labor” and how it was exploited. I would run into him in the cafeteria where he’d have two plates filled with meals for himself. And all he’d do all day was read about Marxism.

I haven’t heard from him since. But I doubt he changed the world.

The world is made up of individuals. We all suffer. We all go through bad relationships, difficult jobs, hard life experiences, loss, pain. In fact, that’s what most of life is.

But if you slowly work at incrementally improving yourself in the ways I described in an earlier answer then you will make life better for yourself. And as each person makes life better for themselves then incrementally the world becomes a better place to live. We treat with each other with more kindness, more honesty, less betrayal, more humility. If you learn to be fully present with each person you encounter, and when your presence becomes a beacon of light to others, then those people will be uplifted and the world will be a better place.

That is the only way the world will change for the better. No app will do that.

WILL THERE BE MASS PROTESTS IN THE US?

Curtis Faith ‏@inflector: Do you expect any significant protests in the U.S. this summer? If so will they change the discourse of the election?

ANSWER:

This election seems to me to be the most boring election of the century. I can’t think of two more bland candidates who probably agree on just about every issue out there. Maybe Clinton-Dole 1996 was boring like this.

So I don’t see unrest. I see 26 consecutive months of private sector job growth. I see the lowest household debt obligations (rent, leases, etc) divided by income since 1984 so household America has essentially deleveraged. I see a stock market that has had an enormous run off of the lows. I see two wars that have been going on for 10 years longer than they should with no end in sight. I see taxes being debated over a percent here, or a percent there and only talking about people making a million above or more so no real change.

(only if the mass protests are naked)

Where’s the unrest? Where’s the potential change? Nobody really cares about anything anymore. Occupy Wall Street was a flash in the pan because they were protesting the wrong street. All the gold is hidden. They let children see the gold on tours but they never actually audit the gold so we”ll never know. I see existing home sales improving, new home sales improving, consumer spending at an all-time high, wages per hour improving even after inflation.

Does that mean Obama was “good”? Of course not! Obama did nothing. Romney will do nothing. We’ll still be at war everywhere. People will still get killed. Healthcare will still be a mess. The economy will still be unable to figure itself out. Wall Street will have more and more flash crashes because the technology is surpassing and exploiting the real goals of capital markets.

The President can’t do anything. He’s useless. He’s a pawn. There’s trillions floating around in Swiss banks that have their fingers in every transaction that occurs here in the US. We have no say. We have no unrest.

And, at the end of the day, we have no rest.

WHAT HAVE I LEARNED FROM PUBLISHING/WRITING

Ben Nesvig ‏@BenNesvig: Your first (excellent) self-published book came out a year ago. What have you learned about publishing/writing since then?

ANSWER:

I’ll do a post at some point with all the statistics on my self-published books (now 4 self-published books plus one comic book).

But here’s what I’ve learned.

Several important things:

A) Books don’t make money. You simply cannot make money in the book industry. If you are a writer, an agent, a publisher, a bookstore. I get checks every month from Amazon. Sometimes they pay the rent (particularly if I have a new book) sometimes they don’t. Even when the book is #1 in its category for months on Amazon it still might not pay the rent.

This doesn’t mean don’t write a book. I stand by my premise from a month or so ago: Books are the new Business Cards. We all want to express ourselves. And it feels good, feels validating, to have “a book”. Because it means we are dedicated to the craft of writing, to improving ourselves, to delivering value to others. And it’s hard. It’s 5 hours a day for months of typing into a screen and sitting down. It’s brutal. It’s an addiction. It’s an obsession. It’s an insecurity. We want to write because we want people to read and like us. A book is a prayer we send out into the world and if that prayer is answered it means people are reading what we have to say.

B) Books will make you money.  Leverage it into consulting, speaking, advising – all things which pay real money. My speaking, based on my books, has netted me much more than my books over the past ten years.

C) Would I still self-publish? Of course! For all the same reasons I list here.

D)  We are in the “Choose Yourself Era”. No more middlemen. No more agents. No more producers. No more crack-addicted decision makers who can make or break your career over a bad night out on the town where they wake up and then have to decide on the art and creativity that you have slaved over. I have had horrible experiences where just because I dated someone who became some producer’s wife much later I’ve been thrown off of TV shows, etc. No more!

Choose Yourself!

What do you need to do in the Choose Yourself Era?

You need to create your own platform. Facebook, twitter, quora, pinterest, writing a blog, self-publishing books, radio, internet radio, Vlogs – each format is interlaced but also becomes its own platform for distributing your content that is most suitable for that platform (as opposed to each platform being a marketing tool for just selling books). This is the way you maximize the value you deliver to others. Spend time every day on each platform. Spend time helping people each day on every platform.

Value will be created. Your name will be asked for. I am going to have more posts on how to build up in each platform. Figuring it out now as I expand beyond the blog format.

But this is critical now in the “Choose Yourself Era”

E) IF you Want to Make Money in Books. I would go the Amanda Hocking route (which is not easy): blog everywhere, comment everywhere AND write a book or two a month in a series. You want to write a book or two a month? I like this advice from one of my favorite authors from when I was a kid: Write an Adventure Novel in 3 Days. 

HOW TO BUILD AN HONEST & COLLABORATIVE COMMUNITY

Cojourneo ‏@Cojourneo: Have any tips on how to build honest & collaborative community online?

ANSWER:

When I was implementing stockpickr I was trying to build a community that reflected exactly my ideas of how investing should work. I wanted ideas for making money without any news to cloud it. Most financial communities are all about news. I think most news is filled with lies, entertainment, fear, and sex (perhaps the only part of news I like).

There were already many financial communities, particularly the message boards on Yahoo Finance.

After a few months of building my community (I quickly got up to 1,000,000  unique visitors) I went over to Yahoo Finance and showed them my site. This was in 2007. The first comment from the head of Yahoo Finance, “how come people aren’t bashing each other?” Yahoo Finance had an excellent community in size but unfortunately everyone trashed everyone else many of their message boards degenerated into people just trashing each other.

Here’s what I did:

A) first I seeded the site with a lot of useful data. So no matter where you went on the site, there was investing ideas.

B) No friction. You didn’t have to sign up to use the site. And it was very easy to sign up. And no email verification. No friction at all.

C) I interacted on the site as much as possible. This way people understood there was some degree of moderation and they also understood that if they asked a question, they would get an answer.

D) Not only did I have a forum section but I had a Q&A (think “Quora) section. And I kept track of who answered the most questions so there was gamification involved in being as helpful as possible.

E) The system recommended “friends”. If you entered in your portfolio it would recommend other users whose portfolio was similar to yours.

F) I ruthlessly deleted people who brought mud into my house. If someone was abusive at all, I deleted their account. There’s other things I did to people who would then log in with new accounts after I had already banned them. I usually was able to track them down through their emails and I would call them at their place of work. I would explain to them on the phone (which added a touch not usually found on the Internet) that I was trying to make a living with this and they were ruining my hard work so I hoped they would stop. 99% of the time this worked. When it didn’t I would resort to other tactics that I can’t talk about online.

G) I asked my friends who were bloggers to use and review my site. This set a high tone for the site. Not only was I watching but all of these respected bloggers were.

H) Because of the above, the first level of people to use the site were highly pre-qualified. Community comes from the top-down. My site was relatively small but think of the most successful social media sites. They all have highly qualified or respected users who started off the first community. Facebook had Harvard. Quora has high quality CEOs and venture capitalists. Myspace even had local musicians that would set up their pages and then their fans would set up pages. Myspace only fell apart after being acquired. Smaller sites like Stack Exchange, or new.ycombinator have top programmers and software company executives and venture capitalists.

Cojourneo I can tell is a great site. I have some suggestions but perhaps that can be another post. I encourage people to try your site out by clicking the image below.

GREECE AND EU

tstinson ‏@tsrcpw: will Greece leave the European Union?

ANSWER:

What is Greece?

Let me look it up.

Oh, its a vacation resort bordering the Mediterranean. The sea looks beautiful there.

History lesson: Greece has been supported by other countries ever since Augustus began paying their bills around 20 BC, right up until Reagan was paying them in 1989 to keep Russia out. And then all hell broke loose when we didn’t care anymore so the EU took up the slack.

Why anyone couldn’t predict this ten year ago is beyond me. And why an economy that is the size of Rhode Island is STILL in the news when it comes to our stock markets is incomprehensible to me.

SALARY NEGOTIATION

Shawn Agyeman ‏@Sagyeman: how do you negotiate salary at a startup when approached by the founder?

ANSWER:

Salary is all about exploitation. I don’t mean this in a communist sense. I mean it in a very capitalist way. A founder wants to pay you less than the value he can get from you, but enough that you remain incentivized. His goal is to make you happy above and beyond salary in ways that can benefit you (everything from stock options to weekly masseuses coming in to educational opportunities).

Remember that in any negotiation it’s not just about “the number”. It’s about your list of things you are negotiating. If you have a greater list than his then it’s either to exchange some nickels in exchange for some dimes. For instance, time you can spend pursuing other projects. Vacation time. Room for advancement. Stock options or equity. Money if you bring in sales, money if you achieve certain goals, etc.

But in terms of just straight salary here’s what I would do.

