Who am I?

avsand

 

Who-am-I

Maybe it’s because I just turned 43 yesterday.  Or maybe it’s because I made a promise to myself years ago to never grow up.  But I constantly ask questions like ‘who am I?’ and ‘what do I want to do?’ all the time.

<warning: spoiler alert>
Kung Fu Panda 3 (freaking funny movie, by the way) starts out talking about how Oogway, the Kung Fu master featured in the picture above, spent 30 years in a cave asking himself – Who am I?  Obviously Po, Kung Fu Panda, doesn’t have the patience do do this.  And neither do I, but I think we all spend a lot of time thinking about these types of questions.

Oprah said “The real point of being alive is to evolve into the person you were meant to be.”

Tom Peters, in his book Brand You 50, asks “When was the last time you asked: WHAT DO I WANT TO BE?”

Starting a business and being an entrepreneur allows you to not only ask these questions but live them every day.  I’m extremely thankful for my partners and best friends – Phil Manfredi and Kiran Chinnagangannagari (aka @shoooooooonya) for joining me on this journey and starting Zuggand.  And I’m insanely thankful for my amazing wife Sonja for encouraging me everyday to be a Little More Awesome (LMA) than the day before.  I’m also thankful to my children for being the inspiration for new ideas and beautiful new questions.

The great news is I have a solid idea of who I want to be in this next phase of my life and I’m living it!

Oogway Kung Fu Panda 3 Photo Credit – pollito15

Reading Update January 2016

avsand

One of my personal projects for the year is to read (listen to – I’m an Audible.com freak) 24 business books.  Please check out my Reading board on Pinterest for other books I love.

January was a good month for reading.  I cranked out 4 books.  This is all part of my master plan for having an outstanding, amazing, breakthrough year!  Below is a quick summary of each one.

Content Inc. - By Joe Pulizzi

Content Inc is all about how business is changing and how content and the internet is the platform to this new game.  If you have a content vacuum, how can people (more importantly your current and future customers) understand who you are and what you have to offer.  Perfect example is Joe’s site promoting the book.  How many books that you’ve read have their own movie trailer?  Joe’s approach is to build an audience first!  Align your passion, ensure that you have a unique offering, develop your style & tone, build your base and then reap the rewards for all the hard work!  Must read.  It has to be part of your business model.

OverSubscribed - by Daniel Priestley

I swear I didn’t do this on purpose but Oversubscribed was the perfect follow up book to Content Inc.  Daniel Priestly authored one of my all time favorite books – Entrepreneur Revolution. This new book Oversubscribed didn’t disappoint. Oversubscribed tees off on the same principles as Content Inc. Content is critical to building your audience and filling the vacuum of what you and your organization are all about and then the book goes takes that model so much further. Its all about supply and demand.  Its all about building anticipation with your audience and then celebrating your customers!  What can be more powerful that actually celebrating your customers?

Outside In - By Harley Manning & Kerry Bodine

Again I don’t think I could have picked a better book to come next.  I’ve been following Kerry Bodine and Harley Manning on social media for some time.  Outside In is an insane blueprint to what my company Zuggand is doing to help our customers deliver Digital Customer Experiences (DCX).  Again this book is in alignment with the previous two books in that we have passed out of the Age of Information and into the Age of the Customer (and execution).  Being customer centric (or obsessed) is the new differentiator.  The authors take a research based approach (which I love) to systematically designing customer experiences.  I love the examples in the book.  And we aren’t talking about little websites you’ve never heard of.  This book has the Forester brand, research and army behind it and is working with amazing customer-obsessed companies like USAA and Fidelity.  So many takeaways and it lays out a plan for any business to go through this customer experience transformation. It can also be used as a brilliant career development plan for any person that aspires to be a Chief Customer Officer or a Chief Digital Officer.

Crush It! - Gary Vaynerchuck

I read about Gary Vaynerchuk and his Wine Library store years ago.  An amazing story about how Gary help build and transform his family store into an impressive enterprise.  It wasn’t until about a year ago that I first saw him on youtube with his new brand though.  I’ll admit that at first I was a bit turned off.  It’s funny because before I even started writing this article, I saw this post on Instagram from Gary today.

