This past weekend, something interesting happened. My son learned what a watch is. He turned three years old this week and he had previously known what a clock was and what it did. Of course, he cannot tell time but he understands the concept of what a clock does.
Well, this week my in-laws are in town and my son's grandfather was wearing a watch. My wife and I do not wear a watch as our cellphones have long since replaced a watch or the need to wear one. For almost all of my son's life he has not seen a watch on our wrist. Then when he saw it, he naturally said "you got a clock on your hand"
That's when it hit home. We are fast approaching a time in our history when wearable timepieces will be obsolete. Of course, when the long awaited and highly coveted “Dick Tracy Two-way Wrist Radio/TV” unit is finally made available things will certainly change but for now, they will never experience having to look at their wrist to tell the time. I sit here and wonder what else they will never experience, who knows maybe they will never experience owning an automobile.
I was reading something in today's (02/29) Wall Street Journal that mentioned in Japan, youth are leaning more towards not purchasing a car because they don't see the benefit of doing so. As they are more and more tied into the Internet, the need for a vehicle diminishes. They can order just about anything they want/need on the Internet and have it delivered. That along with their already cramped quarters pretty much anything they could ever want is within walking distance, so the need to own a car is quickly vanishing. What else is quickly vanishing from our kid's lives and being replaced with or substituted for?
Interesting times ahead for them and us.
let's tag this post with:
Dave Guerra, Wall Street Journal, Seiko watch, clock, Dick Tracy
29 February 2008
21 February 2008
...at my own risk
Who stands to win or better yet who stands to lose now that the Supreme Court has unanimously "upheld the right of workers to sue over losses in the 401(k) retirement-savings accounts in some circumstances..."? The Wall Street Journal reported in February 21, 2008 Personal Journal section that the issue in the case before the high court was "whether federal pension law, which allows lawsuits on behalf of a group of employees, also allows an individual to sue over losses in his own account in a 401(k) or similar plan" provided that those that run the plan do not carry out your instructions. The Supreme Court's intent was to (hopefully) head off any possible losses to the plan as a whole.
While this makes a world of sense, to me, this sounds like we are but a few trials away from individuals suing fund/plan managers because the market fell out from under a plan or mutual fund. Then this would ultimately lead to any investor suing another for not buying shares of XYZ Corp. (which would raise stock prices) or sue their broker for not offering advice to buy into Apple Inc. when it was at $5/share (November 28, 1986's closing price).
To me, there is just something fundamentally wrong when people are told to read the prospectus and still complain when things go south. Knowing fully well that "past performance is not an indicator of future results." Rest assured that I am all for catching bad guys when they do something wrong.
I am also sure that there are safeguards built in to this, but what was once thought impossible is now reality. This means that a door that was once thought locked is now left wide open for people to cry foul then of course there will always be someone who will cry a little louder than the rest. Unfortunately, he will be heard and he will win, but at what price?
And that's why I buy low and sell high...at my own risk.
let's tag this blog post with:
Dave Guerra, 401k, Supreme Court, Wall Street Journal, Fund Managers, Apple, XYZ Corp
While this makes a world of sense, to me, this sounds like we are but a few trials away from individuals suing fund/plan managers because the market fell out from under a plan or mutual fund. Then this would ultimately lead to any investor suing another for not buying shares of XYZ Corp. (which would raise stock prices) or sue their broker for not offering advice to buy into Apple Inc. when it was at $5/share (November 28, 1986's closing price).
To me, there is just something fundamentally wrong when people are told to read the prospectus and still complain when things go south. Knowing fully well that "past performance is not an indicator of future results." Rest assured that I am all for catching bad guys when they do something wrong.
I am also sure that there are safeguards built in to this, but what was once thought impossible is now reality. This means that a door that was once thought locked is now left wide open for people to cry foul then of course there will always be someone who will cry a little louder than the rest. Unfortunately, he will be heard and he will win, but at what price?
And that's why I buy low and sell high...at my own risk.
let's tag this blog post with:
Dave Guerra, 401k, Supreme Court, Wall Street Journal, Fund Managers, Apple, XYZ Corp
16 February 2008
At the sharp end of the view....
things are certainly as they appear. This week was truly a good one in all sense of the word good. I am about 99.999% over that two week cold/sinus condition and that is definitely a big plus.
That was not all that was good this week. I was excited to get into some of the new media activities that found themselves occurring this week. Joseph Jaffe over at JaffeJuice was part of the exciting MyOOVOOday event. It was where Jaffe in "9 sessions and 41 people in really awesome conversation" would get online using the oovoo software to make it happen. Technical difficulties prevented me from being the 42nd individual in the conversation. Not wanting to be left out I asked Mr. Jaffe if future myoovooday sessions would be made available and from what I have been able to pick up, there may be more on the way. So stay tuned kiddies.
