Growing old

Do we stop playing because we grow old or do we grow old because we stop playing?

My grandfather was 92 when he died. He played games up until his death. He loved to laugh and thoroughly enjoyed a good teasing.

One Christmas, I vividly remember my elderly grampy lifting my wife on a set of bathroom scales to find out her weight. He was at least 85 at the time. She kicked and screamed as he hoisted her on the liar's pad.

His body failed him in his nineties. His joie de vivre did not.

I think we grow old because we forget how to play. Play like a school child. Play like no one's watching. Even if they are, who cares? Having fun is not a bad thing.

I'm my true self when I laugh out loud while slapping my leg. Yet I protect that laughter in fear of someone discovering the playful, youthful, lightening eyed me.

If you ask a child what they want most out of life you'll hear they want to grow up. If you ask most adults what they want most out of life, you'll hear the opposite answer. Adults want to stay young. Not the peer pressure, no experience in anything young. Adults are looking for experiences in which they can feel young.

Feeling comes from doing. What are you doing to stay young.

The older I get, the less I care about what others think about me. Dancing in the middle of the grocery isle, embarrassing my kids is so much fun. Not just because of the look I get from them. It's also from the adrenaline rush of doing something I would never have done as a young man. It's like streaking in public without removing the clothes. That's a story for a different time.

Keep playing and youth will follow you around like a hungry cat.

Joy is not just a woman's name

I believe we are born to experience joy.

Joy is not found with money.
Joy is found in serving others.

Do you want joy? Help someone today.

I try to lead a healthy, helpful life. I stop to push cars out of snowbanks. I listen to others and their woes in business. I am giving of my time and my knowledge.  But stuff can get in the way. I get busy and don't notice the small things. I don't always see that person who could use a simple hand. My body is here. My mind is thinking about the next thing that has to be done. I get busy with work and forget to look life in the eye.

We let joy slop around the busyness barrel, hoping to find it in some elusive cranny.

Have you ever noticed it is more fun giving a gift than it is to receive one. Joy is inside all of us exploding at the seams waiting for us to help someone out.

One of my goals for this year is to be a better person. Part of that goal is to perform 4 random acts of kindness per month. That's one per week. It can be as easy as buying the next person in line at the coffeehouse a warm beverage.

I'm sure I'll learn a lot about this random acts of kindness thing. Wish me luck. No, wait. Luck has nothing to do with it. Wish me success.

My joy depends on it.

What's the definition of good scotch

I hate to admit this but I know as much about scotch as I know about women.

My friend Daniel can speak at lengths about the six regions of Scotland and the distinct taste each of the regions produce. Watching him talk about scotch is theatre. Entertaining, informative, and drunk with delight, he shares his love not from the upper deck where only nose-waving snobs exist. The one thing I remember about Daniel's instruction is his definition of a good scotch.

As he starts his soliloquy, he asks, "What's the definition of a good scotch?".

Answer: One that you will enjoy.

In looking for other answers to elusive questions, I found the same answer to a lot of life's pressing questions..

What's the definition of a good exercise routine, good diet, good life, good family, good house, good job, good business, good vacation?

Enjoy!

Goals for 2015

It's a new year and I just finished my goals for the upcoming 365 days.

Don't misinterpret me. These are not resolutions. I gave up resolutions a long time ago. These are things I want to achieve for the year. There are only five of them.

The Fab Five is what they will be called. 

Two of them are personal goals in trying to be a better person. The others are business related as I aim to achieve my business objectives.

I spent a week thinking about the Fab Five. I don't want to waste another year. I want to achieve something remarkable. 

It started with a review of what I want out of my life. A real question that isn't easy to answer. It starts with knowing what one wants. Knowing, not thinking...

I went wrong last year by allowing my goals to be dependent on someone else's decision. It became unrealistic in the short term because everything I wanted to do last year depended on someone agreeing to sell me their business. Which they didn't do. They will want to sell me their business someday but I can't control that right now.

So this year, with the dream still lingering like a musty pair of unwashed underwear, I set annual goals that were achievable and were not dependant someone else's decision.

So here are my goals for the year:

1. Weigh 170 lbs

2. Be a better dad/husband/person

3. Make $150,000 this year

4. Start a coaching company

5. Buy two businesses with two operating partners. Both have to be found.

Each goal has a minimum of five actionable items or smaller goals that will result in the annual goal being achieved. 

For an example, I've identified five things I need to do to be a better dad/husband/person.

- Do dishes for my family five times per week

- Clean two bathrooms for my wife each week

- Mop kitchen floors each week

- Perform 4 random acts of kindness/month

- Find a church to expose my kids to the word of God and go at least twice/month.