 

GaryVeeInfluence

I love a good F-Bomb like no one else, but when I heard him drop it in the first minute of a video it shocked even me. (Did I mention that I LOVE a good F-BOMB???) Maybe it is his “east” cost style that rubbed my “west” coast style.  But then I saw this video on 6 MINS FOR THE NEXT 60 YEARS OF YOUR LIFE – A RANT.  And now (and I can’t believe I’m going to say this) I am (BIG sigh) part of the Vaner Nation. (f*#* I said it!)

Again, this couldn’t have been a better book for me right now.  Its his oldest book that is on Audible so I decided to start there and catch up.  Gary stays true to his DNA, as he loves to say.  He knows his strengths and he plays to them.  He is a master of his craft.  In his DailyVee video on January 27th The Family Business (you can jump to 6 mins and 54 seconds if you like) he articulates what he does for a living.  “I day trade attention.”  That’s what this book is about.  That is what Gary is all about. That is what each and everyone of us should be about!

 

 

Critical Lesson: Hit the Wall!

avsand

Hit-The-Wall-T

One of the most critical lessons I learned as a kid was from the swim team.  The first time that I ever raced the 50 meter butterfly was a very interesting experience for me.  The butterfly or fly (for short) is probably the most grueling stroke to race in swimming (at least for me).  It takes a lot more strength and more importantly endurance.  So imagine this.  I get up on the stand. Gun goes off. I launch off the stand into the water. By the time I hit the first wall and turn around I have a massive lead on everyone.  I’m clearly winning this race.  I’ve got this in the bag.

But then it happens.  Three strokes from the end, I completely run out of gas.  I’m so tired I can’t get my arms out of the water.  I barely coast to the end.

I don’t think I finished last.  Tell you the truth I can’t even remember how I placed in that race.  All I know is that I had nothing left and couldn’t finish the race.  Nothing.  Empty. Big failure!

Let me tell you the worst part of that experience though.  I wasn’t prepared for the race.  I had never raced before and I hadn’t thought through what a butterfly race was.  I didn’t know what I was in for.  I didn’t realize how long it would last.  I had no clue what it would take to swim all out for 50 meters!  I was not prepared!  I was not determined!

Well the story doesn’t end there (thank goodness or this would be a horrible story).  That was the first race of the season.  After that all I did was think about or swim the fly.  I had the speed.  But I didn’t have a strategy or the endurance to make it happen.

Long story short, here is how the State Swim meet went down at the end of the summer.(In between there were lots of other races, camping, early morning practices, more practices, swim meet dances, some good summer fun, even some kissing and even more swimming and practices, did I mention tons of fly?!?!?!)  I now had a strategy.  In the qualifier round I was going to go at a good pace and not burn myself out.  I wanted to be strong for the next day after I qualified for finals.  Not the best strategy in the world.  I barely qualified.  I was the second slowest and had one of the outside lanes for finals the next day.

Finals.  New strategy.  Go as fast as I can, the entire race and hit the wall.  No matter what it takes.  Hit the wall as hard as I could.  The first time I raced I didn’t have that attitude.  I didn’t think I had it in me to go all out for 50 meters.  But I had now been training all summer long.  I knew I had the endurance to go all out for 50 meters.  So I had the preparation and the winning strategy.

What happened?  Well I learned an important life lesson.  Understand the game you are playing (or the project or business you are working on)!  Train hard! Practice hard!  Eat it! Breathe it! Sleep it! And make sure you go as hard as you can until you hit the final wall!

Oh yea, I got first place and also broke the Montana state record for the 50 Butterfly that summer!

Hit the Wall!

Create Urgency!!!

avsand 2 Comments

 

Urgency-T

Think back to different times when you had a sense of urgency?  What drove it?  What made you work faster, stay up late, get things done, make sure you were doing the important things first?  Below are three core factors to create an insane sense of urgency.

First factor: Definiteness of Purpose! (its even fun to say) Something specific that has to get done.  Write it down (first step of making it real).  Make it sing when you say it!