Say a number that is ludicrously high. High enough that it’s a joke so you both laugh. What is the point of that? It’s to “anchor” the founder’s thinking at a high point. Now he has to think high because you anchored him there.

Then say, “Listen, I’m just a programmer/salesguy/ops guy” whatever you are. Say, “you’re the expert. You tell me”.

And because you’ve anchored him high he’s going to give you a number at the high end of the mental range he was already thinking about. If you like it, and like the other benefits (the other items on your list) then take the job.

IDEA MUSCLE

Willy Dufresne ‏@Willdeboof: James, after spending a certain amount of time listing ideas daily, did you begin to start feeling ideas came to you more easily?

ANSWER:

If you get hurt and have to go to a hospital and lie in bed for 2 weeks, what happens? Your leg muscles atrophy so much you won’t be able to get up and walk. That’s all it takes. Two weeks.

Imagine if you are 12 years behind a desk (doesn’t’ matter if it’s school or a job or whatever). Your idea muscle has atrophied so much it might not even exist anymore. Or it’s only a tiny fiber running through your virtual brain. The tiniest of muscles, barely connecting with the rest of your being.

The idea muscle needs to be rebuilt. It doesn’t matter if you start off with bad ideas, good ideas, nonsense ideas. You need to light up the neurons and synapses in the brain that support the idea muscle. It’s hard. Let’s say you try to walk after those two weeks. It will hurt. You will sweat. A therapist will yell at you and say, “C’MON! Keep going!” And you will cry with actual tears and say, “I can’t. I just can’t anymore” And the physical therapist will push you until you walk just a few steps before you collapse.

Now you need to sweat again. Do two things. Have an idea of what you want to make a list about and have, in advance, the number of items you want to put in that list. For instance, “20 chapter titles you can write in a book about parenting”. 20 is a lot! Your head will begin to hurt/sweat around 5-8 titles. But you have 12 more to go! Push yourself. PUSH! Sweat that idea muscle.

Do it every day. The ideas will flow. You will go from the hospital to being an Olympic Marathon runner. You won’t be just a guy with good ideas, you will become an IDEA MACHINE! And this helps in every aspect of your life. It doesn’t just help you come up with ideas for a business. It will help you come up with good ideas to surprise your wife. Or ideas of what to do at a moment’s notice in a traffic jam. Life will become easier for you. Life is hard. Life is your competition, trying to keep your from succeeding. Being an idea machine will make you the winner.

ARROGANT AND SUCCESS

Petinka ‏@Pif_4e: Does a person necessarily need to be arrogant in order to become successful in their job?

ANSWER:

The more humble a person is on the job (for example, the more credit you give to others), the more successful you will be.

The more ideas you have without taking credit, the more successful you will be.

The more emptiness you carve out in your heart of jealousy, envy, of arrogance, the more the entire world will rush in to fill that emptiness with abundance.

The less you try to dominate people, the more people will come to you for your guidance and advice.

The less you try to control, the more control will be given to you.

This I know from experience. The more I give up my expectations, the more I try to ride my expectations over others, the more is given to me in every way. I’ve been offered CEO jobs by giving up all interest in them. I’ve been offered money right when I’ve given up all need of ever making it again. I met the woman I’m married to precisely when I gave up (and was fine with it) hope of meeting someone who would satisfy my expectations.

Life bends to you when you stop trying to master it. Life is a storm. And when the tree bends, it survives in the storm longer than the tree that tries to stay strong and not move during the storm.

Example from the corporate world: Google. The most popular website on the planet. What does Google do? If you ask it “tell me about chemistry” it says back to you, “I know nothing about chemistry but here are ten sites that no more than me. Why don’t you check them out first.” Google itself has no content. It only gives credit to others. And that is the reason we always go back to it.

CANCER AND MOVING ON

Brian Lund ‏@bclund: How do you move forward after watching your 7yr old waste away and die from cancer just 6 months after she was diagnosed?

ANSWER:

Brian, that must have been so hard and painful. There is nothing really to say. Every day you will remember her. Every day her memory will bring you into the past.  Every day you will mourn.

There are two things you can do to help ease the process and allow life to move forward.

Move the Past to the Present: She will always be 7 in your mind. And you will always look back and relive those moments you had with her. But every now and then bring it into the Present. Instead of reliving the past, ask yourself, how am I feeling right now about this horrible experience. The answer, of course, will be “very bad”. But feel it right now. That is what you are feeling this second. This brings you out of the past and allows you to acknowledge what is going on inside of you right now. Once you are in the present, once you are accepting of those feelings right now, you can also do the things you need to do today, the things you need to do right now, plan the goals you need to plan to move forward.

Give. Immense sadness and misery is unfortunately also a valuable teacher. Your sadness has given you the unfortunate gift of greater empathy than most people have towards those who are suffering. Wake up every day and say, “Whose life can I save today.” Your sadness is beyond that of mere mortals. So the unfortunate gift it has given you is also beyond that of a mere mortal. Use that gift to help people. Every day you will save life. The first thing you do in the morning say, “I will save a life today.” It might be small. Walking a blind person across a street. Helping a co-worker. Recognizing sadness in others and listening to them. But you will give and it will be returned to you. That’s the best way to accept the horrible sadness of a lost child. That’s what your child would want you to do with that sadness.

You will do it.

JOB SEARCHING MAKES ME CRAZY

Abby Ferri ‏@abbyferri: how do I not go crazy while job searching? I’m not doing the daily practice and I don’t see entrepreneurship as an option.

ANSWER:

Accept that you are feeling frustrated. Don’t say “I AM frustrated” since that’s not who you are. You are “Abby” and deep down you are whatever consciousness it is that spawns all the thoughts, feelings, identities, etc. But acknowledge that you are feeling frustrated. It’s painful. Where does it hurt. Why does it hurt. Are you afraid you will never get a job? Are you ashamed? Are you worried about running low on money? Remember that RIGHT NOW these are just feelings. They aren’t actually YOU.

(name this movie)

Accept them.

Then, I have to say, you need to do The Daily practice that I recommend. At least, for me, it’s the only way I’ve ever been able to make money, get out of the hole, get moving. And then finally, the only way I’ve been propelled higher than I thought possible.

–

 [Please join me on the next Twitter Q&A this Thursday from 330-430 EST. If you like this type of post, please "Facebook Like" it so I know. Also, many questions that will be asked will be answered in future  posts I am preparing]

[This is part of the expanded answers to my Twitter Q&A I do every Thursday from 330-430. I will have other answers in smaller blog posts. If you like these Twitter Q&A posts, please Facebook Like so I get a sense of how useful (or fun) they are. Thanks. And please provide additional answers for people in the comments. I am sure that will be appreciated.]

IS PERSISTENCE THE KEY TO SUCCESS?

Leon Benson ‏@LeonBenson2: Was persistence the key to you being in the position you are in now?

ANSWER:

In early 1994 I created my first website. In late 1994 I did my first corporate website. In 1995 I did my first website for money. I got $17,500 cash for a diamond wholesaler’s website. I went straight to the Chelsea Hotel and gave them the money and paid for my first room (of many) there for a year. I couldn’t believe how rich I was with that money. Stanley Bard, the owner of the Chelsea at the time, looked at the cash and said, “what are you, a drug dealer?” And I felt like one. I was selling crack, heroin, whatever. I felt high. I was so happy. I had made more money than I had ever had in my life. I would wander up and down the stairwells of the Chelsea Hotel hoping I would run into some drug addict who would have sex with me. That persistence never paid off fortunately.

In 1996, we finally incorporated the company doing websites for others. At the beginning of the year we had maybe two or three clients and two or three employees. But we grew. Everyone needed a website. I was still working my fulltime job at HBO but sneaking away for meetings and then hiding my suit before I got back to my cubicle. Finally in 1997 I had to leave HBO to do Reset fulltime. And in 1998 we sold the business.

Along the way I probably got rejected more than 200 times on sales pitches. And I messed up hiring, bribing, sales, investing, we got robbed twice, I messed up on follow-up (with J.P. Morgan, who desperately wanted us to do their website, I just dropped the ball), I messed up everything. I couldn’t get it right. But I felt like we were doing well (we kept growing every month) so I kept at it. In 1997 I tried to sell the company but nobody wanted it. But I kept in touch with everyone and kept sending all potential suitors monthly updates. For about a year, half my job was pitching new clients and half my job was pitching potential people to buy the company. Finally in August, 1998 the time was right and we sold the company. And, by the way, this was my third attempt at starting a company. The other two had failed.

I’ve read so many cases of authors who sold their books door to door for years until finally word of mouth spread and they became bestsellers. John Grisham being a great example. Eckhart Tolle being another. And how many actors spent 5, 10, even 20 years as carpenters, waiters, whatevers, before they got their first big role that put them over the top.  Or Thomas Edison trying 9999 times to light a lightbulb before he got it right on the 10000th attempt. Eventually a water dripping on a rock will wither away the rock.

(Grisham's first novel, over 600 pages, totally flopped)

The only thing I will add: that water is inside of you, and the rock is all the constipated excrement that has curled up in your mental intestines from years of hypnosis by corporations, the government, your friends, your family. your peers, your bosses. You have to wither that rock away. The voice inside that constantly whispers “I can’t” needs to be silenced.

