Me, Incorporated

The Boss Giveth & The Boss Taketh Away

2010-08-30T14:28:00.000-07:00

Reason #178 to NOT work for someone else:

“The Boss Giveth & The Boss Taketh Away”

When I first started working for this company about 4 years ago, everything that was assigned to me to work with was standard issue and novel to me as a newly-hired employee. I was assigned to a cubical with partitions that were about 5.5 feet high, a built-in desk with 3 surfaces that made a “c” shape, and a fairly standard office chair. None of it felt like an up or downgrade, as it was all new to me. At first, I remember feeling a little bit alienated during the workday because I had so much privacy. It was almost as if I had been placed in a carpeted box with half of one wall missing for an entry way, and no lid. I quickly grew to really like that cubical, though, as well as the solitude it afforded me. The back of my bulky computer monitor butted up against the same partition in which I entered my workspace, so when I sat facing it, I was also generally facing the cubical opening and could see who was walking past my little matchbox room. This came in handy for those times when I was working on the occasional personal project or checking my email. Don’t judge, everyone does it even if they don’t admit it – I know, because I catch them at it constantly. We all just hyper-minimize the window and pretend that we we’ve been working faithfully all along. Heck, I’m even typing THIS at work right now.

After working in this environment for over a year, news began to spread that a move was on the horizon. Eventually the rumors became substantiated when a floor plan was circulated for the express purpose of allowing each of us to envision the new workspace and to voice our preferences about where we would be sitting in relation to everyone else. It turned out that the company was preparing for some remodeling of the building we were in, and needed us all to move out to allow them full access in order to modify the area we were occupying.

When we were shown diagrams and dimensions of the new cubicals, most of us cringed conspicuously and incredulously. Not only were they smaller than our current workspaces, but they were also less private – MUCH less. The partitions would be about 5 feet high, and made mostly of clear glass - in order to allow more sunlight to saturate the entire office. Partitions shared between cubicals however, would only be about 4 feet high, making each work area feel VERY exposed on all sides. The term “fishbowl” immediately came to mind.

Once we’d moved into the 14th floor the new office building (which, of course, was actually the 13th floor, that had been customarily renamed the “14th” floor for stupid superstitious people – as though renaming it something else would somehow made it NOT truly the 13th floor), we all found our pre-determined places and did our best to settle in. It was really hard to get used to for a long time. No one could so much as fart without everyone else knowing about it immediately, let alone have a private personal phone call. Suddenly everything was visible. What you ate for lunch, what you were working (or NOT working) on, what you were scratching, as well as everything else became everyone’s business. Not cool. The bosses, however, all still had their closed-door offices with totally regal privacy, of course… you know, because they’re better than we “where-the-rubber-meets-the-road” folks are.

Fast forward a few years to the present. By now we’ve all grown quite used to our work spaces. We’ve adapted. We’ve learned the typical flow of traffic and know who comes in and out when, who walks behind us, who lurks to check to see what we’re working on, etc. Monitors have been situated for maximum privacy. Large bundles of rolled up paper, file folders and other things have been strategically placed to create perfect blind spots for would-be snooping bosses who have nothing better to do than to check to see who is and isn’t on task at every paid second of that work clock. Every surface of the carpeted, and in some cases - wherever they could get away with it - glass partitions are all covered in pictures of loved ones and drawings & other keepsakes created by their kids. Friendships and callused tolerances have been formed by wall-sharing cube mates. The variable-weathered view from the “14th” floor which overlooks the world-famous Las Vegas Strip is has become as much a part of our office scenery as the printers & filing cabinets. And now, the rumor is we’re moving….BACK.

Now this SHOULD be good news. It should be good that we’re going back to what we had – because we LIKED what we had. Well, here’s the catch… we’re not going back to what we had. We’ll be in cubicals with even LESS privacy, if you can believe it. Different cube mates, different foot traffic, and no windows. Hhhh….Prison. Once again, The Boss has given me more reasons to NOT want to work for him any longer than I must.

Been Busy...

