In light of all the fighting all around the world, and all the young soldiers that gave up their lives for the freedom of others, without the opportunity to reap what they have sowed — this line (excerp from Mark Goulston’s post) says it all:
Wealth is what you take from the world;
Worth is what you give back.
Happy Memorial Day.
(damn, I haven’t done enough to give back)
Here’s an interesting econ book that I haven’t had the chance to read. Interesting enough, or it wouldn’t have made #2 on the New York Times bestseller list.
I read this post by Jim Durbin, in which he quotes this book and asks if your recruiter truly has your best interest at heart (vs. an ulterior motive).
An example using real-estate agents:
The book is really about dispelling myths by explaining how incentives drive us to act. One of the examples is real estate agents. Using some basic numbers, the book explains that a $300,000 house that sells yields a $4500 average commission for a real estate agent. A $310,000 yields an average $4650 commission. Thus the effort to hold out for the best price yields very little for the agent, but $10,000 for the seller.
Tracking the agents who sell their own homes, the book finds that the agents hold out for $10,000 more when it’s their own home, but not so much when it’s someone else’s. It’s an example of simple math. Effort matched to reward.
Now that’s a job you do for the money! Does anyone know a real estate agent that is actually passionate about the job? Someone that literally loves driving clients around showing them properties for sale, someone looking out for the client’s long term “big picture” financial health? Everybody’s other cousin and little brother is a licensed real estate agent in California.
That sounds like a job I guess I’m just not cut-out for. I can’t imagine myself convincing a middle-class couple to flip a property fast just so that I can get it over with, knowing that they could be making tens of thousands more if I weren’t so worried about losing a few hundred in commision.
I’ll sell, but not like that. Nothing against real estate agents, just an example as a reminder that it’s always useful to question the motive of others. I’m pointing out the obvious.
Other professions that could be put to question: Does your doctor get a commision by prescribing you a certain brand drug? Does your mechanic install a certain part because of a higher profit margin on that part?
Here’s an interesting quote from John Nesheim in his post about unshakable startup founders:
Steel is made stronger and stronger as it goes into and out of red hot and icy cold, time after time after time. So it is with great entrepreneurs.
John writes about a CEO that got burned by a reporter.
When a reporter from a big name media company wishes to interview you, they usually already have a set angle in mind, whether positive or negative; Therefore they go into selective listening mode and hear only what they want to, in order to beef up their story. They do what they do, to sell the story.
I realized that I’m being a little biased against reporters here, but the point here is that it is generally not easy to switch someone’s perception about something overnight. Better find out what they think about you in the first place and with strategy, plan a transition from perception A to perception B.
Anyway, the story and lesson to be learned here is that good entrepreneurs keep chugging along, learn from their lessons, and are not discouraged by depression from such a devastating blow.
Life’s a journey, not a destination 
Hats off to that unnamed CEO in John’s post.
There’s an awesome blog post here on Business Pundit by rob. It touches many important points about work and life (and business). The line between work life and personal life is a rather blurry one and I seriously doubt you can entirely separate both. You will probably spend most of your hours awake, working anyway. So rather than lie about it, just be honest and admit that ( work = life ) and ( life = work ).
Work sucks. It sucks because at its core it has become impure. Business used to be about providing value to the customer. Entrepreneurs captured a portion of that value creation as profit. The more value they created, the more profit they could make. But then along came Wall Street. Obsessed with quarterly profit increases and seeing them as disconnected from value creation, Wall Street encouraged businesses to think short-term. The things that led to value creation – things like innovation, continued learning, employee development, long-term focus – were replaced by pump-and-dump management styles. What can we do to hit the target next quarter regardless of the long term consequences? After all, we just want to pump this baby up and sell it off.
Google offers no guidance on its stock for investors. They definitely saw this coming. Some called Google arrogant. I say they’re in it for the long haul.
Once people gave up on the idea of greatness for business, work changed. Now most people are working out of necessity, not desire. Few companies provide good working environments, because employees have come to be viewed as expenses, not assets.
The irony of a job, is that although you get a job because you need money to obtain basic necessities, you should get a job because you absolutely love that job (you’re passionate and genuinely interested with what you do at work), and not because you just need to pay off your car loan, cell phone bills, etc.
A simple test is to ask if you view your job as a burden that you just need to get it over with (because of your bills) or do you look forward to Monday mornings to tackle that next milestone. I strongly believe that if you constantly strive to be better at what you are passionate about, the money will follow. (I know, that sounds similar to Google’s “build it first, figure out how to monetize later”, but I promise I didn’t copy).
Business is like a game, and like any other game, I hate to see people cheat. Nothing is more exciting than the ongoing battle for profit between two companies that are waging market wars using real tactics like innovation, productivity increases, better marketing, sounder strategy, solid business models, and flawless execution. It’s much more exciting than watching them win by lobbying the government for protection from competitors or pushing money around financial statements until it looks good.
It’s a shame that most businesses don’t compete the true capitalistic way. Even Google is guilty of that. The law provides too many ways for businesses to *cough* exploit *cough*, just to get ahead.
I love collecting quotes. Here’s one I found yesterday:
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
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