Jarkko Laine

Am I a Runner Now?

Jarkko — Mon, 18 May 2009 09:00:38 +0000

Saturday, May 9, about a week ago marked a special milestone in my relationship with sports: After completing Helsinki City Run (1/2 marathon) in 2:23:01, this lifelong non-athlete is now something of a real runner.

Check out my race report on the Train for Humanity blog, and support the cause by sponsoring (or just cheering) my training towards a full marathon in September.

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There is No Such Thing as Failure

Jarkko — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 05:27:37 +0000

In my series of small thoughts about business, goals and life, here are a few lines on failure.

When I look back to the goals I have set myself during the life time of this blog, I quickly notice that many of them haven’t happened as planned. But there is a funny thing I’ve noticed: I haven’t failed — my goals are just taking longer to achieve than I thought at first.

Business authors like to collect traits of successful business owners, often ignoring those who they see as failures. That’s one of the biggest critiques against books like “The Millionaire Next Door”: apparently, the failed businessmen share most of the traits with the successful ones.

But when I think about it now, I can’t help but wonder who is to say that those businessmen who are not (yet?) millionaires are failures? Maybe one or two of their ventures have not taken off as they were hoping. Maybe they have lost a good deal of money trying. But if they haven’t given up, I don’t think they have failed. They can still make it big time. Success is just taking longer than they thought.

What success is, is a topic for another discussion. But remember, overnight success doesn’t happen overnight, and failure is just delayed success. Hang in there, keep fighting, and check out Chris Guillebeau’s new (free) pdf report: 279 Days to Overnight Success.

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How to Learn Like Neil Strauss

Jarkko — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 12:18:14 +0000

What should you do if you want to learn how to use a knife?

Buy a book? Wrong.

Ask a friend to teach you? Better (assuming he knows how to use a knife), but still not quite right

Go to Mad Dog - the guy who makes knives, breathes knives, thinks about nothing else than knives? Correct.

That’s how Neil Strauss would do it.

Emergency is an interesting book about preparing for the worst case scenario when the world falls apart around us and everything comes crumbling down. But interestingly enough, the biggest thing I got out of it was not how to survive in the scary future but how to learn like a pro:

Go to the best expert in the field.
Take in all the knowledge you get from them.
Practice. A lot.

When you find a new skill that you are lacking, write it on a “to learn” list. Then repeat the steps above.

That’s it.

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Training for Humanity, And Loving It

Jarkko — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:20:19 +0000

Back in January, I told you I was joining the Train for Humanity team to help redesign the web site to support adding new athletes. Now, the next version is finally up and running, and there are already eight new members training to make a difference – including myself.

Train for Humanity is all about everyday athletes, normal people like you and me using their sports training to collect money for a humanitarian cause by driving people to their sponsorship pages (every athlete is dedicated to collecting $1000) through their blogs, Twitter profiles and other social networks both on and off the line.

Here’s what my friend and Train for Humanity founder Mark Hayward writes about the project’s current goals:

All funds from phase two will go directly toward supporting the Darfur Peace & Development Organization’s (DPDO) school project. DPDO supports the operation of fifteen elementary schools in North Darfur and they are responsible for teacher salaries and providing classroom supplies (Total Enrollment: 8300 students; Teachers: 160 plus 56 support staff).

I started with just one goal in January, but the training has been so exciting and running so much fun that I decided to add a second goal for later this year:

On May 9th, I’m participating in the biggest yearly half marathon event in Finland, Helsinki City Run.
And if everything goes well, I will continue the training, and participate in Finlandia Marathon on September 12th.

As the first event is getting close, I can’t wait to get to the starting line. But I still have never actually run the 21 kilometers it takes to complete a half marathon. That distance already makes me humble. I’m not even thinking about the full marathon distance yet.

You can help us make Train for Humanity a success and bring relief to the children of Darfur by sponsoring any of the Train for Humanity athletes:

Also, Train for Humanity is still looking for new people to join the ranks of athletes. If that’s something you’d like to do, you can send a note to trainforhumanity@gmail.com and tell a bit about your plans. I’m pretty sure you’ll be accepted.

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It Doesn’t Matter If You Win or Lose

Jarkko — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 06:47:26 +0000

In his recent talk at the London School of Economics (listen the podcast here for free), Thomas L. Friedman, bestselling author of The World Is Flat, and Hot, Flat, and Crowded, made a great point about the financial crashes in history and compared to that of today.