2010-04-19T10:49:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time. However, I'm back. I've been hard at work for the youth of my church on a big project called the Book of Mormon Experience. I created a video for them called "The Conversion of Alma the Younger" and I'm pretty proud of it. It took about 3 month total to create. I'll be spreading it around on YouTube and Facebook under the brand of LittleLDS. I'm hoping it'll generate some significant traffic for me that way.

So anyway... back to business. Next up... Learning about how to create an "APP." There's big money in apps, and I want in. I've got a few ideas, and it's just a matter of time. :) I'm also eager to get back to the project I started a long time ago with my good friend Mark Smith. He and I were (and now "are") working on a childrens "flip book" called "The Spider And The Fly" and it's flipside, "The Lion And The Lamb." Giddy up...

Update

2009-11-12T15:11:00.000-08:00

I've just updated ListQuest too. :)

Facebook

2009-11-12T15:02:00.000-08:00

What an awesome resource Facebook is!! I discovered it as a social site just a few months ago, but didn’t recognize it as a brilliant marketing tool until weeks later! As an individual, I’ve got a few hundred “friends.” These are people I love, like, know or just have known. They’re folks who I care about and visa versa. They are the people who, when shown something that I’ve done entrepreneurially, always respond cordially, positively, or constructively. Their opinions of what I do, always tend to be good. While appreciated, this type of feedback doesn’t necessarily help me. As Steven Pressfield of ‘The War of Art’ puts it, their reviews of my work are not “legal tender in the real world.” It’s nice, but not ultimately what I need. Their opinions (which, admittedly I still seek regularly) while comforting and ego-stroking, are just that. They are the comforting and ego-stroking opinions of the people who would never consider telling me if I had a totally bone-headed idea. They wouldn’t dream of crushing my dreams and aspirations with real, uncensored, and potentially devastatingly critical comments. Why would they? They’re my family & friends.

This is why I’ve taken next step. I’ve created an independent profile for both my Tyed Art Graphic Design business and my LittleLDS brand. This company and brand both have their own respective Facebook “fan-base” and they are invaluable to me! Neither of them have nearly as many “friends” (or “fans” in their case) as my personal Facebook profile does, but for the purposes they serve, they’ve got plenty. In fact, their meager numbers are what make them highly valuable and suggestive!

Although many of the fans are people that I know, the majority of them are people that I do NOT know. These are the fans that are most valuable to me. Why? Because these are the people that are truly interested in the content of my business and brand! They wouldn’t be fans otherwise. They don’t know ME, and they don’t care about ME! Hence, their REAL value! They are my legal tender, my real-world indicators and my compass. I can use these people (collectively and individually) to gauge how I’m doing as a business and brand. The more fans I get, the better I’m obviously doing. When people unsubscribe to my fan pages, I know that I’m not working hard enough. This motivates me to work harder! The bigger my Facebook fan-base grows the more exposure I get to my business & brand… and exposure means possible income!

I’ve been posting regularly themed posts on both pages since their inception. These posts are kind of like the “bits” that late night talk shows do to keep their shows entertaining and unpredictable. They’re meant to change it up and keep things fresh and from getting boring. My posts are carefully planned out and time-released. All of them are designed to stimulate interest in the business or brand respectively and/or to establish an intended reputation.

For example, on my Tyed Art Graphic Design page, I rotate the TYPE of posts. Some days I post a “Did you know?” post. In these, I provide a researched and little-known fact about a famous logo design. Aside from being interesting, providing this information actually portrays Tyed Art, Inc. as a purveyor of logo wisdom and information… a specialist and an expert, if you will. Other days I post about logos that I’ve done in the past to showcase my work (bringing the portfolio to them, one at a time). Some days I’ll just give a quick snippet about what I’m currently working on as a Designer. Some days I show off my other non-logo artwork. The fan base is slowly growing, and almost completely with people I don’t know.

For one of my rotating LittleLDS page post-types, I post comics from the Latter-Day Side that I’ve been developing over the years. These comic posts do several different things.

First, they’re humorous, so they get a quick chuckle. But this chuckle can be viral. Anytime someone reposts that comic (because they thought it was cute, can relate to it, or because they know someone else in their Facebook network who would appreciate it) I get instant and free exposure to their entire friend list. The comics all have the LittleLDS.com signature in the corner which leads them to either the fan page or the official website. Either way is good for me.