However, that was not all that was going on. Noted author Seth Godin was promoting his latest book MEATBALL SUNDAE by way of a series of teleseminars through Elizabeth Marshall's "Author Teleseminars.com". So I spent my lunch hour this past Thursday listening to Seth Godin, Keith Ferrazzi, Mitch Meyerson, and Andrea J Lee deliver some great and valuable information. There was my "Chance to Hear Seth and Top Experts Without Leaving Your Office or Spending a Dime" and I took big time advantage of it.
To round out the work week, this past Friday I kicked off an idea that I had been toying with for quite a long time: The 12 o'clock Brown Bag Lunch Training series (12BBLT). The 12BBLT is a series of hour long software and hardware oriented training sessions from managing Email to creating strong passwords to installing/upgrading memory on your PC to installing and configuring a wireless adapter on your network. Right now, I have over 12 sessions ready to roll and with the first one successfully under my belt I have ask myself what took so long?
Well, no matter what I am glad that I did it and that people I heard speak this week continue to instill in others the idea that it is OK to do something you like. All the while giving everyone the tools to be successful at doing what they like.
As you can see it has been a great week, all the while being Dad, Hubby on V-Day, and an MBA student. See what can happen when you have 24 hours every day...wait a second you do!
let's tag this blog post with:
Dave Guerra, Joseph Jaffe, oovoo, myoovooday, Seth Godin, Keith Ferrazzi, Mitch Myerson, Andrea J. Lee, Meatball Sundae, Never Eat Alone, Mastering Online Marketing, Money, Meaning and Beyond, Elizabeth Marshall, Author Teleseminars, Training, 24 hours a day
That was not all that was good this week. I was excited to get into some of the new media activities that found themselves occurring this week. Joseph Jaffe over at JaffeJuice was part of the exciting MyOOVOOday event. It was where Jaffe in "9 sessions and 41 people in really awesome conversation" would get online using the oovoo software to make it happen. Technical difficulties prevented me from being the 42nd individual in the conversation. Not wanting to be left out I asked Mr. Jaffe if future myoovooday sessions would be made available and from what I have been able to pick up, there may be more on the way. So stay tuned kiddies.
However, that was not all that was going on. Noted author Seth Godin was promoting his latest book MEATBALL SUNDAE by way of a series of teleseminars through Elizabeth Marshall's "Author Teleseminars.com". So I spent my lunch hour this past Thursday listening to Seth Godin, Keith Ferrazzi, Mitch Meyerson, and Andrea J Lee deliver some great and valuable information. There was my "Chance to Hear Seth and Top Experts Without Leaving Your Office or Spending a Dime" and I took big time advantage of it.
To round out the work week, this past Friday I kicked off an idea that I had been toying with for quite a long time: The 12 o'clock Brown Bag Lunch Training series (12BBLT). The 12BBLT is a series of hour long software and hardware oriented training sessions from managing Email to creating strong passwords to installing/upgrading memory on your PC to installing and configuring a wireless adapter on your network. Right now, I have over 12 sessions ready to roll and with the first one successfully under my belt I have ask myself what took so long?
Well, no matter what I am glad that I did it and that people I heard speak this week continue to instill in others the idea that it is OK to do something you like. All the while giving everyone the tools to be successful at doing what they like.
As you can see it has been a great week, all the while being Dad, Hubby on V-Day, and an MBA student. See what can happen when you have 24 hours every day...wait a second you do!
let's tag this blog post with:
Dave Guerra, Joseph Jaffe, oovoo, myoovooday, Seth Godin, Keith Ferrazzi, Mitch Myerson, Andrea J. Lee, Meatball Sundae, Never Eat Alone, Mastering Online Marketing, Money, Meaning and Beyond, Elizabeth Marshall, Author Teleseminars, Training, 24 hours a day
12 February 2008
What happens when the $1000 bagel goes stale?
I got to thinking about a National Public Radio news report, back in December. It was about the $1000 bagel in New York City. The reports mentions that within the city there also exists a $10K Martini and a $25K Sundae and not to be left out, the Westin New York at Times Square serves, with 24 hours notice, a $1000 bagel. According to the Westin's chef, it is made of a plain bagel, Mascarpone cheese, a wine jelly, the so rare and so expensive white truffles, and what seals the deal at $1K; Edible gold. Yep, there it is the 100,000 penny bagel. So what happens when the $1000 bagel goes stale?
Yes, I know it's a bagel, made of yeasted wheat dough that has been boiled then baked. Real simple. However, it does go stale. So what do you do with $1,000 investment of bread that no one wants to eat? Can you recover your investment by selling the $1,000 Penicillin mold? Good Luck.
Seriously, though what happens when you invest in something (remember baseball cards?) and then something occurs to cause the investment to go stale. What then?
