Nick's Blog

Nor-Cal Life and Adventures in Entrepreneurship

Entries Tagged ‘success’

Four Questions to Maximize Your Effectiveness

I saw these posted on an online marketing blog and thought they were great and applicable to everyone:
1. What should I stop doing?

2. What should I start doing?

3. What should I keep doing?

4. What could I do with less effort?

Frozone (Shani Davis) Wins Gold!

According to wikipedia, Pixar modeled Frozone (from The Incredibles) after Olympic speedskater Shani Davis.  So you don’t have to feel bad about commenting on their striking resemblance.

Congratulations to Shani Davis and all the Olympic athletes.

Liechtenstein: Olympic Powerhouse

During Friday’s Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony, they would show each country’s population and then the number of athletes from that country.  It was interesting to see which countries are the best at producing Winter Olympians.
Among the most efficient was Liechtenstein, with 7 athletes from a population of 35,000.  (1 in 5000).
For the sake of comparison:

Canada [...]

Working Smarter, Not Harder

This guy has got it figured out!

Mr. Sketch Markers

When I was a kid, we had lots of art supplies — crayons, markers, colored pencils, water color paints, even pastels — and the holy grail of elementary school drawing: Mr. Sketch scented markers.
Unfortunately I never wanted to use them for fear they’d run out of ink.  Yeah I clearly had some issues.
Well this came [...]

Book Review: Orbiting the Giant Hairball

Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace was recommended in The 100 Best Business Books of All Time.  Author Gordon MacKenzie was a 30-year veteran of Hallmark, and offers up a unique perspective on navigating the corporate landscape and climbing the proverbial ladder.
It’s clear from the very beginning this is [...]

SMS Inspiration

It was the summer of 2005.  I can’t remember the exact text message my friend sent me, but it was something along the lines of:
“Up $5k for the month.”
What?!  I knew immediately what he was talking about: affiliate marketing.  Here I was having just moved all the way across the country to start work at [...]

New Year’s Resolutions (are dumb)

Welcome to 2010!  It sounds so futuristic.
Sometimes I make New Year’s Resolutions.  Sometimes I even write them down.  But the more I think about it, the more I think they’re dumb.  If something is worth doing, why wait for an arbitrary change in the date to start?
The tradition of New Year’s Resolutions dates back 4000 [...]

Thankful

It’s been a great year with so much to be thankful for.  I figure Thanksgiving is a good a time as any to reflect on all the blessings we have.  Happy and healthy.  Still self-employed.  Wonderful friends and family.  Couldn’t ask for much more.
And then there was the food

Book Review: Peak

I had a hard time getting into Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo From Maslow.  It started slow but picked up steam about half way in.  Peak is written by San Francisco boutique hotelier Chip Conley, and was one of the books gifted to me during my Zappos tour.  The premise of the book [...]