Second, the Latter-Day Side comic, which I know full well gets viewed by non-LDS Facebook users, can give some insight into our culture. It says that we can have a sense of humor about ourselves as a people. On other days, with LittleLDS, I post contests or giveaways. Sometimes I just post relevant LDS news topics or ask thought-provoking questions. On Mondays I post simple FHE activity suggestions having to do with the LittleLDS coloring pages themselves.

Marketing this way on Facebook has been extremely insightful. It’s given me a really great education on what does and doesn’t work out there. The idea here is to engage the audience, to get conversations going and to cast my net wide.

I’ve done a lot of research regarding Facebook marketing. I’ve discovered whole manuals on how to engage Facebookers and how to use the program to cross promote. There’s still a lot to learn, and Facebook is really just one tool of many that can be used to market.

Who are you... really?

2009-10-26T09:13:00.000-07:00

It’s been said that J.O.B. stands for "Just Over Broke." It’s also been said that employees work just hard enough to not get fired, while their bosses pay just enough so they won’t quit. I can totally relate to these two observations.

Whenever I’m asked what I do, I usually say that I’m a CAD (Computer-Aid Drafting) Technician by day and an artistic entrepreneur by night. Am I really either of those things though? I mean, in the daytime, sure, I’m at work… but while I’m there I spend most of my time working just hard enough to look like I’m engaged and productive – I get by – while I’m really thinking about my entrepreneurial aspirations. Yes, my numbers look good. Yes, my employer can’t complain about my performance because I "make the grade." When I’m at home with time to spend on those aspirations I’ve dreamt of all day, I’m usually more interested in spending time with my family, catching up on missed TV shows, and eating or sleeping.

So, what am I really? In the brilliant, yet paraphrased words of Steven Pressfield’s 'The War of Art,' am I a writer that doesn’t write? A painter that doesn’t paint? An entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Well, no… I’m not quite that either. I do, after all, START projects. I start them all the time. No, what I am is a non-finisher. I’m a self-motivating starter. I can START all day long. I’ve got a million projects in the R&D and conceptual phases. If I’m really being honest with myself, I’m not truly a Sr. CAD Technician… I just play one at work. If I’m being honest, I’m not truly an entrepreneur at home; I’m just hoping to be one.

I’m not getting down on myself for this. I’m not expecting to be perfect or anything. I’m just stating the obvious here. I am who I am. That’s not to say I’m satisfied though. I’m not yet who I intend to be, nor will I stop trying to become that which I know I have in me to be. But in order to get where I want to go, it’s important that I own up to what or who I truly am first. I’m a writer who usually can’t get further than a blog entry. I’m a poet who has yet to publish his finished work. I’m an illustrator with too many other ideas to sit down and hammer out some good illustrations. I’m an employee only because my employment provides my family with affordable health insurance. I’m just enduring my "J.O.B." until I can develop the gonads to step out into the world…until I can get one of my great ideas to take flight. I’m an inventor with no money to fund a few really great ideas. In short, I’m pretty much just potentially great right now. Potential is good, but until it is realized it’s like equity that is never cashed out. It sounds impressive, but is really worth nothing.

Do you know who or what are you are… really?

Boulder Man (Client Project)

2009-09-24T11:14:00.000-07:00

I just recently finished a project for a client down in Boulder City, Nevada. Although I'm not sure what the purpose was for this project (to the client), it was still a fun one to work on. This character is Boulder Man, no doubt named after the city where my client lives. After receiving my instructions on how the client wanted this character to look, it dawned on me that he had asked me to put the letters "BM" where the "S" would be on Superman. Now, "S" obviously refers to the word "Superman"... that's just a gimme. However, after obediently sketching the "BM" onto the character's chest, all I could think of was... well, poop. Did I really just draw "Bowel Movement" Man?? Concerned that perhaps this hadn't occurred - somehow - to my client, I gently proceeded to inform him of my concern; to make sure this hadn't accidentally gone unnoticed to him. To my great relief, but slight disconcertion, the man had not only already considered both implications, but had actually intended this to be some sort of paralleling inside joke to accompany the title of "Boulder Man." Ooooookie dokie. Whatever. It’s his money and his illustration. I love being an artist.

