Quitting

Yesterday I listened to a replay of an old Freakonomics podcast entitled The Upside of Quitting, which discussed the positive aspect of quitting something that wasn't going to have positive outcome. It got me thinking about myself and how I tend to have an irrational tenacity about staying with things.
My problem with quitting usually stems from the fact that I never feel like I truly gave it my all that if I would push a little harder the situation would turn out positive. The fact that I rarely feel I have given something everything I have prevents me from quitting something with a clear conscience.
This brings me to another point I have mentioned previously, that is having your basics in order, meaning you are trying your best at whatever you are doing today. Now there may be a constraints preventing you from doing your best but you are trying with at least the resources you have.
The main reason for this post is that I have decided to quit a project (for the time being at least) and that is my Grouper project. It was a to be a web app that would be used to organize small groups, for example book clubs, sport teams etc. I have worked on it dutifully for the the last 9 months but it is still far from a state of completion and it will take a lot more study and effort to get it there. So I have decided to quit and leave it.
I may start it back up if the following items are accomplished

1. I find a dream job making $30,000+ than I do now.
2. My finances are in order
3. Shelby is doing well in her math.

The above are pretty arbitrary but will serve for now. And maybe I can start it back up in a month or so with new vigor and understanding.

More Life Lessons from Yoda or I am Anakin Skywalker

Just when I thought I knew all self-help advice on success from our favorite green Jedi Master I heard another. Everyone’s favorite being, “Do or Do not, there is no try”. Last weekend I was on vacation and one evening I re-watched Empire Strikes Back with my sons. And there is the scene where Luke is whining and moaning about having to find Yoda now, and how didn’t have time to eat the swill the little green hermit had set before him. Yoda then relates how Luke is like his father, Anakin, “always looking to the future and not paying attention to the task at hand.”
I am Anakin, I waste a lot of time, worry and thought on tomorrow to the detriment of today. We all should be setting goals and working towards the future, but too many times we don’t get today’s work done because we are doing things for tomorrow.
I have more I could say about this but writing this post is not what I should be doing right now. Maybe I will write something further later.

Career Advice from Reid Hoffman

Career advice is like any advice from other people, most of it is barely worth a thing. But when someone like Reid Hoffman gives advice it is worth listening too. Hoffman is member of the PayPal Mafia and the founder of LinkedIn and last year wrote the book The Start-up of You. Business Insider recently published a set of slides that Hoffman and co-author Ben Casnocha put together for college students that took 3 ideas from there book.
The advice in the slides is really straight forward and practical for any professional looking to move ahead in their career. And the fact is in today's market if you are not moving forward you are probably dying. I took the information from the slides and distilled them down to the following points.
First is you need to understand your competition, because the fact is you are competing with others for your dream job. This should be evident to anyone who has recently started looking for a new position in today's market. To "beat" your competition you need to identify your competitive advantage.
Hoffman breaks competitive advantage out to three points:

1. Assets - What you have now.
2. Aspirations - Where you want to be in the future.
3. Market Realities - What people will actually pay you for.

I could go into more detail but you can read Hoffman's book or read the article for that.

The next item is your Network, this is more important than most people realize. Spend time developing and keeping a network strong professional ties. Hoffman's points on this are as follow.

1. Opportunities are attached to people, so look for people.
2. People control resources, opportunities and information.
3. People you spend time with shape who you are and who you become, so hang with people who are already the way you want to be.

One thing I will say about building a network is that you need to be able to connect with people when building your network. People like to connect with other people that they can relate to or are doing things that interest them. This connection could be over things that are outside of your chosen profession such as hobbies. Building a network is harder if you are a boring person.

Risk is a hard one for a lot of us, especially since most people don't understand it. My opinion is that people approach risk in one of two extreme, either they avoid it at all cost or they simply through themselves over the edge with no preparation. Prepare yourself, understand your market, your industry and where you are personally. Then work to limit your risk exposure, for example if you want to take a chance at working for a startup that will pay less in the short term with the possibility of a big pay off later. Then make sure you have your personal finances inline with the lack of pay and also plan your exit strategy. That is what Hoffman means by Intelligent Risks.