So there you have it. 

It's a new year. A clean slate... What are you going to do different this year? 

Resolutions are for the fragile, good intended dreamers seeking change but not willing to do the work.

Goals are for the strong minded, fierce competitors fighting the distractions of life to make it better for themselves, their families, and their communities.

Are you a fighter or are you numbed by the electromagnet field from your television?

Technically you're not qualified

You're not qualified to own or open a business. If you know that, then you have a chance at success.

Most take their skills they've developed working for other business owners and try to transfer their technical skills to an entrepreneurial endeavour.

50% of businesses fail in the first year. Half of those who started their businesses last year are no longer in business today.

Are you sure you want to open your own business?

If I've scared you, you have two choices. Go get a job or continue to walk the entrepreneurial path.

If you're looking for money, go get a job. Owning a business might be the single fastest way to lose money if you don't know what you're doing.

And if you never owned a business, I'm gonna say this, "You don't know what you're doing"!

That's the bad news. It gets better. I promise.

To succeed in business as a new entrepreneur, you have to realize that you know nothing about business. Sure you have skills. You may considered an expert in your field. Your field is your field. Entrepreneurship is not. Transferring the technical expertise into a business is difficult. You are not an expert in entrepreneurship. You haven't done it yet.

Michael Gerber in "E-Myth Revisited" calls this the Fatal Assumption. "Knowing technical skills in a company does not mean one knows how to own a business that does technical work".

To paraphrase, "Just because you know how to fix cars does not guarantee success in owning your own a garage."

Don't fall victim to the fatal assumption. If you want to get into business, I commend you. Be smart and humble enough to go back to the bottom of the ladder and learn from scratch again. You don't have the expertise of owning a business.

Don't pretend you do. You'll hurt yourself and your family if you end up in the 50% of failures. 

Time and money are not related

So you want to open a business. You think a business could solve all of your problems. It will probably be the start of even bigger problems. But that's a story for a different day.

What are you looking for?
Time or money?

They are not related to each other.

Time is a finite resource. It's like oil. There's only so much of it. Once it's used up, it's gone forever. Money is not.  Money is like the sun. It's not always around when we need it, but we need it to survive in this world.

Money gives us time back. It's not about the fancy cars, warm vacations and cavernous homes. We on the search for time.

Time gives us freedom, and flexibility.

Chances are if you're starting out in business,  you can't have both in the beginning. You have to earn the right to have both.

Better question is what are you willing to sacrifice to get what you're looking for?

You will have to sacrifice a lot of time and some money to get there.

How does that make sense? You have to gamble both to get hopefully one of them back in abundance?

It's simple math. Every investor knows that. Invest money wisely and through compounded interest, you get more money back in the long run. Time plays by the same rules.

Do you respect time? Most don't.

If you do, it respects you back.

Money doesn't respect anything. Don't worship it. It's like the pretty girl who dates the head banging crack smoking loser. It doesn't make sense but the less attention you pay to her, the more she's attracted to you.

That which we chase eludes us. Let money chase you so you can get your time back.

Invest your time wisely. It's the only thing that matters.

The end of another year

Today is New Year's eve.

There was a time when I wanted to celebrate the coming in of another number we use at the end of our date. It's a new beginning, a new opportunity. People make resolutions to break a habit only to revert to old ways within the first 2 weeks.

I haven't made resolutions for over 10 years. I make pacts with myself. Pacts can come at any time of the year. Pacts are like promises. No one likes to break a promise, especially with oneself. If you do, you know about it right away and you feel like crap afterwards.

Last night, my wife asked if I wanted to anything special to commemorate the passing of another cycle. I prefer to celebrate success. The end of a year is not a success. It happens whether we want it to or not.

Success is achieving one's goals. One of my pacts is based on attaining a goal. The goal is hard. Harder than I ever thought possible. I have not achieved it so I don't want to celebrate yet. The coming of a new year does not wipe my goal away.

And now that we're at the dawn of a new number, it's time to plan out new goals. Setting annual goals is something I started doing last year. It kept me focused in a distractable world.

The end of the year gives us a chance to reflect what we've accomplished over the past 365 days and what we want to achieve over the next 12 months.

I write out 5 specific goals that are actionable, measurable, realistic, understandable and beyond normalcy. My goals are my own. They are hard. They are in my control and they keep me on track for my longer term vision.

I break my annual goals into 3 month chewable bites. These bites are smaller goals within the annual objectives. I keep a copy of my goals close by and refer to them daily.

It's the end of another year. So what! I am not celebrating until I reach my 2014 goal. And now I have to layer on a new set.

It's gonna be fun!