Secrets to My Organization (3 of 3)

2009-07-15T08:33:00.000-07:00

And finally, the last (but not least) 5 of my 15 tips to organization...

Tip#11: Project into the future & plan ahead – Ask yourself where you’ll be this time tomorrow. What can you do NOW to be prepared for THEN? What about a week from now? A month from now? A year? 5 years? What about at retirement? Plan ahead and make preparations for your future and for the future of your family. (This could be a segment focus each weekly family council)

Create your own family's Virtual Vault (Let me know if you want a copy of mine)
Work on your food storage with your spouse
Keep some extra cash on-hand at home
Start with your distant goals, then break them down into small pieces by working your way back to the present

Tip#12: Define your purpose – Without a distinct purpose for being organized, it is easy to become frustrated by gradual disorder, interruption, or clutter. Give yourself a reason to be organized. It could be to emulate highly successful individuals, to de-stress your life, or just to appearance of being on top of things. The purpose is up to you, but just make sure you HAVE a purpose for being organized.

Tip#13: Don't procrastinate – The more time you have to do something, the more prepared and organized you can be for it. Resolve to do things early.

Tip#14: Learn skills of visual organization – Learn how to visually organize thoughts and ideas (similar to the way this list is outlined) and USE it often. A good example of this type of organization is the folder system that Microsoft Explorer uses. It's simple, easy to manage and to read. Making neat stacks, piles, groups and color coordination are important too. Note taking is simplified and more useful when using a system of organization using bullet points, numbers, capital & lower case letters, roman numerals, symbols, etc…

Tip#15: Make yourself more aware of time – Being organized isn't only about physical place-setting, stacking, and grouping. It also has a lot to do with time management. It's difficult to be organized if you're constantly rushing around or late. Here are some ideas to help you manage time better:

Give yourself time limits for your own tasks and projects, and then be careful to OBSERVE those limits
If you tell someone you'll be somewhere at a certain time, do ALL you can to BE there at that time, if not earlier.
Strive to be EARLY at appointments, meetings, or other arranged functions.
Set an alarm for yourself (use your cell phone… it's always with you anyway)
Get up and go to bed at a reasonable hour (it's harder to be organized when you're exhausted)
Make it a habit to look at a clock at regular intervals (or invest in a watch that beeps on the hour) to help time from getting away from you
Play music that allows you to think (music helps time to be subconsciously measured)

Secrets to My Organization (2 of 3)

2009-07-14T08:18:00.000-07:00

Here are the next 5 tips...

Tip#6: Create an environment of meditation and/or concentration – This might be a place of worship, a jogging route, or your drive to/from work… but you NEED a place to think that is quiet. Wherever and whenever it is, it shouldn't be filled with any music or outside distractions of any kind. Being organized can be greatly facilitated by quiet and uninterrupted thought.

Tip#7: Choose your company deliberately – Not to be confused with surrounding yourself with people like YOU are... instead, try to make friends with the type of people you want to be LIKE. The more you do, the more like them you'll become. If you want to be a punctual person, hang out with people who deem that important. If you want to be more spiritual, hang out with spiritual people. If you want to be more organized, hang out with organized people. You get the idea. The opposite is also true though. If you want to be highly productive, motivated and positive, it won't help you to hang out with people who are lazy or pessimistic. This REALLY works, and it's the reason many people are the way they are... for better or for worse.

Tip#8: Know & embrace your limitations – Try not to bite off more that you can chew. Learn to say NO.

Tip#9: Create & enforce a lunch time "Power-Hour" – Deliberately chose something to work on for ONE hour right in the middle of your workday - during your lunch. Use this hour to research something you would have time for otherwise. Use it to move closer towards a particular project, or subject of study. Just one hour every day for 5 days per week equates to 260 hours of intense and deliberate personal project time!! That's 10.83 days!! Use this time well, and you'll have MORE time at home with the family.