Persistence is not something you do with external goals, but it is something you do internally. It’s the fire you keep trying to start inside yourself until it grows and becomes bigger and bigger. Then everything you touch feels your magic, your presence, your power, your persistence. It is the persistence that comes with preparation.

You do this by every day checking the box: “did I improve physically”, “did I make my life better emotionally”, “did I make my life better mentally”, “did I make my life better spiritually”.Don’t get sucked into past failures. Don’t fantasize about future success. Just today: did you check the box. Did you ignite the fire.

Accepting that suffering is going to happen, and understanding that accepting that suffering ultimately leads to success, is the key to persistence, is the key to ultimate success.

I describe “The Daily Practice” here, which I view as the only way I was able to persist when times were so hard I felt like all I could was die in shame. I would turn on the TV and watch the news and wish I was the person who died in the horrible bus accident or the freak lightening accident. I be jealous of the people who had the courage to jump off bridges.

(Jordan: failed to make his high school team. has missed over 9000 shots in the pros)

How many golf balls do you have to hit before you hit a hole in one? How many serves in tennis before you score an ace? How many different girlfriend/boyfriends before you meet the one you will marry? How many books do you have to read before you can say, “this is the best book I’ve ever read”? How many planets will we have to explore before we find another one with intelligent life? Persistence runs through every aspect of our lives.

We do something over and over again for many reasons:

A) We learn from every attempt. I’ve had several business successes, but several out of 20, 30, maybe even 40 attempts! Does that make me a loser to have failed so much? No, of course not. One success means you are…a success. At least I hope so. Then I blew it and had to start from scratch but at some point you know if you can do it once, you know the trick to make it happen again. And a big part of that trick is persistence.

B) Time management. For every attempt, you will become more and more efficient with your time. You will hire better (bad employees are the worst wastes of time), and you will learn how to pre-qualify customers better. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten on a plane, traveled a thousand miles, made my impassioned pitch, everyone loved it, and then I returned home with nothing nothing NOTHING. It feels so bad. Didn’t they like me? Didn’t they like my idea? Didn’t they think it was important that I flew 1000 miles to see them on their home turf! Didn’t they!? I think it takes about 20 failures to really get time management down to a science.

(Thomas Edison, with one of his many failed inventions)

C) Idea execution. Most of the time we have good ideas but have no idea how to execute it. We waste time thinking we need a lawyer to execute something (they will execute your idea, that’s for sure), or an accountant, or a partner, or a programmer, or a salesperson, or a venture capitalist, or we need to be living in Paris if we want to paint a good painting, or we need to be isolated for six months if we want to write a good novel or book. Or we need to meditate to be “enlightened”. Or we need to be educated to get a job. None of these things are true. They are just excuses. All excuses are myths, are lies we tell ourselves to keep ourselves inside on a sunny day. With persistence you learn how to hunt, how to kill, how to eat.

D) BS Detection. I was at a dinner once to hear a pitch. It was with a fund I didn’t like so I should’ve known better. They said, “just listen to this guy”. He had a great pitch. He had a technology which would take steam coming out of factories that he would then recycle back into the factory so they would save energy and costs. He would charge only on what he saved the factory. Then he had another pitch. Strips that he would place on the highway that would absorb the energy of the cars driving over it and feed it right into the electric grid. “One day on the Long Island Expressway and I could power New York State for a month,” he said. He had more pitches. On and on. Finally, I was thinking to myself, “he’s going to pitch me a time machine.” The next slide…a time machine. I left the dinner. My business partner was laughing, “Did he just pitch us a time machine?” Eventually you get BS detection so you don’t even take those dinners. Much better to sleep.

(the time machine slide)

E) Persistence gives you luck. A lot of times I’m playing chess online and I’ll win and someone will say, “you got REALLY LUCKY!” as if I couldn’t within without luck. And then we’ll play again and I’ll win again and then usually whoever said that will log off quickly without saying goodbye. There’s a saying, “only the good players are lucky”. How do you get lucky? I’m not the best player in the world. But I’ve put in thousands of hours studying and playing. And losing. Persistence is an intimate dance with loss and through that dance you find that that failure mated with passion produces luck.

(Irina Krush stopped a huge winning streak I was on in 1997 when she was 13. But she wasn't lucky. She was more prepared than me. She's now one of the strongest players in the country)

F) Calmness. If every house you live in burns down, you begin to learn how to be calm in a fire. The more calm you are, the more lives are saved, the more possessions restored. Persistence gives you calm. Whispers what you should do in emergencies. Without persistence you won’t know to stay low and let the smoke rise over you so you can breathe.

With persistence, you learn that life is filled with change, and that the more accepting you are of the change, decay, and hardship that life is filled with, the more you will navigate them to find the treasure and wisdom that awaits that acceptance.

G) Giving up. You also learn when you should give up on an idea. Sometimes you don’t need to persist on one idea. Sometimes an idea is just bad. But through constant trial and error you will learn when to give up and move on to the next one. You will learn how to keep your expectations low. Low expectations improves your ability to make quick decisions that don’t rely on false myths, shame, and excuses. When you expect nothing, then suddenly you will get everything.

H) Strength. The world is divided into two people. The ones who blame and the ones who take responsibility. It’s the latter that ignite that inner fire. That seek internal improvement in all four bodies: physical, emotional, mental, spiritual. Every single day grow the fire. Jerry Seinfeld used to say when he would write down a new comedy sketch he’d put an X down on the calendar. Finally, he would have a line of Xs. He liked looking at the Xs. He didn’t want a blank. Don’t make a blank. Every day improve those internal fires.

("Don't Break the Chain!" Seinfeld said. And Larry David was a standup comedian for over 20 years before achieving success)

I) Trust. If you know you are building that internal fire every day you will be content with what you have. You will trust that life will take care of the rest. You will never be left lacking. You will never be left wondering, “what if?” You will know the exact moment you need to step out of the way so abundance can force its way in like a tornado. You will trust deep down that it will happen.

That’s the key to persistence: improve the internal fire every day, do The Daily Practice to ignite it, and expect absolutely nothing so you will enjoy when you inevitably get everything.

(photo by Ernst Haas)

Nobody in the entire photo is looking at the photo within the photo of the dead hero, the poor woman’s missing son. Last Memorial Day I wrote a post “Name Me a War That Was Worth It”. My belief is that 60 year olds should never send 18 year olds to be killed. Of course the 18 year olds are heroes. Nobody disputes that.

And of course the government convinces them and lies to them that they are killing others, killing civilians, killing other 18 year olds, killing and maiming each other, all for a good cause.

It’s never for a good cause and for every single war you can always trace it back to who is making the most money. Back to the Civil War (the North wanted its share of the Southern cotton tariffs) and even back to the Revolutionary War (the myth of “taxation without representation” and now, 240 years later, I am taxed Federal, State, City, Sales, Luxury, Property, and god  knows how many other places.)

But I wrote that post and put it here and also on the most pro-peace site I could find. I never got so many  hate-comments. Most of them came from the pro-peace site. In general, people talk their good theories, but when you touch the chord of hate inside of them, that’s when their real crap comes out. And it stinks.

In the above photo, everyone is looking at the returning hero. Even the mother who is holding up the picture of her son, the hero who died in the war, desperately hoping that someone has seen him. Not a single person is looking at the photo of the dead 18 year old. The real heroes are forgotten. The real histories are made up mythologies. The “good” reasons always hide the real reasons.

The above photo is a picture within a picture. It’s a photo for all of us, where we live our lives being fooled and hypnotized, while searching for the real heroes who might lie dormant inside of us. We mostly die without ever finding them.

(photo by Willy Ronis)

When was the last time you felt like this little boy?

I’ve spent the past 20 years worrying about money. Worrying about what other people thought of me. Worrying about relationships, love, loss. Awkward about people, places, things, agendas Agendas. Thinking about the people who were angry at me. Obsessing on the people I was angry at. Scared to fail. Afraid to adventure. Thinking I had to achieve goals to alchemize unhappiness into happiness. Thinking I had to be the smartest person in the meeting, the room, the building, the city,

thinking that the only way to I could ever be HAPPY was to get away far away far far away from

HERE

just so I could get

THERE

in the land of the “goals”. In the land of the “motivations”. In the land of “success”.

What a waste.

Now I hear the birds chirping, its not yet 5am. If I can picture it for a second –  being a young boy, smiling, I have my bread. Picture what is in the eyes of that boy. Picture those are your eyes. Feel that moment of flight through the air, society hasn’t yet given me my orders, my goals. I’m free to run, to enjoy, to relax. Yesterday is long gone. Tomorrow will never come. I’m happy today, with my bread, with my smile, with both feet flying in the air. Like a bird. Like nothing I’ve ever felt before. For the briefest of moments happiness is the absence of everything that has happened to me ever since.

The other day during my Twitter Q&A someone asked me why I use a waiter’s pad to write down ideas instead of a small notepad. I didn’t give the complete answer. Now I will.

Before the waiter pad, I had lost all my dignity. It was taken from me. I had taken it from myself. There was a hole. And the hole was filled with misery, depression, embarrassment, anxiety, shame, self-hatred, suicide, fear, pain, pain, PAIN. I was isolated, disgraced, and in HELL. I couldn’t climb out. It was a hole and only bad things filled it and I was all alone.