Alright, let's take a look at a 1985 Topps #181 Roger Clemens (RC - Rookie Card) Graded in NM - Near Mint or Better condition which has gone from a high of $16.00 (08/11/2007) to a low of $5.50 (02/11/2008). Talk about flying a lead balloon (and it continues to drop). So all those kids, back in the 1980s and 1990s, that were going to cash-in when the Rocket went Hall of Fame are now left holding a shoe box full of cards that are fast growing stale.
Considering recent revelations about Human Growth Hormones, Needles, Trainers, and Hearings things don't look so good for the Rocket and neither does it for those kids, now adults, with stacks of Clemens Rookie Cards.
Unfortunately, bagels cannot become unstale but with rookie cards that's a different story. Remember Pete Rose / Charlie Hustle's 1963 Topps #537 (RC - Rookie Card) which has been hovering around the $400 to $350 range for some time now and everyone knows the troubles Rose has had.
In the end, what does this have to do with bagels? Well, let's just file this under "what seems like a good thing today might not be so good tomorrow", so hold on to those cards a little longer but throw that moldy bagel away.
tags: Dave Guerra, NPR, The Rocket, Pete Rose, $1000 Bagel, Westin Times Square, Baseball Cards, Rookie Cards
Yes, I know it's a bagel, made of yeasted wheat dough that has been boiled then baked. Real simple. However, it does go stale. So what do you do with $1,000 investment of bread that no one wants to eat? Can you recover your investment by selling the $1,000 Penicillin mold? Good Luck.
Seriously, though what happens when you invest in something (remember baseball cards?) and then something occurs to cause the investment to go stale. What then?
Alright, let's take a look at a 1985 Topps #181 Roger Clemens (RC - Rookie Card) Graded in NM - Near Mint or Better condition which has gone from a high of $16.00 (08/11/2007) to a low of $5.50 (02/11/2008). Talk about flying a lead balloon (and it continues to drop). So all those kids, back in the 1980s and 1990s, that were going to cash-in when the Rocket went Hall of Fame are now left holding a shoe box full of cards that are fast growing stale.
Considering recent revelations about Human Growth Hormones, Needles, Trainers, and Hearings things don't look so good for the Rocket and neither does it for those kids, now adults, with stacks of Clemens Rookie Cards.
Unfortunately, bagels cannot become unstale but with rookie cards that's a different story. Remember Pete Rose / Charlie Hustle's 1963 Topps #537 (RC - Rookie Card) which has been hovering around the $400 to $350 range for some time now and everyone knows the troubles Rose has had.
In the end, what does this have to do with bagels? Well, let's just file this under "what seems like a good thing today might not be so good tomorrow", so hold on to those cards a little longer but throw that moldy bagel away.
tags: Dave Guerra, NPR, The Rocket, Pete Rose, $1000 Bagel, Westin Times Square, Baseball Cards, Rookie Cards
07 February 2008
In the morning, do you wake up to "pursue shareholder value or
In the morning, do you wake up to "pursue shareholder value or exceed customer expectations..."? And is that (or something similar) your reasons for getting up?
If you say Yes, then something might not be right. I don't know of anyone that has that kind of attitude or purpose. Those that do might just be kidding themselves. Anne Deering puts it best when she wrote, and as well as mentioned in the book Be-Know-Do, "Our personal identity and purpose cannot reside in this type of objective...We need to dig deeper to find what truly drives us--our calling in life--and then translate this calling back to into our work context."
So what does all this mean? It means that if you have priorities that are about the job and not inclusive of yourself or your family then there is fundamentally something wrong. Now I am not pointing fingers nor am I passing judgment but what I am doing is stating a fact. A fact that declares that in order to be good to anyone or anything else you have to be good to yourself.
Let me clarify, many years ago I along with a few other people were asked to make a list of those people and things that were important to me. Each of the other people, at the top of their list, placed their Family and their God or vice-versa. Then it was my turn to announce my list. I started off with, that while I do agree that family and faith should be at the top of any list, I have someone different in my top spot: Me.
I got the most puzzling looks, but as I continued with my reasoning their looks of puzzlement turned to looks of understanding. I said that in order to provide my family with the best that I can and also to be a good [[enter religion here]] I have to make sure that I take care of myself otherwise if I fail to provide for myself first then I will fail to provide for anyone. So as conceded as it may sound I must take care of myself first. This is where Self-Discipline comes into play.
After all it is Self-Discipline that set people apart from one another. Self-discipline is "the training that one gives one's self to accomplish a certain task or to adopt a particular pattern of behaviour, even though one would really rather be doing something else."
Going back to my military days, self-discipline was what kept us going when we were cold, wet, and tired. While others would have given up because it was too cold or too wet or too late in the evening, we dug deep inside ourselves and pressed on, not because we were the only ones who could do the job. It was because we took the initiative and had the self-discipline to continue when all others would have quit.