Tip#10: Set challenging but reachable goals –

Write goals down (if they’re not written, they’re just wishes)
Break down your goals into bite-size pieces
Revisit your goals often (weekly is best)
Revise your goals when necessary

Secrets to My Organization (1 of 3)

2009-07-13T11:55:00.000-07:00

I often get complimented on how organized I am (or seem to be). While I'm certainly not as organized as most people think I am, and nowhere nearly as organized as would like to be, I guess when compared to many it's relatively true. I am able to organize fairly well. I like order. I like knowing where and when things are. I like feeling, well... in control of my domain. I guess you could say I'm a bit obsessive-compulsive about some things. Anyway, for those of you who are more random-abstract personality types, this is for you. Over the next couple of days, I'll be posting my 15 "secret tips" to my own organizational success (psshhhh). Today, the first 5;

Tip#1: EVERYTHING can be compartmentalized – For me, this is the most important step to the organization of anything. Make categories & sub-categories. My wife teases me about this one because I’m a bit obsessive about it. Distinctions and differentiations can be made in every area of your life. Here are some basic category examples with some sub-category ideas. The PURPOSES for compartmentalizing can vary from time management, to document management, and from project completion to portion control:

Spouse (Date night, shared duties, intimacy, communication, individual time, etc…)
Children (one-on-one time, outdoor play, reading together, listening, eating together, etc...)
Extended family (Parents, siblings, cousins, etc…)
Finances (Day-to-day spending, Bills & Debt, Retirement, Emergency plan, etc...)
Employment (Running log of past employments / Updating your resume, etc...)
Spirituality (Duties, Meetings & Service, Study & Prayer, etc...)
Hobbies & Recreation (Friends, outings, schedules, etc...)
Business (Book keeping, invoiceing, marketing, accounting, calendaring, etc...)
Home (chores, groceries, repairs, home & yard, etc...)

Tip#2: Make Lists – Without lists, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. I make a new daily list every day, and then get as much done during the day as possible. I usually can't get to everything, so I just roll tasks onto the next day. Lists give me the ability to free up my conscious mind for other important things to remember. Einstein once said that he typically didn't memorize facts that he could easily look up. I like this idea. Writing things down in lists is like having a never-ending supply of virtual RAM on a computer. I can endlessly process more. Lists can be on-growing or finite, and made for ANYTHING:

Daily “To-Do’s”
Ideas
Wants & needs (wish list)
Movies you want to see (eventually)
Interesting websites to explore
Groceries

Tip#3: Prioritize – Once you've got a list made, it is helpful to know in which order things SHOULD be done. There are two strategies to this. One is the Monster strategy which states: "Kill your ugliest monsters FIRST." This gets the tough tasks out of the way first, leaving only simple chores to remain. The second strategy is based on a value system which states: "Decide which of the things on your list are important and which are urgent, and then do the important things FIRST." This method makes sure that you're not just concentrating on putting out fires, but that you are focusing on what really matters. The good news is that YOU are the only one that can correctly prioritize YOUR list. Use the Boulder, then rock, then pebble, then sand, then water method of filling your day with "stuff" to do.

Tip#4: Simplify –

Stop “re-inventing the wheel” by creating spreadsheets & templates for things you do often (to do lists, EQ agendas, housework, etc…)
Pre-establish your own protocols for life ("if this happens, I'll react in this way")… in other words decide ONCE.
If you don't use it regularly, box it up and store it. If you store it for more than a year, consider throwing it a way.
Learn to appropriately say "NO" to things that just stress you out
Keep digital copies of things so you don't have papers stacking up on your work surfaces creating a mess.
Live the "less is more" rule religiously.

Tip#5: Create Routines – It's easier to remember where your keys are when you always put them in the same place. Likewise, it's easier to remember to do anything at the appropriate time if you always to that thing at that same time. Simple habits of consistency can greatly improve your desire and ability to be organized. It also creates a perception of dependability to others.

Most recent logo design

2009-06-12T14:17:00.000-07:00

I just got the final approval today on this most recent logo design. This is the type of logo design I really love, and rarely get to design. Simple and clean. More often than not, less really is more.