His reasoning goes like this:

In the late 1800’s, when the US railroad bubble collapsed, it left the country with an amazing railroad network.
In the early 2000, when the dot com bubble burst, it left us with a highly developed Internet infrastructure.
When this latest credit bubble broke at the end of last year, it left us with nothing more than half-built condos and worthless credit.

This got me thinking: In the end, companies go down all the time, people lose their jobs every day, and there is no such thing as financial security. The world is fragile and unpredictable. If my employer went bankrupt, pretty much no one would notice. Or even more, if my tiny home business didn’t fly, who on earth would care?

That’s why we need to ask ourselves a new question: If your company went down today, what would be the legacy it left behind?

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Reasons for Going Against The Flow

Jarkko — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:50:32 +0000

There are days when I think life would be so much easier if I just gave up on my most ambitious goals and gave up to the normal way of life. I could sleep longer in the morning, I would be less stressed out, and in the short term, I would have more free time.

Luckily, my dreams are strong enough — and so many — that I just can’t give up.

Naomi from IttyBiz makes says it perfectly in her post about changing the world:

As long as a person is dependent on somebody else to give them money in exchange for large amounts of time, energy and brain power, they can’t do much to change the world.

Eliminate the chain.

Do your thing.

Change the world.

I could quote the whole post here, but that’s just unethical, so go read the post on Naomi’s site to understand why I’m still trying to make money online.

And speaking of changing the world, check out this blog post at Insanely Interested, and comment on my latest dream.

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The One Secret To Success: Do Something

Jarkko — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 09:12:02 +0000

I’ll start by a contradiction: No matter what the title says, just doing things is no guarantee for success. Read Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book, Outliers: The Story of Success, and you’ll hear that success is a combination of hard work, one thousand hours of practice, and equally importantly, pure luck. Being in the right place at the right time. And if you want to challenge your thinking even more, check out anything written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (I suggest Fooled by Randomness). He will show you how most of the things we see as cause and effect really are just manifestations of randomness at work.

Both authors make valid points, but I think Gladwell does us a favor by laying out a more actionable approach on success: There is a great deal of randomness involved (The young Bill Gates just happened to be at a place where he had unlimited access to computers at a time when most didn’t) but there is also a lot we can do to make the most out of the luck that comes our way (Bill spent all his waking hours learning the secrets of those first computers, building the expertise that later led him to start Microsoft and become a millionaire).

This is what leads me back to the title of the post. Even no one can promise that action always leads to success, success requires a fair deal of action. The surest way to nothing is never taking action. And the other one is taking the wrong action.

Based on my own experience, I argue that the second way to fail (or delay your success, as I like to look at it), is just a variation of the first one: You take the wrong actions when you know what the right ones would be — just because doing the thing you know you need to do feels too serious, too difficult, or you’re afraid it will make others laugh at you.

How to Fail

Let’s say you want to create a profitable, useful web site that can make a difference. You have read your blogging advice, and know that the right thing to when starting is to pick a niche that you are passionate about but at the same time covers a need that people are desperate to find.

Some people do the work: they do the research, test their ideas, and then start working on the plan. Others just start writing about the first thing that comes to mind. With this blog, I did the latter. And while it didn’t lead to a complete failure, it made the work harder and I ended up in a very long blogging dip.

But for the sake of the example, let’s say you get lucky (or do the research) and get the first step right. You then carry on with the plan, and after putting in hundreds of hours, you are close to launching your first great product. You have completed most of the work, and all that is left is polishing the product, finding its coolness, and presenting it to the world.

That’s a risky moment: doubt creeps in your mind, you realize that the polishing is a lot of work, and start asking yourself: “What if no one will like this? Should I do something else instead?”

It’s just easier to quit. And that’s what most do. I have quit many times. And I have regrets for each of those times.

The problem is that success can only happen if you fight the doubt and finish the product. You can create a top seller if you never sell anything.

That’s why I’m telling you: Keep doing the things you know you need to do. It’s the difference between the $2,500 (minus expenses) I made last year, and the $200,000 Naomi Dunford did in the same time.