I needed help. A symbol. I needed sex, passion, abundance, love to fill my life. I needed something to get rid of the non-stop despair. I needed a way to regenerate. To rejuvenate. I needed my dignity again. Which, of course, will eventually bring me to waitresses.

There’s two beginnings to the waiter’s pad story. Just like there are two types of explanations for every question: the “good” explanation and the “real” explanation. Think about that the next time someone tries to BS you. Example: a real estate agent will say a good reason to buy a house is because it’s “charming”. But the real reason: it’s cheap. This dichotomy of good versus real occurs with almost every word everyone speaks.

For me, there’s the good reasons when I started using the waiter’s pad. And then there’s the real reasons I was attracted to it.

Summer of 2002: I’m going to be dead honest: I was losing $40-50,000 a month just in living expenses. That’s because I’m mentally deficient. I didn’t know what I was doing. I made some money and decided to immediately up my lifestyle to unbelievable rock-star heights and then I lost all of my money in the worst horrible ways. I stimulated the economy.

So, in the worst bear market, with a loaded gun in my mouth and always a month away from dying (in Yiddish, the first language of my father, “dying” and “losing all of your money” are the same phrase) I had to make about 100% per month daytrading even though I was perpetually optimistic on the market. It was hard and I never want to do it again. I will kill myself if I have to do it again. I’m too old. I’m too tired. I don’t want to be the desperate addict again.

There’s a superhero in DC Comics in the “Legion of Substitute Heroes” from the 30th Century named “Kid Psycho”. He can move objects with his mind. As is the case with many science fiction characters who can move objects with their minds, he was bald and had an over-sized head. And his collar went straight up. But one sad difference with Kid Psycho: everytime he used his power he lost one year of his life. That’s why he was only a Substitute Hero.

(Kid Psycho)

That happened to me in 2002. I lost a year of my life every month. Nobody around me understood that. Everyone thought I was living large.But I had to hide everything, I was so ashamed. Every day  I was the worst kind of afraid. Medication and Meditation (funny how they are separated by one letter. I never realized that before) didn’t work. Only making money worked. Else I was dead. And even then, the writing was on the wall – I had four months to live.

Every day I mourned myself. The heartache was too much. Much later, I thought about the lives I could’ve saved and the lives I felt I had cost. Still, to this day, I feel lives are ruined. Heartache, despair, with every day a battle, every day, a practice or I lose against the demons.

It’s all I thought about. All I paced about. I lived 4 blocks from Ground Zero. I hate to say it but I almost wanted another terrorist attack to happen just as an excuse to have someone do me in for me.

But suddenly everything changed. I was walking around the Bowery and wandered into a restaurant supply store. Everything looked so silver and shiny. Everything brought back memories of diners and milkshakes and french fries and sandwiches. I was a little boy in a diner. And then I it. The waiter’s pad. 10 cents a pad. I bought 100 for $10.

I’ll make a list now:

10 Uses for a Waiter’s Pad

- write down ideas. It’s perfect for making a list not so big, not so small. I would write down lists of ideas every day. Bad ideas. My idea muscle had atrophied. But still a list. For instance, I would write down ideas for books I could write. Then I would write down the lists of table of contents for each book. For instance, one book I wanted to write (please steal it) was: “How To Beat Your Friends at Every Game in the Universe”. The idea was to have 4 or 5 trick techniques that if you knew them, you could always beat your friends. For instance: Scrabble. If you simply know all 2 letter words you’re going to win (especially if you know: “XI”, “QI” and “ZA” – very helpful). Also good to know the “Q” without “U”words (“QAT” and “QOPF”) being examples. Nobody will beat you except tournament Scrabble players.

Other games I had ready for the book ranged from chess to Monopoly to Hearts. I felt like I could make a series out of it. It would be fun also.

So that was one idea. Then I would write down ideas for businesses, ideas for hedge funds I could start. Ideas for potential investors. Ideas for articles I could write (and I did eventually write all of them. Even the “games” idea came back in the form of a Financial Times article in 2006.)

That’s how ideas work, they mate, they multiply, they flirt, they dance, they have one night stands, they grow in population and eventually create a child that grows on it’s own, a completely mixed-breed version of ten ideas you might’ve had over the years, as long as you treated them kindly, wrote them down, respected them.

- To-Do lists. Different from idea lists. Sometimes you want to feel good in the morning. A sense of accomplishment, knowing that you can change things in the world, knowing that the world wants to be changed by you. I would write  8 things I had to accomplish by 10am. I was a little boy again with gold stars! Not a grown man with a gun in my mouth!

(In Monopoly, the most valuable properties are the Oranges)

- I Did lists: You did a lot today. More than you think. No matter how bad you feel you did more than you could’ve imagined. At the end of the day I would write down my “I Did” lists and they were always double or triple what I thought I had done during the day. That would make me feel good. And often it would lead to ideas for the next morning.

- Gratitude lists:  I would keep track of what I was most grateful for. When you are grateful for someone, then all of the good things in their life become yours as well. If you do this every day, your abundance in the world goes up exponentially. This is what happened to me. All because of a waiter’s pad.

- Business cards. If someone needed my number, no problem. I’d rip out a page of the waiter’s pad (if you buy one of those expensive journal/notepads its harder to rip out a page) and I’d write down my contact info. And usually get a laugh out of it as well. Someone would always say, “and I’ll take a coke and fries with that”. haha. Which leads me to…

- Conversation starters. Let’s say I arrive at a meeting, everyone’s gathering themselves, pulling out their pens, their pads, etc and small talk hasn’t started yet. I am bad at chit chat. I don’t know what to chit about. I feel awkward. Now I can pull out my waiter’s pad. Everyone laughs and it’s a good conversation starter. “I’ll order a pie with that steak”. I get that a lot. I’m not good at small talk so a waiter’s pad is a convenient crutch for me.

- It’s Cheap. At 10 cents a pad nobody can accuse me of being lavish. Shows people I’m willing to be frugal. Very handy when meeting with investors. 10 cents a pad is hard to beat. Small note bads at the local art supplies shop might cost you $30.

- Its fits in my shirt pocket. Or my pants. So always very handy to pull out and write ideas down no matter where I am.

- It allows me to steal from bookstores. I hate to admit this. Please don’t judge me. But I caused Borders to go out of business. I’d go through the store, spend hours even looking at books, find the 10 I liked the best, write them down, and then sit in the cafe and order them on my kindle. Easy to do with a waiter’s pad in my shirt pocket. Who would suspect?

- Remembers names: At the top of a waiter’s pad is the shapes of different types of tables with numbers for each position. So now in every meeting I can write down who is sitting in each position and match it to the right table. Perfect for remembering names. My memory is not so good ever since I permanently attached my brain to Google.

All of these things helped me to feel better. I started building my idea muscle which made me turn into an idea MACHINE within months. I started to feel better about what I was accomplishing. I got better at small talk. I gave off the appearance of frugality despite my former drunken rock star lifestyle. It was unique so stayed in people’s minds the way tipping with 2 dollar bills stays in the memory of a waitress so she recognizes me the next time she sees me. All of these things put together brought me from idea, to execution, to meeting, to deal, to selling companies. Even the sight of a waiter’s pad now is enough to turn negative feelings into positive ones, that’s how much luck and success I’ve had with them.

But it’s the waitress comment above that brings me to the “real” reason.

A waitress reminds me of everything I love. Being served. Being a child with mom or grandma cooking. Being comforted. Being saved. Later, as a teenager or in my 20s, being served by beautiful waitresses. How the uniforms would fit them. Often a beautiful light blue with that white collar.

How they would lean to pour the water and show just enough cleavage to let loose the shadows inside. How they would always be asking me, “are you okay?” Sometimes they would add, “hon” to the end of that sentence. They would pull out the pad and ask me what I wanted. A waitress is the womb. A waitress is sex. A waitress is comfort and pleasure and for the moment, takes away the pain.

(with a waiter's pad I feel like Ben Stiller in "Mystery Men")

15 years ago I had a habit of asking out every waitress. I was obsessed. Maybe once in awhile I would date one. And now even when Claudia cooks me dinner it brings back memories of being taken care of in ways that bring me back to every decade of my life. I’m so grateful for the moments when I’m served. When I can relax. When I don’t have to think and it’s all because of a woman. And the waiter’s pad brings that all back.

I know this sounds pathetic. People aren’t supposed to admit to pathetic things. We have keep up the veneer of success, of perfection, even of dignity. But there you go. And that’s why the “real” reason is often hidden and the disguises we wear work overtime to come up with the “good” reasons.

But both the real reasons and the good reasons have made me feel better over the past decade since I started using waiter’s pads (to the day, to every day, to this morning, to ten minutes ago). They have brought me success and abundance. They have made me feel good. Today  I’m going to go into the city for a meeting that could make me money. I hope it goes well. But I know I will pull out my waiter’s pad to start things off, and no matter what happens in the meeting,  I will be surrounded in my head by sweetness, kindness, gratitude, ideas, and abundance. And life will bend over to serve me and show me it’s beautiful cleavage.

God bless you, my ten cent, light blue, red-lined waiter’s pad.