Second factor: Deadline Driven! Remember when you were a kid and you knew how many days until Christmas, your birthday or summer vacation?  Put a date on it. Work backwards from that date.  Every day look at that count down and see how many days you have left.  Communicate it with your team, your company, the world.  Install a countdown app on your phone and look at how many days you have left every time you turn on your phone.

Third factor: Align to a Greater Cause!   I’d advocate that your definiteness of purpose is something a little bigger than eat breakfast or get the TPS report done.  Make it worthy, critical, even world changing!

That’s the basic formula for developing your sense of urgency.  And all you have to do is drive the heck out of it like it was on fire!  Urgency!

Want to Grow? Read!

avsand

Reading_List.png

There are a bajillion (yes its a word) quotes out there that will tell you that you have to control your mind or yourself to be truly successful.  From Buddha to Dr. Seuss, they will all tell you that the key to the Life, the Universe and Everything (thank you Douglas Adams) is all in your mind!  So let’s make 2016 a year for amazing growth and let’s start with reading.

I heard you groan!  Reading is hard you say.  It puts me to sleep you say. I hear you and me to sometime.  But that’s why I love Audible.  Audible allows you to listen to books.  I love to read (listen) to books while I’m driving or while I’m chillin.  I really love the fact that I can also speed up or slow down the audio.  I’ve trained myself to listen to most books at 1.5X, which makes it really interesting if I then actually meet an author or watch one of their videos.

Amazon also invented something else really cool called Whispersync. This allows you to buy the Kindle version and the Audible version and switch back and forth between them.  Pretty cool.

Since I am such a visual person I like to track and share the books I read.  Please check out my Pinterest Reading List for my favorites.  I’ve only posted my favorite business books up there right now, but I really should add my sci-fi / fantasy collection too!

Little Touch Cool Factor

avsand

screen_handMost of you are probably looking for 65″ or more inches of screen these days.  And you are probably looking to kick your feet up and enjoy watching it from several feet away.  But I’ve been looking for something a little smaller and something that I can put my fingers on.  Say in the 7″ range to fit inside my Star Wars lunchbox.

7inch

The Waveshare 7″ is exactly what I need for the project. 800 X 480 resolution might not be as nice as my Google Nexus 6P 1440 X 2560 screen but it will work for what I need it to.

screen_board

Here is a pic of the back of the board.  Couple things to point out.  In the upper left corner is the HDMI display connector, right below that is the USB connector to pass the Touch data back to the Raspberry Pi and then right below that is an on / off switch for screen backlight.

Looking forward to assembling the Star Wars Pi in the old Sandeen sweat factory.  I’ll probably employee my 10 year old daughter, Talia, so that I can take advantage of cost of child labor to keep my cost per unit affordable (she’s really excited to help me on this.)

Mini Keyboard

avsand

Santa was very good to me this Christmas!  One of the many wonderful things he gave me was the Rii Mini Wireless Keyboard / Mouse.  Santa may have brought mine to me but you can pick yours up from Amazon.

Rii_unboxed.jpg

This is going to go perfect with my Raspberry Pi Star Wars lunchbox build. I love the size (look at the pic below), love that it has a trackpad, charges with USB (no batteries), has an on/off switch and a cool, hidden place to store the USB dongle (you have to buy one to see it, I’m not going to share that secret here).

Rii_in_hand

But the ultimate cool factor to this keyboard is the fact that I can add another title to my long list of titles.  My new title is “Owner of the World’s Most Mini!”  Yep, it says it right here on the box!  Right next to the Registered Trademark.

Rii_worlds_most_mini

Now I have to find the time to put my awesome box together.

Pick a Direction

avsand

Pick a Direction!

What if you always headed in one direction? What if your entire organization did this?  Where would you be in one year?  Five years?  What if every time you went to make a decision you check it to make sure that it helped move closer to that single point?

Strategic planning can be extremely sophisticated, but this year I’m advocating that you make it extremely simple.  Jim Collins and Jerry Porras call this a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG). Sean Covey and Chris McChesney call them Wildly Important Goals.

This year I’m advocating for something much simpler!  Just pick One Direction!  One Thing!  One Outcome!