General Update

2009-06-11T13:13:00.000-07:00

Since late December of last year, I’ve been working on illustrating a children’s book with a friend of mine which has kept me very busy. The book has a total of 26 pages, all of which have been fully conceptualized and sketched now. I had intended on having all of the pencil sketches scanned and digitized for document back-up purposes (and, quite frankly, because I love the look of sketches and always hate to ink over them. I really wanted to have a “snap shot” version of these illustrations in sketch form), but after getting a quote from the reprographics place, the author and I decided it wasn’t a necessity and wasn’t, therefore, worth the extra cost incursion. I’m a little bummed to be honest, but over $100 for nothing but scans just seemed absurd. If my sketches had been smaller, I could have done it myself at home for nothing, for heaven’s sake! Unfortunately for me, though, these sketches are 17”x14”… just a bit too large for your average scanner. So, I’m currently working on getting all of the sketches inked. Once that is finished, I’ll erase all the underlying pencil work (sniff, sniff) and then suck up the fact that they HAVE to be scanned (at least once) in order for me to continue working on them. When they’re scanned (or “digitized”) I can start the tedious task of vectorizing. That’s probably going to be the most time-consuming stage of this project, I think. Just one of these illustrations alone will probably take nearly 4-5 hours to vectorize, and I’ve got 26 of them to do. I’ve certainly got my work cut out for me.

Aside from the children’s book illustrations, I’m also still working with a company on the east coast on an invention that I started developing a few years ago. It’s nothing major, but its fun to mess with. Who knows if anything will come of it, but I’m learning a lot just by going through this process. This will be my second patent-pending project (the first being my LittleLDS software).

My Training Wheels stories have been sitting idly for a while, due to my focus on the children’s book project. Six of them have been fully written, and need to be illustrated. I’ve got ideas for more, but I’ll have to get back to them when I’m finished with my current children’s book illustrations are done. In the meantime, I’ve been keeping my eyes open for ways to market them. My gut feeling right now, is to NOT market them to the general public, but rather to an “Otaku” crowd first, like private schools, wealthy communities, and special-interest groups.

I’ve done a few logo designs this year. I’m currently wrapping up a logo design for one client, and eager to do more. I’ve come to a realization that logo design is where I really enjoy working the most. It pays well, it comes naturally to me, and EVERYONE and their dog is starting their own “business.” I love that the projects don’t last long and that everyone I work with is excited to work with me because my service represents an exciting new venture for their businesses. I love that it enables me to work from home (or anywhere a laptop goes for that matter), and that I have clients from all over the world. I plan on devoting a lot more time and creative effort into this area of my business.

LittleLDS coloring books and BigLDS t-shirts are pretty stagnant. Oddly enough, this isn’t disconcerting to me at all. I think it’s because they are finished products that I really don’t need to DO anything else with. It’s almost like they’re kids of mine that have grown up and left the house… off to make their way in the world and do their own thing. Of course I’m still concerned about them, but I figure a little time out there in the real world without my meddling might do them (and me) some good. Granted, they need a lot more marketing and advertising to become more noticed by the LDS community at large, but, even with NO marketing at all, I get a few sales here and there throughout the year. My interest doesn’t lie here right now, and I tend to skip around to where my interests lie. I’m sure it’ll return. In the meantime, meager sales will have to suffice.

I also haven’t done any Word Tangles in a long time. Similar to LittleLDS, I’m okay with that. The bait and hook are out there idling on an un-manned fishing pole in the pond of commerce. When the pole wiggles, (and always seems to a few times during the year) I’ll give it the attention it needs.

The Fulcrum Group, a think-tank-like resource, motivation and accountability management group that I organized, still meets regularly and is still one of the best things I’ve done for the productivity of my own business. Because of this group, I’ve been able to stay on target with my illustration project and stay motivated entrepreneurially. As the head of the organization, I’m responsible for each meeting – preparing a weekly agenda, motivational discussions, buzz topics, and project accountability – I’m not just helping others stay motivated and moving forward… its working for me too! I’m on target with my weekly goals, which will turn into success with my yearly goals. In a very direct, and yet unplanned way, running this group has started preparing and positioning me to be a type of Idea Cultivation Coach of sorts. There may be something in that for me in the future.