The guy dressed as a construction worker was begging me for money. It was 5am and I was on the corner of Wall Street and Broad. To my left was the New York Stock Exchange and in front of me were the steps where George Washington took his oath of office. Policemen with dogs were patrolling.

The guy had a hard hat on, looked dirty as if he had been working day and night in the holes and underground ecosystem that powers NYC with its wires, its sewage, its steam, its electricity.  “C’mon guy,” he said, “my buddies left and now I just need $10 to get back to Staten Island because my wife is sick and I have to skip my shift this morning.”

Not only did he have his hard hat on he had that orange vest with the yellow stripe so that people could see him in the dark. He had every appearance of a construction worker. I reached into my pocket. “Thanks a lot, dude,” he said. But then I saw one of the cops with the dogs shake his head “no”. I said, “I don’t have anything, sorry.” And the construction worker said, “C’mon man, my wife is sick, I just need $10 to get the ferry.”

But I walked on. I went up to the cop he shook his head no. “That guy is here every day,” he said. “He’s not a construction worker.”

The sun started to come up. This was in March, 2009. The stock market was still crashing. The unemployment rate was skyrocketing. I was about to get fired from something. From many things. I was making money from about four different sources, some of them competing. All of them would fire me within a month. I was scared.

(the New York Stock Exchange)

I looked back behind me, the construction worker was talking to someone else. An older guy, in a suit, and a hat. I didn’t want to be an older guy in a suit and a hat. The guy was reaching into his pocket for money. The cop was nowhere to be seen. The sun was up.

Everybody is in disguise. Who will you be in disguise as today? A good father? A good husband? A maniac? A good neighbor? A bored friend? An ambitious partner? An up-and-coming employee? What suit will you put on? How will you beg the world for your piece of it? What cops will circle around and try to prevent you from getting what you want?

If only I could want nothing, beg for nothing – then nobody would stop me.

A year later I moved away from Wall Street. Recently TEDxWallStreet asked me to speak. I looked down the list of speakers. Do I really want to be around these people? Do I really want to go back to that exact spot (the New York Stock Exchange). “We’re trying to give a good impression of Wall Street,” the sponsor said to me, “so think of something to say along those lines.” Did I really want to do that?

I said “yes”.

Then a week before the event I said, “no”. I said I honestly had nothing to say.

That same day TEDxHuntsville in Huntsville, Alabama asked me to speak on September 9. I’ve never been to Alabama but I’m an Honorary Lieutenant Colonel in Alabama the way Colonel Sanders is just an Honorary Colonel in Kentucky. How did I get to be an Honorary Lieutenant Colonel in Alabama even though I have never set foot in that state? When I was 12 I wrote to the governor and lied and said I was about to move there (I lived in suburban NJ and both my parents commuted to NYC),  and that I loved the state of Alabama and nothing would make me happier than being an Honorary Lieutenant Colonel there (I had done my research on every honorarium every state offered: I’m an Honorary Colonel in Mississippi, an Honorary Citizen of Texas, an Honorary whatever in many states).

(never an actual Colonel. Interesting trivia: he started KFC at age 65)

So I went into disguise and I begged and got what I wanted. The construction guy didn’t. TEDxWallStreet didn’t get what they wanted. But I said, “yes” to TEDxHuntstillve even though its 1000 miles away.

I don’t want to wear disguises anymore. If I don’t have anything to say, I won’t say it. I’m not going to sell anything any more but the truth. I’m not going to spend money on things that were disguised as things they aren’t (is coke “the real thing” for instance?) I’m not going to be friends with people wearing disguises. I’m not going to live in a place that’s just a disguise to hide some insecurity. I’m not going to be angry at people struggling with their own disguises.

And what are my disguises today?

Angry thoughts from events that took place years ago? Thoughts of “I could’ve done X, Y, or Z ?” in the distant past. Worries of the future? Reactions to what people say about me? Feelings like “I have to respond to just this one comment!” I think back to all the disguises I’ve worn. I’ve been a master of disguise. Hiding big lies, small lies, white lies, black lies.

All of our misery comes from wanting at all costs to remain Tom, Dick, and Jane. Normal. Our molecules, our atoms, want to burst out but we squeeze them tight inside with our mental constipation. The real ME must never be seen or I will be laughed at, sneered at, abandoned, and Poverty will wipe itself  with the last microbes that are left of me. I get scared.

Most of Peter Parker’s stress was that he had to hide his Spiderman identity. This body of ours, this disguise, is in constant revolt against the abominable scam of having to endure.We don’t need to do that anymore. When you take the disguises off, the superficial feelings of failure, of anger, of sadness that society has programmed into us- when you just peel the past off and refuse to worry about the future, you become the superhero you were meant to be. The first person you then save is yourself. Then the world down below will see you swinging free, from rooftop to rooftop.

TEDxHuntsville told me I could speak about whatever I wanted.  I’m  going to go to a place I’ve never gone before and speak about something I’ve never  spoken about before. And if every day I keep shedding my disguises, a practice my mind will try and refuse to give me the courage to do, maybe I can say something I’ll be proud of.

–

[What disguises do you think you wear?]

It’s raining outside. I’m 44 years old so sometimes I get the feeling there are things I will never do with my body. But it’s a pleasure to watch. When I was a kid I was really into breakdancing. More recently, the past 2 years, I’ve been into yoga.

So it’s a beautiful break from a rainy day when I can watch an amazing artist do both at the same time.

[if you don't see above embedded video, click here]

[This is part of the expanded answers to my Twitter Q&A I do every Thursday from 330-430. I will have other answers in smaller blog posts. If you like these Twitter Q&A posts, please Facebook Like so I get a sense of how useful (or fun) they are. Thanks. And please provide additional answers for people in the comments. I am sure that will be appreciated.]

HOW TO GET BETTER AT SMALL TALK?

John D. Lloyd ‏@johndlloyd: socializing/networking: i don’t follow pro sports and don’t always want to talk about work. suggestions?

ANSWER:

Small talk is the worst horror created by dinner parties, dates, the stupidly filled silences that have to be broken before meetings. Think of just the mechanical bodily functions, the saliva, the teeth moving, the bacteria, involved in defecating a conversation. We want nothing more than to be normal. To be Dick and Jane. Forming a corolla of bloated mouth to begin the word, so we can whistle out sound through constantly decaying teeth just to give off the appearance of being “one of the guys”.

Someone who is normal. Not only normal but one who can do “small talk.” So now we are normal and small like the rest. We belong, we endure in the disguise of our body so maybe we can live one more day.  Maybe the “small talk” can get bigger. The date can turn into bodies clenching, meetings turning into millions, parties turning into love. But usually it’s nothing. Words spew out, they spin into space. They die. It’s small talk.

Never forget that “words” are a market, like any market. Like an ancient souk from the middle east, where silks are bartered for slaves. Like the stock market, where digital cash is bartered for digital pieces of corporate America. In other words, like in any market: WORDS are valued by supply versus demand.

To increase the value of your words, make them as few as possible. Reduce the supply. Then when you say words, make sure the value is high, so demand will increase. Lower supply, higher demand. Then everyone will want your words.

But when your words are just shat out like excrement and flushed away, nothing happens. Nothing grows. All the passion went for nothing. Enjoy the silence. Learn from the silence, live in the silence and, in the end, out of nowhere, the silence will kiss you back, and reward you for your patience.

—

Now, the next question. How do we make sure our words have more value? Here’s how.

HOW TO INCREASE INTELLIGENCE

Samuel Gearhart ‏@samuelgearhart: Do you think there’s a way to increase intelligence/cognition?

ANSWER:

I had lost not only my job but all prospects for getting a job. I had a new kid and I’ll be honest: my monthly burn was about $40,000. I had been like a drunken rock star and then I went broke. I had to learn daytrading with a gun to my head in 2002 or I was going to go broke. I once wanted to borrow $1000 just to make sure I could feed my kids in an emergency (this was shortly after 9/11 so every day felt like it could be an emergency). This was just two years after I had $15 million cash in the bank.

The family member I wanted to borrow from said, “no”, after I had given her over $300,000 the year before. So I was angry. I hung up. I was in couples counseling, personal therapy, reading self-help books, whatever. None of that worked. I needed to develop my own method.

I needed to get my life together. I needed to get smarter.

Every morning I started waking up around 4:30. I stopped drinking all alcohol. I would take a big walk around all of southern Manhattan. I would sit on the empty deck at South Street Seaport overlooking Brooklyn. Then I would go to a cafe when they started to open around 6 or 630. I’d bring 3 books with me. One fiction, one book about games (scrabble, chess, Go, or backgammon), and one non-fiction book to learn more about some area. I’d read for awhile while I drank coffee.

Then I’d pull out  my waiter’s pad and start writing. I had no ideas at first. Or just bad ideas. I remember some of my initial ideas. They were so bad. I can’t believe now I was in my 30s and coming up with such bad ideas. 34 years old.

My idea muscle had atrophied. It had been in an accident and had been laid up in bed for years. Maybe decades. Who knows? So I needed to build up and it hurt. I would write down “10 ideas for books I could write”. or “10 ideas for trading systems” or “10 ideas for businesses I could start.” The ideas were horrible. And it would hurt my head to come up with 10. Sometimes 3 was hard. Because an idea is not just the “idea”. An idea is not real unless it has a next step, a timeline, a specification.