The Challenge

Check out my new project, Text is Art, subscribe to the mailing list on that site, and follow me as I prove this point by putting it to action. And then, when you see me do it, you’ll know that you can too.

If I can make this happen, you have no excuse. You have to do it as well.

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Goodwill and Motivation

Jarkko — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 05:16:43 +0000

Why good people do good things?

I don’t find the question of good people doing bad things nearly as interesting as the one of good people doing good things. We are a greedy, sometimes quite ignorant bunch of people. We seek to do the right thing (which makes us good enough), but still can’t help but think, “What’s in it for me?”

The opposite question is much more interesting: What makes us beat ourselves to help out, to change the world, and to work towards a common goal instead of focusing in selfish short term gains?

Train for Humanity

Last December, I found some answers to this question as I offered to help Mark Hayward and his Train for Humanity team bring the next version of the Train for Humanity site to existence. Work is now well underway, and it won’t be too long until Mark can finally announce the launch of the project’s second phase.

Train for Humanity is an exciting initiative to collect money for humanitarian causes by combining everyday athletes’ training efforts with social media and blogging. The cause is good and important.

But why did I join this team and not some other, equally good and important, non-profit? Why am I not giving my time and money to Greenpeace or the Red Cross instead? What motivated me to act this time when in my past 28 years I have done so little?

Investigating My Motives

I am not saying that these are the only reasons why someone would do good deeds, but I thought it would be interesting to share my motivators and see if you share any of them:

An opportunity to work with great people: I have a great deal of appreciation for all the guys who started and built Train for Humanity to what it is today. I wanted to get to know them better and work with people I can learn from and who seem to share many of the values I hold dear.
Being part of a movement: ”getting fit + social media + blogging = social good” is a tag line and mission statement I can believe in. I see it as a part of a bigger movement of using the world of social media and blogging to create meaningful connections to build a future that we can be proud of. Something I hope could be the movement that our generation will be remembered for.
Doing something meaningful: I have labeled the year 2009 with a keyword, MEANINGFUL, which means that I want to make all my actions count. Things can be meaningful in many ways, so what is great about Train for Humanity and the things I’m working on in the project is that it combines so many meaningful things into one: learning more about WordPress development, doing something to help the poorest people in the world, getting fit (see next bullet), and so on.
Getting fit: Working in an office, I have gained a few pounds more than I should and haven’t done all the training that my body craves for. That’s why, around the last months of 2008, I decided to fix all that and resume my running habit. Being a part of a project that is all about training should be a great additional motivator to keep me going and actually completing my first racing event!

The cause itself matters: I want to bring humanitarian relief to this planet and, just like anyone, I’d love to eradicate poverty and make the world a fair place for everyone to live in. But, as painful as it is, I must admit that this hasn’t been enough of a reason for me to become active in the past.

I needed the additional motives. If I didn’t, I would have already been out there helping all the various charities a long time ago.

What are the motives that make you do good things? Or what keeps you from doing them? Let’s talk! And if you haven’t yet, check out Train for Humanity. And stay tuned for the web site update in the near future!

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Blogging and The Dip

Jarkko — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 04:35:41 +0000

In his book, The Dip, Seth Godin talks about a period of hard times that you have to get through before you can become the best in what you do.

At first, everything goes smoothly and you seem unstoppable. Then, as if there was some kind of dark magic at play, you hit a wall that you just need to struggle through to get to the next level.

That’s “The Dip”. Most of us come across it at some point after starting a new venture. And many give up thinking that the dip will last forever and all the fun is over.

When I started blogging, the saying was that it takes three months for the hard times to start in blogging. And that if you survive through your first three to six months, you are a winner and your blog has outlived most of the competition.

It didn’t go quite that way for me.

The first three months of course meant a lot of learning, but went by without any noticeable hard times. And so did the next three. It was only after a year, maybe even a bit more than that, that I reached my dip. A picture tells more than a thousand words:

What do you say? Has blogging matured so much that it now takes longer to become one of the top bloggers than it did before? Has the dip in blogging moved further away, maybe becoming longer at the same time as well? Have you experienced this effect in your own writing or am I just making this up?

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Christmas Greetings!

Jarkko — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 06:34:43 +0000

Here’s for a merry, peaceful Christmas with your closest ones!

Big thanks for making 2008 special, and see you again in 2009! (It will come sooner than you’d expect…)

- Jarkko

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