Finally, my latest effort has been the development of my new blog, ListQuest. This has been an exciting new way for me to push myself just a little further into the multifaceted world of investing and income-generation. ListQuest is a place where I can write all the things I’m researching about multiple streams of income. As its name implies, it’s my own personal quest to acquire as many streams of income as I have on my list. Things like precious metals, tax-lien certificates, intellectual properties, etc… I’m hoping that as I write what I learn, I’ll be able to give new insight to those who might not otherwise discover some of these ways to generate passive income. The idea is to help others shorten their learning curve in these areas while I do the leg work. What’s in it for me? Well, I love to write, I love to learn, I love to teach, and I love the subject of economics. It’s a good fit.

ListQuest

2009-05-19T18:21:00.000-07:00

I'm always on the lookout for new ways to organize things. After reading a book called Multiple Streams of Income, by Robert Allen, which identifies many of the different ways one can generate residual income, I had an idea.

As an aspiring entrepreneur, I'm already working toward financial freedom through the artistic projects I've started. These projects already cover several of the assets mentioned by this book. Products, Services (logo design), Intellectual Properties, and Inventions to name a few. Since I'm already doing this anyway, it made sense to widen my scope to include other types of assets that I'm interested in learning about.

So, I've decided that I would begin a quest, or sorts. The quest would be to create a "master list" of all the different types of residual income that I could learn about through research and then prioritize them in order of acheivability (for me, anyway). Next, as I learn about each, I could start creating a lay-man's guide, or a "how-to" manual on aquiring them... How I learn about them, the challenges I encounter during their aquisition, and how I overcome those challenges to obtain my goal assets, etc. The idea is in the quest itself. I call it my LIST QUEST. The quest to aquire at least ONE of each asset on the list, beginning with the easiest. Finally, I would document my checklist publically on a blog of the same name. I'm excited about this because it'll push me to learn about new and challenging ways to become financially free, and allow me to help others do the same.

FEAR

2009-04-23T10:31:00.000-07:00

“Fear is an indicator. Sometimes it shows you what you shouldn’t do. More often than not it shows you exactly what you should do.”

~ Timothy Ferriss

Overcoming Parkinson's Law

2009-04-21T13:58:00.000-07:00

Parkinson’s Law states that the perceived complexity of a task will expand to fill the time you allot to it. In other words, if you give yourself a week to complete a two-hour task, then (psychologically speaking) the task will increase in complexity and become more daunting so as to fill that week. It may not even fill the extra time with more work, but just stress and tension about having to get it done. By assigning the right amount of time to a task, we gain back more time and the task will reduce in complexity to its natural state.

The law works because people give tasks longer than they really need, sometimes because they want some ‘leg room’ or buffer, but usually because they have an inflated idea of how long the task takes to complete. People don’t become fully aware of how quickly some tasks can be completed until they test this principle.

Want to really challenge yourself? Try making a list of your tasks, and then divide them up by the amount of time it takes to complete them. Then give yourself half that time to complete each task. They key here is to set the time limit, in you mind, as crucial. Treat it like any other deadline. Part of reversing what we’ve been indoctrinated with is to see the deadlines you set for yourself as unbreakable - just like the deadlines your boss or clients set.

Use that human, instinctual longing for competition that fuels such industries as sports and gaming to make this work for you. You have to win against the clock; strive to beat it as if it were your opponent, without taking shortcuts and producing low-quality output. This is particularly helpful if you’re having trouble taking your own deadlines seriously.

At first, this will be partially an exercise in determining how accurate your time projections for tasks are. Some may be spot on to begin with, and some may be inflated. Those that are spot on may be the ones that you are unable to beat the clock with when you halve the time allotment, so experiment with longer times. Don’t jump straight back to the original time allotment because there may be an optimum period in between.

You can experiment with Parkinson’s Law and squashing your deadlines down to the bare minimum in many areas of your life. Just be conscious of the line between ‘bare minimum’ and ‘not enough time’ - what you’re aiming for is a job well done in less time, not a disaster that’s going to lose you employment or clients.

The most important teachers

2009-04-13T12:13:00.000-07:00

The following is an excerpt from the book Rich Kid Smart Kid, by Robert Kiyosaki. It continues on with the theme of education reform.