1. You don't the know best plan until you try
2. Actions trump plans
3. Take Intelligent Risks

As I mentioned at the start Hoffman's advice is really straight forward.

1. Develop Your Competitive Advantage
2. Build You Network
3. Take Intelligent Risks

Business Insider had another article about Hoffman and his book that provide advice that was broader in its intended audience.

Devil is in the Details

I just noticed that my last post was over a year ago and wondered where the time went and whether I had improved any, which was the initial goal of this blog. And I realized even though I had a busy year and I did a lot things I completely lost track of the important items and it shows in where I am both spiritually, relationally and materially.
While doing some reflecting it came to my attention that I lacked passion towards anything. I was doing things that HAD to get done or I thought I should do but not what I really needed to do to get to where I want to be, and I need to clearly identify those goals.
Over the last couple of weeks I have been getting back on track or where I was never on track I am getting pointed in the right direction. My focus hasn't been on grand things but on small steps and though outwardly it doesn't look like a big deal I am laying a foundation that I will grow from.

Three Guiding Principles for your Life and Career - Part 3

Find Your Passion

The happiest people are the ones that find their passion, the one thing that they enjoy doing above all else and they build a life around that passion.  Finding your passion provides you with a drive and a focus that is essential to achieving anything worthwhile in life.  So many of us simply drift into our roles in life,  instead of conscientiously sitting down and determining who we are and what we are about and where we want to go in life.  Life has a current of its own that will pull you to places you never expected.  So unless you know where you are going and can swim against the current to better direct yourself, you will wind up in a place that you never wanted to be.
In his book Law of Success, Napoleon Hill describes the need to find a passion and a direction in life, he titles this purpose as your 'Definite Chief Aim', it is the target that you should be shooting for constantly.  Before you set your 'Definite Chief Aim' you need to know something about yourself and that is what do you have a passion for? So many times people will pick a target and run towards it only to discover at the end that it was all for nothing.  Before you define you life target you need to decide who you are and what really gives you satisfaction.  Once you identify your passion you can then go on to build a 'Definite Chief Aim' around that passion.
If you do not work at your passion you will burn out.  You eventually find yourself at a point asking yourself the question immortalized by the Talking Heads in their song Once In A Lifetime, "Well I did I get here?", or even worse lamenting over lost time because you had been working at things that held no meaning to you.
God created everyone a specific purpose and we need to find that purpose and chase it with our entire being.

Dan Pink's Talk on Drive Animated

I came across this video and I think it is both fun and very informative.

Three Guiding Principles for Your Life and Career - Part 2

Find the Best Source of Opportunities Long Term

Long term is the key word here.  Life is a marathon not a sprint, and we should treat it as such.  Often we pick a course of action because of the short term gain.  I have usually looked for the short route and not the best route.  In my career I have chosen the paths that had the most immediate pay-out and did not seek the ones that would provide me with the greatest long-term benefits and enjoyments.
The old Aesop fable of the grasshopper and the ant illustrates this wonderfully.  We all know the story so I won't retell it, but the grasshopper chose the short term path, which held the most enjoyment for the moment, not the path for the best opportunities long term and so was left out in the cold when summer ended and winter came.
In our careers and personal lives we need to be looking down the road at the outcomes of any action that we under take.  The short pleasures and gains many times hurt us long term.  A great example of this is with diets, over eating and eating junk food gives us short term pleasures (I am starting to rethink this logic but that is for another post) but long term damage our bodies.  I recently lost 30lbs, I had to stick to a strict diet and had to give up many foods that I love which is anything fried.  But now I am reaping the rewards, I feel better and I look better.
When you are making a decision and apply this principle you should view the opportunity not only as what will bring in you the future but also will this opportunity come up again in the future.  Many times we are offered opportunities that are truly a once in a lifetime chance.  This doesn't mean that you should automatically take the opportunity but you should consider the fact that you will not have this chance again.
Use this principle to guide you daily life in a direction that you have chosen, by ignoring this principle you will make decisions that might be good for your immediate future but you will eventually find yourself in place you didn't intend nor want to be in.