After a year I started coming up with decent ideas. Maybe it was six months. And after 2-3 years I started coming up with ideas that were good enough to start businesses around. And I did. And I got smarter. And it  saved my life.

But now, after 10 more years of writing down ideas every day I look back on those ideas and see how I could’ve trivially made them better, made more money out of them, had less stress from them, been happier from them. I see how I could’ve made my life better if I had just tweaked the ideas a little more. I see what happiness I gave up back then that I desperately regret and I’ll never get back.

Would I wish to be anywhere else than where I am right now? Do I have regrets? Of course not.

Because now I’m more intelligent.

BELIEVING IN GOD:

Sir Bezaleel Ashefor ‏@knightbenax: whats ur take on God? Who do you believe he is?

ANSWER:

God is the building across the street from where my grandpa lived on 28th Street and 8th Avenue when I was a kid. I know this because I was about six years old and I asked him and he pointed at that building and said, “God is out there”. I walked by there the other day. The same McDonalds is at the bottom of that building. Almost 40 years later. I loved that McDonalds. I would beg my sister to take me there but she’d say, “ugh, that’s junk” but sometimes we’d sneak out anyway and then go to the comic book store next door to it until my grandpa tracked us down. The comic book store was God for me.

Someone asked me last week about God. I said, “God is you. But who are you?”

The same answer still applies. But who am I to answer?

We have very small brains. Our brains crawled out of the ocean. Evolved from the single-cell amoeba that was desperate to find food anywhere it could. We are defenseless against our bigger competitors for food. A bear could kill us in a second. A shark could skin us alive with its sharp teeth and we’d still be conscious in its stomach as its digestive acids burned us alive.

So we built this brain to compete. Our brain is good for two things: getting food and procreating. That’s it.

Meanwhile, the universe is filled with mysteries. Mysteries a quadrillion times too complex for our brains to understand. And perhaps God is the accumulation of everything we don’t understand.

But also, what if we got the brain out of the way. What if the next time you are angry you say, “that anger is not me”. What if the next time you want a bigger house you say, “It would be nice but that bigger house is not me, I’m going to release that hope”. What if the next time you are worried about losing your job in the distant future you say, “that worry is just my brain trying to create drama for me.” What if the next time someone says something behind your back and you hear about it you say, “I feel sorry for that person. But what I feel now is not the real me. It’s just a fleeting feeling which will disappear.”

So now we know what you aren’t. You aren’t a collection of facts learned from decades of BS schooling. You aren’t your angers or your envies or your lusts or your drama. You aren’t a big to-do list. You aren’t a collection of pains on your body. You are none of these things.

So really, who are you?

And then, one more step, who is asking that question? It’s not your thoughts. It’snot your feelings. it’s not yoru mind. it’s not your sense of “me” or “I”. What is it? Who is observing all of these thought as they flicker by?

For me, personally, the answer to that question is “God”. That’s who you are.

IS FACEBOOK A BUY?

Greg R ‏@TheRakker: FB IPO, should I buy?

ANSWER:

We have these visceral memories of the MSFT in the 80s, YHOO in the late 90s, where simply looking at stock cold make you rich. So the natural question, is Facebook filled with the magic. Will it turn janitors into millionaires, secretaries into island-owners. We’ll see.

Let’s hold off on the answer. I’m a long-term bull on Facebook. It’s got a billion users, etc etc. We can argue all day about it. That’s what creates a market. Do I own the stock? No. Whatever

But let’s look at what the mainstream media had to say about Facebook after the IPO was over Friday evening. It’s a funny and important lesson. Here were some of the headlines:

Facebook: The new Mount St. Helens?at MarketWatch

What the hell happened? You would think Facebook was going bankrupt, that they made every mistake in the book, that the IPO was a total failure and that everyone lost money. There was not a single positive headline. And that much mainstream media must be correct, right?

(Congratulations in every way to Mark Zuckerberg. Just in the begnning of an amazing life)

But guess what. Let’s look at the actual FACTS.

-Facebook closed positive on the day. So anyone who bought the IPO was up.

- Facebook closed at higher than $100 billion market value. That’s incredible. Particularly since I was trying to negotiate Facebook share transactions 20% lower just a month or so earlier.

- Facebook managed to pay their bankers only a 1% fee instead of the traditional 6% fee. So that’s a stab against Wall Street. Go Facebook!

- Facebook raised the amount of money they were going to raise to $12 billion at less dilution to their shareholders (they raised their selling price from $35 to $38.

So it looks like this was a home run to Facebook. Why didn’t a single media outlet report it that way. I’m not biased. I could care less if the IPO had “failed”. But it didn’t. It was probably the most successful IPO in history in that Wall Street didn’t rape the company dry at the expense of all shareholders.

But haters gonna hate.

ALWAYS check agendas always check the facts, never listen to the media. Try this instead of reading the BS media. I love doing this trick. Put two fingers on your closed eyes, put your thunbs on your ears, put your remaining fingers on your mouth. Now nothing from the outside can get in.

Listen.

You’re listening to the smartest, most unbiased thing you will hear all day.

FRIENDSHIPS

Piotr ‏@zuralski: you mention your wife, kids and people you know in your writing…but rarely your ‘true’ friends. How important are friendships?

ANSWER

Friendships are incredibly important. My wife, my kids, and people I know that I write about are all people who I love, who love me, who inspire me every day. These are my best friends. Some of these people I’ve just met. Some I’ve known forever.

Beauty can’t be seen without light shining on it. Your job is to light the inner fire so it shines bright. Anyone your light shines on is your family, your friends. If they try to shut off the light, then they are not your friends.

I’m Jewish but I’ll give a quote from Jesus, who I think was a great teacher of all things spiritual. It’s the last instance of Jesus’s mother appearing in the New Testament while he is still alive. From Mark 3:32

“And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, your mother and brother want to see you. And Jesus asked, Who is my mother, or my brothers? And he looked at those sitting around him and said, You are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, sister, and mother. “

Jesus wanted to be around positive people, people who felt about matters the way he did. People who inspired him and people who he inspired. These were his friends and family. There is no need to distinguish them. “Who is your family today?” is a good question to ask every day. Not that you abandon people but you make sure you don’t spend time with anyone who is going to try and snuff out your inner fire. It’s an important fire to watch over, to make it grow stronger and stronger.

This is the most important thing. I’ll switch from Jesus to Buddha. Buddha said, “A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another. If these minds love one another the home will be as beautiful as a flower garden. But if these minds get out of harmony with one another it is like a storm that plays havoc with the garden.”

Always make sure your garden is tended with the most love and care so it can grow, be fruitful and beautiful. That garden is your family, your friends, the people who need you, the people you need to bring you higher and higher.

(there's something to be learned from every religion)

INSPIRATION TO WRITE

Jake Larsen ‏@JakeLarsen7: You helped inspire me to write this book –> http://inspirationfromtribulation.com What should I do now so people can find it & read?

ANSWER:

First of all, congratulations. It’s really hard to write a book. I’ll tell you why: it’s boring to write a book. Imagine sitting in a room all day and night for six months and doing nothing but moving your fingers on a fairly flat board while meaningless images pop across the screen. That’s writing a book. So anyone who does one is a hero. You can only do a book if your mind is tinged with obsession and addiction. If, to some extent, you are mentally ill.

Also, congratulations on getting it out there. This is the “choose yourself” era. You don’t need a 23 year old, fresh out of college assistant editor to send you a snotty rejection letter from some elite publishing house. You can choose yourself now. You can publish yourself. You can market yourself. You can create businesses. You can climb your own mountains. I’m really glad you went that route.

Now, what to do?

Set up a facebook page for your book. I’m writing a post soon on how to build fans for your book page and how to use it to drive book sales. Also, start blogging. And start syndicating your blog posts. Send your book to bloggers for free and get the initial reviews to be favorable even if it’s friends and family. Also, try to speak at conferences about the topic of your book.

But REMEMBER, if you’re just doing this one book, it’s not about the book. You’re not going to be on Ellen touting your book. Or Jay Leno.

A book is the new business card. It’s what shows the rest of the world that you are the real deal. That you’ve lived through something worth talking about. That you’ve experienced something precisely so that they don’t have to experience it. Now you can show the way, blaze the path, make someone smarter. Your book shows that you can. Now people will pay you for your knowledge. That”s how you make money with a book.

HOW TO BE MORE PRODUCTIVE

aztimesaver ‏@aztimesaver: what are some ways you have learned to become more productive in your personal and professional life?

ANSWER:

Do you want to be a magician. Someone who makes the world bend around you. Someone who can create storms or heal people or even kill people with just a look. There’s only one magic incantation you need to know:

The Power of the No.

A girl read my book, “The Forever Portfolio” and saw that I had never gone to my prom. She said, “lets have a prom date for you”. So we got dressed up in fancy clothes. Went to a fancy place. Then went to shoot pool and play ping pong. It was fun. Then I went home. I said “no”. And within a few days I met Claudia. Saying “No” when you have doubts, when you have something in your gut that says this isn’t the best for you, even if means turning down sex, money, luxuries.