So what is your reason for getting up in the morning?
Something for you: Check out this vid on Discipline/Self-Discipline. Though the video has plenty of Football references, it's brief enough to define the need for discipline and even though it has Coach Bill Parcells and Irving Fryar, don't let that distract you from the message. As for the Cat's In The Cradle song reference at the end, well there is nothing I can do about that ;)
tags: Dave Guerra, Anne Deering, self discipline, Be Know Do, Leadership
If you say Yes, then something might not be right. I don't know of anyone that has that kind of attitude or purpose. Those that do might just be kidding themselves. Anne Deering puts it best when she wrote, and as well as mentioned in the book Be-Know-Do, "Our personal identity and purpose cannot reside in this type of objective...We need to dig deeper to find what truly drives us--our calling in life--and then translate this calling back to into our work context."
So what does all this mean? It means that if you have priorities that are about the job and not inclusive of yourself or your family then there is fundamentally something wrong. Now I am not pointing fingers nor am I passing judgment but what I am doing is stating a fact. A fact that declares that in order to be good to anyone or anything else you have to be good to yourself.
Let me clarify, many years ago I along with a few other people were asked to make a list of those people and things that were important to me. Each of the other people, at the top of their list, placed their Family and their God or vice-versa. Then it was my turn to announce my list. I started off with, that while I do agree that family and faith should be at the top of any list, I have someone different in my top spot: Me.
I got the most puzzling looks, but as I continued with my reasoning their looks of puzzlement turned to looks of understanding. I said that in order to provide my family with the best that I can and also to be a good [[enter religion here]] I have to make sure that I take care of myself otherwise if I fail to provide for myself first then I will fail to provide for anyone. So as conceded as it may sound I must take care of myself first. This is where Self-Discipline comes into play.
After all it is Self-Discipline that set people apart from one another. Self-discipline is "the training that one gives one's self to accomplish a certain task or to adopt a particular pattern of behaviour, even though one would really rather be doing something else."
Going back to my military days, self-discipline was what kept us going when we were cold, wet, and tired. While others would have given up because it was too cold or too wet or too late in the evening, we dug deep inside ourselves and pressed on, not because we were the only ones who could do the job. It was because we took the initiative and had the self-discipline to continue when all others would have quit.
So what is your reason for getting up in the morning?
Something for you: Check out this vid on Discipline/Self-Discipline. Though the video has plenty of Football references, it's brief enough to define the need for discipline and even though it has Coach Bill Parcells and Irving Fryar, don't let that distract you from the message. As for the Cat's In The Cradle song reference at the end, well there is nothing I can do about that ;)
tags: Dave Guerra, Anne Deering, self discipline, Be Know Do, Leadership
01 February 2008
Fix my car?
You probably have heard this before and I know I tell people this everyday so let's do it one more time.
Let's say you are an automobile mechanic and one day I take my car to your shop, tossing you the keys I say "Fix It!"
You give me a puzzled look and ask, "Fix what?"
Then I know this is the last thing you want to hear but I say, "You are the mechanic, fix my car" and I leave.
Is this anyway for people to communicate? NO. Absolutely not, yet it happens thousands (if not millions) of times every single day. Too much telling and not enough leading.
So what does one do to reverse that fact? Well, for starters one has to ensure that what you want to happen is 100% understood by those that will do it.
Basically, what I am eluding that you must ensure that you completely understand what you want. If you can't do that then having anyone else understand you will be a moot.
Take moment to make certain that those that you want to accomplish something, on your behalf, can do so without hesitation or question. If you are not able to get your message across, try a different approach. Keep trying until you are understood. Keep trying until you understand you.
tags: Dave Guerra, understand, getting things done, be understood, keep trying, Be Tenacious
Let's say you are an automobile mechanic and one day I take my car to your shop, tossing you the keys I say "Fix It!"
You give me a puzzled look and ask, "Fix what?"
Then I know this is the last thing you want to hear but I say, "You are the mechanic, fix my car" and I leave.
Is this anyway for people to communicate? NO. Absolutely not, yet it happens thousands (if not millions) of times every single day. Too much telling and not enough leading.
So what does one do to reverse that fact? Well, for starters one has to ensure that what you want to happen is 100% understood by those that will do it.
Basically, what I am eluding that you must ensure that you completely understand what you want. If you can't do that then having anyone else understand you will be a moot.
Take moment to make certain that those that you want to accomplish something, on your behalf, can do so without hesitation or question. If you are not able to get your message across, try a different approach. Keep trying until you are understood. Keep trying until you understand you.
tags: Dave Guerra, understand, getting things done, be understood, keep trying, Be Tenacious
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)