Projects, Process, and the Deep Cleanse

I heard a story once about a mechanic. Calloused and worn, his tired hands were stained deep with grease and grime that told the story of his hard work. Though the water would run black when he rinsed his hands, the gritty industrial cleaner in his shop bathroom removed just the surface dirt and made little difference to their appearance.

He took vacation once per year and it was always the same. His parents had left him and his sister a small cottage by the sea – it was a single room, the kitchen not more than a lone burner and the bedroom a small cot next to the door. Each day would start and end with a long soak in the ocean. Sometimes he would swim against the waves with all his might, turning back only when the shore grew small in the distance and his strength began to wane; sometimes he would lay still as the sea ebbed and flowed, the buoyant salt water carrying him far down the shoreline for a slow walk home.

When the two weeks were finished, he would get in his car for the drive back to his daily life. He felt calm, refreshed, reborn. He would grip the steering wheel and, with some surprise, notice a pair of hands that did not seem his own – there was no trace of the grease or grime, the creases of his hands were clean and the beds of his nails shone white. Only the thick callouses remained, and he was grateful for that; they were hard earned, his protection against the sharp, rusty pitfalls of his work.

I always liked this story; it has stuck with me over the 14 years since I heard it, partly because I, too, feel regenerated by the ocean. Standing on the beach and looking out over the waves, any worry melts away as I breathe deeply and let the thick ocean air fill my lungs. I stare at the magnificent vastness, I think of the power of nature, I see the ships and think of the greatness of man. The ocean doesn’t quiet my mind; it drowns out the noise and floods me with possibility.

But the story has other meaning for me as well. I think of the mechanic – a man who, to some extent, lives in anticipation of his two week reprieve. How his work builds up on his hands, how he cannot seem to wash himself of its mark save this deep cleanse, how quickly the dark stains must accumulate upon his return. Continue reading

How to Name Your Startup

“It is a pretty recognizable brand name. Originally it was ‘Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web’ but we settled on ‘Yahoo.’” -Jerry Yang, Yahoo founder

It is no secret at this point that I love being an entrepreneur, and it’s a profession that I would recommend to virtually anyone. At the first mention of job-related trouble, the de facto advice I’ll dispense is to quit your job: burn the bridge behind you and don’t look back. I’ve given away more copies of The 4-Hour Workweek than I can count.

I am often asked, “what is the hardest part of starting a business?”

Like most things in life, the process of starting a business seems impossibly complex until you actually begin to undertake it – what appears from afar to be a mysterious black art becomes fairly simple and straightforward upon closer examination.

With my companies, I have negotiated distribution deals with Amazon.com, manufactured life-or-death components for 200 mph race cars in China, and managed 1,650+ different SKUs – without any full-time employees or a background in engineering, and all while living in South America for a six month stretch…without a cell phone.

Having said that, I can tell you – without hesitation – that the hardest part of starting a business is naming it. And, thanks to a booming startup market and the shrinking availability of .com domains, it is getting harder every day.

But fear not, my friends – while the proliferation of tech startups has certainly dwindled the supply of available .coms, it has also given birth to a series of fantastic tools and resources for solving this frustrating problem.

Below, we’ll go over some rules of naming, and subsequently I’ll divulge my heretofore secret arsenal that will turn you into a dark wizard in the mysterious and elusive art of startup naming.

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Facing Reality

Flick, flick. Nothing.

The power was out in my apartment. In the middle of June. Awesome.

I walked out the door and down the hall, finally coming across a neighbor on the floor below me.

“Hey man, is your power out too?” I asked.

The neighbor shook his head no and that’s when my mind began to put the pieces together. The piled up mail on the counter. The voicemails on my phone that I hadn’t checked in days. I walked back into the apartment, took a deep breath, and fanned out the mail like a deck of cards. I saw it immediately and my heart plummeted.

It was the shut-off notice from the power company. Continue reading

Building Blocks to a Happy Life

In most cases, it really is that simple.

I’m a great worker. I haven’t always been that way, but a combination of better-defined goals and a genuine love for my job has made it relatively easy for me to sit down and crank out a solid six hours of productive work per day. But six weeks ago, I examined my day-to-day life and I realized that this was the only constant that I could point out – the only action that was reliably repeated day in and day out.

I believe that most highly successful people have routines. Moreover, I think that routines are a way of defining yourself – of prioritizing your life, of improving certain areas, and of maintaining others. A routine consists of a series of habits, and habits are the building blocks of a personality. Continue reading

Life’s Biggest Secret

Yesterday you said tomorrow

The remarkable thing about life is that you are the master of your mind, the undisputed main character in an epic journey through this world. Command your mind or your body and it will obey. You can use this power to shape your future as you see fit; your legs will walk to the gym even if you’re lethargic, your vocal chords will produce sound even if you’re nervous to speak up.

But, for all of the incredible features that come standard on the Human Body, autopilot is not one of them. In the absence of instructions, your mind and body will remain in the default state of Doing Nothing. It will not make friends for you if you don’t socialize, it will not find you a new job if you don’t seek out opportunities. Continue reading

Knowing Yourself (and, some exciting news)

Some much-needed rays of sun on my road trip.

Despite a decent night’s sleep and an IV bag of iced coffee, I found myself feeling awful today as I sat down to try to get some work done. My mind was foggy and I simply had no energy to get myself going.

For the past day or so, I’d been craving particularly bad food and at the moment, a cheesesteak, sour cream and onion chips, and a gallon of Arizona iced tea was sounding pretty good. Against my better judgement, I left the office in search of some food.

As I stomped through the streets of downtown Chicago in search of satiation (I know…I’m supposed to be in Buenos Aires, but more on that later), some road construction forced me to take a detour past the river. I walked out from the shadow of the buildings and the sun hit me – and the feeling was almost indescribable. As my body began to drink up the rays, it hit me that I had barely seen the sunlight in nearly three weeks. Continue reading

The Procrastinator’s To-Do List

I’ve devised a special test that can quickly distinguish a procrastinator from the general population – don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing. But, I am sorry to say, your test has come back positive.

People who get things done – or, ‘organized freaks,’ as I call them – don’t read articles about procrastination. The subject simply doesn’t apply to them. In fact, these people don’t read self-help blogs at all. They’re too busy out doing stuff like color coding their calendar or drawing a map of the contents of their luggage (seriously).

As a procrastinator, the likelihood that you will follow a system is inversely proportional to the system’s complexity. In layman’s terms: keep it simple or you’re going to fall off the wagon.

I’ve implemented such a system and it has changed my life – a life previously plagued by missed deadlines, overlooked opportunities, and general stress. Sound familiar? I’ll show you how it’s done below the jump.

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How to Stockpile Cash (a short, no-BS guide for debt-free living)

How much should I spend on rent? On food? What the #$% is a 401(k)?

Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it does buy an eccentric imagination and a great legal team to significantly improve your odds of not getting arrested for pursuing it. Read on as I demystify the ridiculously complicated world of personal finance and get you on a path to stockpiling cash.

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor, and my lawyers don’t have my forwarding address in Argentina, anyways. Also, I wrote this post on my iPhone while traveling on a 35 hour bus ride to see the glaciers in Patagonia – please excuse any rambling.

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Why Your Kid Hates School

I’ll preface this by saying I have some fairly strong opinions on the education system in the US. To be blunt, the traditional US eduction system is, by and large, a complete waste of time for an intelligent student. It teaches young people bad habits, sets unreasonable expectations, and differs in most fundamental aspects from the reality of the adult world. Continue reading