(Dr. Strange knew the magic of "No")

Life is simple. Saying “Yes” adds complexities to that: yes I will buy X, yes I will have sex, yes I will have that meeting and this meeting and that meeting, yes I will do that deal, yes I will buy that stock, yes I will that house. Yes, I will meet for just a drink.

Don’t ever do anything you don’t want to do.

The other day I was angry at someone. Someone doesn’t like me and was doing something to make my life annoying. So I was angry about it.

No. Stop.

Do I want to go visit some relatives five hours away. No. Do I want to go make a speech about something boring. No.

Everytime you say “No” you add to the value of your time. You add to the value of your body. Your mind. Your emotions. Your time, each second.  You add to the value of right NOW. You respected yourself.Everytime you say “NO” you put money in the bank.

When thoughts are angry and you say “no” to them, your brain gets stronger, more flexible. When you say “no” to the worries of your future, your future leaves open the possibility and probability of more abundance, since most worries are just fictions.

So when should you ever say “yes”? When you love something. Then say “yes” to it. That’s it.

FOREX VS EQUITIES

Jason M ‏@NereusProject: FOREX vs Equities. which would you rather trade. why?

ANSWER:

In poker there’s a saying, “if you can’t spot the fish at the table, then the fish is you”. And there’s always a fish.

So let’s see who you is at the table when you are trying to buy currencies (forex trading). There’s you. There’s Barack Obama and the Federal Reserve. There’s Saudia Arabia trying to figure out how to hedge their dollar risk when they say their next ten billion dollar worth of oil. There’s Vladmir Putin playing the foreign exchanges like they are a video game.

Just as an aside, guess what Vladmir Putin is worth? Imagine Russia is one big hedge fund, and Putin gets 20% of the profits on all money that goes in and out of there. I’d say he’s worth about about a trillion dollars personally. He’s got a team of people manipulating currencies with his trillion dollars so he can squeeze out profits every day.

And he will cut your throat ear-to-ear in a dark alley.

Then there’s you. I don’t want to call you a fish. But I hope you can swim far, far away from the sharks who will hunt you down and skin you alive.

As for stocks, “10 Reasons to Never Trade Stocks Again“.

The moral of the story: there’s no free money on Wall Street. There’s only vagabond killers and mass murderers. Be careful.

WHO TO HIRE FIRST

Cafe AJM Open 24/7 ‏@ajmcafe: For #startup, accountant or attorney? Who do I hire first & why?

ANSWER:

Oh my gosh. I almost don’t like any word in that question. I understand the concern, though. We’re all trained to think that if we start a business we need all the pros: lawyers for all of our “documents”, accountants for audits and taxes and salaries. Maybe even doctors to keep track of our blood pressure.

In my last company I hired a lawyer the day before I sold the company just to make sure all the i’s were dotted and t’s crossed. I don’t think I ever even spoke to an accountant for that company. Maybe once.

For my first company, I used a lawyer but I wish in retrospect I had written the deal selling the company myself.

Very important, though. I can’t stress this enough. The one professional you should get for your company is a masseuse once a week.

But that’s assuming you hire people. Which brings me to the word “hire”. Oh wait, I haven’t even dealt with the word “startup” yet. But hold on. “Hire”. Why hire people? Only hire people if you and your cofounder(s) are working 120 hours a week. People cost money. People gossip. People are incompetent. People have sex with each other and then GOSSIP IN BED ABOUT YOU right after, before, or during sex. Hiring is like swimming in a pool sprayed down with sexually transmitted diseases.

Only hire people if you are absolutely going to lose revenues and profits if you don’t hire people.

Now, onto “startup”. What’s a startup? I’ve  written about this before but is a deli a startup? A pizza place? Does writing a line of “HTML” make you a startup? If you go to a tech meetup/party are you now a startup?

I sort of feel like people use the word “startup” as a euphemism for, “I’m going to write some code, do something nifty, and then sell to Google” instead of the traditional word: “business” which means “i’m going to provide more value to someone than the cash they pay me.

So: Build a business, don’t hire people, ignore lawyers and accountants (or do it yourself) and hire a masseuse to relax. You deserve it.

FB AND INFLATION

len ‏@leonidkozhukh: do you think the fb ipo will trigger inflation?

ANSWER:

If you are in San Francisco then the Facebook IPO will trigger inflation of houses and furniture stores. $100 billion has just been added to the economy there. But, of course, that’s not a bad thing. Money has a multiplier effect. So suddenly the people who work for the furniture stores will have more money. And they will spend it , maybe, on new cars. Now the people who have cars will have more money. And so on.

But in the rest of the world, Facebook has a deflationary effect. For instance, where else can I potentially advertise to a billion people for a penny. If I want to advertise to 40mm people (the Superbowl) for 30 seconds I’d have to spend $4-5 million after production costs. But on Facebook:  I might pay 1/1000 of that to reach the same number of people.

And when my marketing costs are lower, my product costs can be lower. The Internet in general has a powerful deflationary effect.

For instance, I will take a completely different examples. The value of your neighbors has just deflated considerably. It used to be if someone wanted to be your friend they simply had to live near you. Now they were your friend. They didn’t really have to do much else.

But Facebook connects me to people all over the world. I CHOOSE to only be around people who really like me and who I really like. So now my neighbors have to step it up a bit. The value of their actions has deflated so their actions have to be better, nicer, kinder, more inspiring.

There’s going to be deflation in rudeness, in the lack of caring that pervades our different societies for the weak and helpless and for the countries that are not as well off. Why? Because now we are connected to them. Now we are friends with them.

And friends don’t overcharge each other.

CAN’T STAND FACEBOOK

Ray Fitzgerald ‏@rayfitzgerald1: I can’t stand Facebook, what is wrong with me

ANSWER:

Haha. Nothing is wrong with you. Here’s what it means for you (and this is not true for me or most people I know but it might be true for you).

You are happy knowing the people you know. You are happy with the memories of your past or don’t really think of them so much.

You are not so curious (and why should you be) about the people you run into today or the people you haven’t seen in 30 years. You have no need to feel updated.

You have no need to be “Liked” by people you barely know. You have no need to “Share” a beautiful sunset. It’s enough for you to just experience it today and move on.

There’s nothing wrong with you. I’m jealous. I need all of the above. And more.

PROUD CAREER MOMENT

karen parmelee ‏@parmcharm: In all of your career, thus far, for what do you feel most proud?

ANSWER:

I feel most proud you get to me a question and I get to answer. How lucky am I. Through time and space we met. And somewhere you have a question, you reach out to me through this social media metaspace, and I get to answer.

What got me to be able to do this. By being rejected everywhere. By losing everything. By being so lost in myself I thought I would never find my way back.

And it’s not just me. We’ve all had hard years. But we all fought back. And now we’re here. I’m proud of you. I’m proud of me. Thank you so much for asking me. This is my proudest moment. I fought back and I won.

SUSTAINABILITY

karen parmelee ‏@parmcharm: You help and inspire and offer reasonable thinking strategies to those of us who follow/read you. Are *you* sustainable?

ANSWER:

I know that when I focus on accepting this present moment. To doing whatever I can do to make my life better and the lives around me. I focus on staying healthy so my mind remains sharp. I focus on keeping emotional distractions away and by watering the emotional goodness that keeps growing around me. I focus on keeping out distracting thoughts and practice paying more and more attention to the RIGHT NOW without anything getting in the way.

And, in doing so, everything magical happens. The abundance gets delivered when I most need it. Even if I go down to zero, the magic shows up. I eat what I kill but always when I need it the meatiest animal gets into my sights. And I shoot to kill.

PARENTING

Alex Eddy ‏@eddya27: What’s your favorite part about being a parent? Least favorite?

ANSWER:

I had an answer but I threw it out and decided to ask my kids. It turns out that in a sly way their answer was the same as my original one.

First they said: “Your favorite part of being a parent is taking us to events and playdates.”

Which, in fact, was my least favorite part of being a parent. I also don’t like how they try to push boundaries EVERY SINGLE DAY. They sniff out a boundary like little animals and push push PUSH until I finally figure it out and push back.

Then they realize I was typing their crap down and they got nervous so they came up with a “good” answer: “Your favorite part of being a parent is spending quality time with us.” I have to say this is true, but  mostly when they make me laugh.

By the way, during this high praise of “quality time” did they not lift their heads off of their computers. And I guess I didn’t either. So I guess I’m a believer in quantity time more than quality time.

But note: everyone is a kid. And with everyone, with every reason they ever give you: there’s always a “good” reasons and then there’s always the “real” reason. Always search past the good to find the real.

ONLINE DATABASE

J Allen ‏@JTio: what kind of database would like to see online? (think crunchbase)

ANSWER

I’d like to see a database of everyone in the world and on a scale, cross referenced with everything they ever said about me. Because at my worst I’m a vicious combination of insecure, voyeuristic, and paranoid.

That’s horrible. Why should I care so much. I shouldn’t. But that would be a fun database. When I was a kid I used to look at my bulky black and white TV and say, “Which girls in school like me.” There must be one.

Please, god, there must’ve been one. Not the girl who whispered to her friends “you don’t have to tough him” when we were learning square dancing in gym class. Not the many I had crushes on. But maybe there was one and I never knew and still don’t.

But it never answered.