2016 Projects: Raspberry Pi, Python, Kettlebells and Audible

avsand

Time to ring in the new year! And what goes better with the new year than new projects.

This year I have a couple new projects in mind. Raspberry Pi Star Wars lunchbox mod, learn some basic Python, do 300 kettlebell swings in a day (and walk the next day), listen to 24 business books on Audible and I’m sure I’ll throw in a few more as the year progresses but this is a good list to start.

I picked up a Raspberry Pi a couple months back and Santa brought me a cool 7” touch screen for it. Before Christmas I bought a cool Star Wars lunchbox with R2, C3PO and BB8 on it and thought it would be cool to see if I can get everything setup inside the box. I did a little Linux work years ago, so this will totally be back to basics for me. I plan to get all three of my kids involved in this action too, so this will be a family event.
Why Python? Well python.org says ‘Python is a programming language that lets you work quickly and integrate systems more effectively.’ And Raspberry Pi says ‘Python is a wonderful and powerful programming language that’s easy to use (easy to read and write) and with Raspberry Pi lets you connect your project to the real world.’ I plan on using Code Academy to jump start my Python Learning. I’ve never touched Python (the coding language before, I’ve owned a couple of python snakes though) but I have done quite a bit of Java and other coding. Again, I’d like to get the kids involved with this but maybe first I complete the tutorials. I have all sorts of other ideas for what I’d like to do with my little Pi box and Python, but let’s get it all put together first.

300 kettlebell swings. Sounds extremely painful. I lost almost 50 pounds in 2015. Left my old stressful job, started sleeping at night, drank a ton of water, started tracking what I was eating and worked out a ton. Mostly walking, elliptical and some weights. I picked up a couple kettlebells a few months back. I saw some pins on Pinterest about a 300 Kettlebell Swings per day challenge. I can tell you that I’m definitely not up to that at this time but I am going to start focusing on this now. The first time I tried to do 100 swings, I was sore for days! Seriously! I figure if I’m sitting on my butt all day playing with a Pi and learning Python, I better do something physical.

24 Business Books on Audible. I love Audible! Freaking love it! I have 96 titles in my library today. My goal is to read (listen) 24 new business books in 2016. I signed up for a new Audible plan that gives me 24 credits (books) all up front for $229.50 (or $9.56 / book). I love to read and learn and I’m excited to get this kicked off. Maybe I’ll even listen as I’m cranking out kettlebell swings!

This is just the start of my crazy aspirations for 2016. Love to hear your ideas!

Hiring Perfect vs. Hungry Employees?

avsand

Now that I have your attention, let me break it to you gently…  There is no such freaking thing as a perfect employee!  Got it?  Stop looking for them!  It just not going to happen, ever!

Now take some time and think about what you are really working to accomplish.  First, you don’t want to hire some psycho that is going to destroy your org’s dynamics!  And let’s face it, if you have hired more than a handful of people, you have probably hired at least one psycho.

Second, you want someone that doesn’t depend on their mom or their spouse to show up on time and that you don’t have to watch the clock with them.  Got it – those are very basic requirements. And if you do so happen to accidentally hire one of these people, listen to your gut and let them go quickly.

Now that we have the basics down, you are really looking for a good fit.  How do you know if you have a good fit or not, well that depends on if you have defined your org’s belief system (principles, values, aspirations or whatever you call them). I’m not going to go into how to do that here, but you should have them defined and you should construct cool questions that help you determine if the candidate is going to be a good fit for your beliefs. (if you are saying to yourself – “I can’t believe he just used the word beliefs, that is so no PC”  – well maybe you should just go hire yourself a perfect candidate then and read someone else’s article.)

Lastly (I’m obvisously over simplifying this but my last point in this post), look for hunger!  Look for someone that wants to do cool shit (because you are doing cool shit and that is why you want an awesome, not perfect, employee).  Look for someone that wants to learn, that wants to grow and that is willing to do what it takes to be successful.

So it really comes down to four things: eliminate the psychos, eliminate the apron string suckers, look for fit for your beliefs and look for hunger!  Then it’s time to invest in that employee and grow them into awesomeness.