(a 1970s TV / super database)

DEBT

Efrain Martinez ‏@martefrain: alot of people are in debt. where you ever in so much debt? how did you get out of it?

ANSWER:

I’ve been in debt quite a bit. I paid for every semester of my college  education with debt. It took ten years after I graduated before I paid back my student loan debt.

I’ve been in debt to the IRS, which was so painful and scary I felt like killing myself.

When I was dead broke and zero I had a $1.8mm mortgage I had to pay back and I couldn’t sell my house. It was 2001 and I lived four blocks from the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center.

Debt takes the music out of us. It slows down the dance we started life with. Our youth is slowly squeezed out of pores by the pressure and stress of the debt pressing down on us, squeezing each pimple until we bleed cash, life, love, music – all gone in time for this body to shed itself in disgrace.

I don’t have credit cards. And I don’t like people to do me favors because its hard for me to be in mental debt. I like to immediately know what I’m going to do for someone in return. Always ask the price of things. And the only thing you have, ultimately, to pay with is your freedom. How much freedom, how much of your 80 years on this planet, will be taken from you not only by demands on your cash but demands on your time, demands on returned favors, demands on your creativity.

My rules are: I always pay back personal debts.

And I’ve never not paid back a debt to a bank. But never is a long time and ultimately I pride my freedom over bureaucratic institutions that still continually rape the people of this country dry and leave them tied up and blindfolded in the back shed while they lustfully move onto the next victim.

The tide has come in and mortgage debt has been revealed to largely be a scam designed to enslave us. And student loan debt, backed by a very grateful government, has been specifically invented to turn our children into either soldiers or indentured servants. Either way they die. In one case in an explosion. In the other case a slow death that burns through their insides at three in the morning. I hope that doesn’t happen to my children.

The safest way to get out of debt, honestly, is to start a company.

Why start a company and not pay off little by little? Because little by little will never pay it back. And no matter how high your salary is it never seems like enough for basic needs. The only way is to get a CHUNK of money. You get a chunk of money by selling a company. Then you close your eyes and pay your debts first.

It’s painful but then you get what money delivers: financial freedom.

DO YOU BEAT YOURSELF UP?

David Catanho ‏@perrocontodo: I just had a job interview that went south. How do you avoid beating yourself after the lost opportunity?

ANSWER:

There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically. “May be,” the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed. “May be,” replied the old man. The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. “May be,” answered the farmer. The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. “Maybe”, said the farmer.

In other words, don’t beat yourself up. There’s many opportunities for success.

Let me give you a more real-world example. There was a stupid business in 2008, the worst economic year since 1932. The business was to build up big email lists of people and use it to raise money for local charities. What a horrible idea. So they switched business models. The business became Groupon. Heck, who knows where it ends up. But the founders became billionaires. So it was a bad economy. “We’ll see”. It was a bad business idea. “We’ll see”. Who who would’ve predicted that outcome.

Again, the interview was bad. That was one arrow that hit you but you’re still breathing.

Beating yourself up over the interview is the second arrow. Don’t let it kill you.

Accept that RIGHT NOW you have bad feelings about that interview. And then accept it and move on. You have no idea about the  final outcomes but I can guarantee you if you follow the other guidelines in this post about overall health then you will do well.

IS ASS KISSING EVER NECESSARY?

Efrain Martinez ‏@martefrain: People say kissing ass is the only way to get up in life. Is this true?

ANSWER:

Ass kissing is the worst way to get ahead. You will be hated by your peers. Your boss will lose respect for you. And your underlings will lose faith that you know how to manage upwards.

• The only way to succeed in a business environment:
• learn everything about your industry
• learn everything about your company
• learn everything about the background of your superiors
• treat your colleagues with respect and kindess and honestlhy
• give credit everywhere you can. The more credit you give, you will eventually get three times the credit back.
• Be silent at all times except when you are absolutely convinced (and use the above to convince you) that your words have value.

Then you are delivering value and you will rise to the top.

Otherwise all ass-kissing does is it makes your lips brown and your breath bad.

(maybe an exception for men)

WHAT DO YOU VALUE

Avinash Suresh ‏@thesocialreaper: What is the one thing in this world you value the most???

ANSWER:

I’m ashamed to say there are some things in life I value, including my life.Including money so I can take care of my family. Including my children and friends.

But my goal is to value things less and less. I that anything I think I possess is just fleeting. Eventually my body decays. Eventually my kids grow up and start their own lives. Eventually the pleasure I get from this blog will disappear. All happiness I think I have now is only temporary and willbe replaced by sadness. I’m scared of that and yet I still value these things.

I value the ability to value nothing. I hope one day I get what I want.

[This question came from my Twitter Q&A last Thursday. These Q&A posts are getting so big I'm going to start rolling them out in smaller pieces. If you like them, please Facebook Like above, or Follow me on Twitter and join me for the next Q&A, every Thursday from 330-430 EST. ALSO, if you have more answers for the question below, please put them in the comments. For instance, how have you changed your life for the better?]

CAN WE CHANGE OUR LIFE

Emeric Caron ‏@CaEmeric: hey James, a little question. I work in a bank that I hate, do you think we can change our lives for the better?

ANSWER:

The worst is wondering how you’ll find the strength tomorrow to do the exact same horrible things you did today and have been doing for maybe years.

Where will you find the strength for these incompetent people around you, for the running runing RUNNING, all over the place and getting nowhere, despite attempts to escape the crushing necessity, the sickening feeling that destiny won’t change, that every night you will be down and out, crushed by the dread of even more sordid and more insecure tomorrows?

(sometimes it feels hopeless)

But right now it’s over. Starting this second. You might have feelings about the past (“I did nothing with my life”, “I hate that I took a job at the bank”, etc) but those are just feelings. The past is gone. Yes, you have feelings about it. Say hi to them. That’s it.

The future is wide open. The music in you hasn’t died just yet. We’re always afraid that the ever-closer old age will threaten the worst, ending with cruelty and malice, ending with NOTHING, but it never has to threaten the music. Instead we’re going to finetune the instrument. Make it more melodic, make it more symphonic, make it sing with beauty.

How can you bring about a better future?  I’ve been in unhappy jobs. I’ve been broke. I’ve been in an unhappy marriage. I’ve been depressed, medicated, lying  on hotel hallways passed out with people walking over me. Lying on the corner of 52nd and Lexington at 2 in the morning passed out drunk while cars that could barely see me swerved around me. Making it home just in time to vomit, just in time to wake up to meet with investors the next day. Could I change?

It’s not fun to be unhappy.

But that changes today. Right this second. Are you breathing? Take a second and check. Take two deep breaths. Are you breathing? Ok, now you can change completely.

You need to get your body back in shape. Not just your body but everything inside of you. Your brain. Your soul. Your emotions. Your angers. Your worries.

Make four goals for today. Just four.

One goal to make your body physically better (don’t drink, don’t eat carbs, sleep 9 hours, exercise, walk around the block, CLEAN YOURSELF, etc – that’s all. Just pick one of those goals. Or two, or three. Whatever you want).

Make one goal emotionally: Be grateful for someone in your life. Tell them. Connect two people who should meet. Read a book you love. Be  nice to someone you know. Say “no” to someone you don’t like, someone who brings you down. Again, just pick one goal. Maybe even this: everytime you think about the past that brought you here just say, “I acknowledge I have bad feelings about the past” but stop the blame that you caused it. It’s done. Make that your one emotional goal of the day. The past is one arrow that has been shot at you. But blaming yourself is the second arrow. Don’t kill yourself with the second arrow.

(answer in the comments: what is your emotional goal for the day. What are good emotional goals?)

Make one goal mentally. I always suggest coming up with ideas but it doesn’t have to be that. Read a book. Underline things you like in the book. Memorize a list of 7 letter words for Scrabble. Here’s one for today: every article in the newspaper think about how that article is lying to you. Because they all are. Not on purpose but because they don’t know better. Just think. A simple goal. Later you can add to your mental goals.You can list ideas for companies you want to start. You will start a company. You will break free from the bank. But you need the other three categories to do that. And you need to build up your mental body first the way you would build up your physical body.

Spiritual. Surrender. Accept the past. Here you are in the present. It’s happened. There’s nothing you can do. So accept it. And accept the future. Why accept the future? Because you know the music is not going to die. Because if you do these four goals every day life is going to get better and better. Surrender to that. Because doing these goals begin to unlock the mysteries inside of you. They want to come out and play.

Every week add one more goal in each category. You will be the lighthouse of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health and all of the other lost boats will seek you out. Your light will shine through all the fog until you can see all the shores around you.

Use tdp.me to track your goals (Again: the developer, Jay Shirley, is going to kill me for giving out the URL before final features are in but it’s a great tool for monitoring and tracking these goals). Put your goals in there. Make sure you check the box on them each day this week. Each goal is in a different color. It’s pretty when you see a week’s worth of goals checked.

Note: this is not “The Secret”. There’s no visualization here. There’s no future that we create. Today is about TODAY. Do what you need to do today. Surrender to it. Tomorrow will take care of itself once you do that.

Your life is going to change with such blinding speed you won’t believe it. It will feel like magic coming out of your fingertips and your eyes. But change will happen. Do these goals today. Surrender to them.