“Almost every parent I’ve met is certain that his or her child is smart and a genius. When that child reaches school, however, the child’s natural genius is often shoved aside or takes a subordinate roll to the single genius and single learning style emphasized by the educational system as the ‘right way’ to learn.”

“My smart dad and many other educators realize that the current school system does not cater to the various different geniuses that children are born with. It’s unfortunate that our current educational system is mired in controversy and old ideas. While our current system may be aware of many of these educational breakthroughs, the politics and red tape surrounding the profession of education prevent many of these new innovative ways of assessing your child’s genius from becoming part of the system.”

I like this quote because it reminds me that the most important teachers my kids will ever have will be (or, at least OUGHT to be) my wife and me. However, in order to be a better teacher to my own kids, I need to continue on with my own education and studies, as Mr. Kiyosaki suggests, and DO what I teach. I need to ‘walk my talk.’ Like most kids, mine “…learn more by watching than they do by listening. Children are tuned into watching for discrepancies between words and actions. Children love to catch parents saying one thing and doing something else.”

Currently, little to nothing is taught about money in school. As always, their focus is to teach them skills they’ll need in life to EARN money, but those skills needed to help them manage their earned money after that. If I want my kids to learn the basic principles of wise spending, saving, and investing, I’ve got to teach them those skills myself. And if I want to do that, I’ve go to learn those skills myself first.

Do Schools Kill Creativity?

2009-04-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

I recently discovered an online venue that has positively captivated my attention. Positively, because what I've gleaned from it has been VERY positive in deed. Although the venue itself is truely remarkable, and highly recommended for it's interesting topics, curious presentations, educational speakers, entertaining qualities, and fascinating explanations... it is not what this post is about.

The following video contains a point view about education that I cannot agree with more. It's compelling, sensible, logical, intreguing, honest, and even entertaining. I'm posting this video in support of my efforts to sculpt my own corner of education reform... My Training Wheels series of books. If ever there were a good explaination of why this type of out-of-the-box thinking is necessary and relavant for the modified education of children of today, this is it:

Do Schools Kill Creativity? (19:24)
(by Sir Ken Robinson)

Levelers & Untouchables

2009-03-20T15:29:00.000-07:00

As always, I’ve been listening to an audio book to keep my mind sharp while I trudge along at work. The book is called “The World Is Flat” by Thomas L. Friedman. It’s a brief history of the 21st century, and has a lot of really good snippets between a lot of really dry information. Not riveting, by any means, but interesting and educational. I love the library!

Anyway, the book’s general premise is about the different ways in which the world is “flattening,” or in other words, the different ways in which the world’s economic, technological, informational, and entrepreneurial playing fields are being leveled as time goes on. It discusses 8 “Levelers” that have either transpired or are currently transpiring to level these playing fields to the advantage of the every-man. Each of these levelers has, or is, contributing to what the author has labeled a “flat world” – a world in which everyone has an equal opportunity at success and prosperity. These are the 8 “Levelers;”

1 - The PC and Windows Leveler – enabling, speeding up and the facilitating of personal computation and productivity
2 - The Internet Leveler – The shrinking of the world by connecting every one to everyone else
3 - The Workflow Software Leveler – Applications talking to other applications & standardization of programs and processes
4 - The Open-Source Leveler – challenging proprietary technology and big business with the synergizing of knowledge and talent through shareware
5 - The Out-Source Leveler – Enabling small business to look big without big costs
6 - The Supply Chain Leveler – Making non-local specialties, customs, and opportunities local and more accessible (e.g. UPS)
7 - The In-Source Leveler – The absorption of specialized tasks of other businesses to increase the productivity and efficiency of both parties
8 - The Informing Leveler – The facilitating of constant access to knowledge and information (i.e. Google & Wikipedia)

The book also mentions 5 “steroids” that enhance, magnify and intensify these levelers… These are digitalization, mobility, personalization, virtualization, wirelessness. What a profound realization!

Here’s a really great quote from the book, “…When I was growing up my parents used to say to me, ‘Tom, finish your dinner - people in China and India are starving!’ My advice to you is, ‘finish your homework – people in China and India are starving for your jobs!’”

The author’s plan for safe-guarding one’s self against being eventually out-sourced in a highly competitive world is to become, what he calls, an “Untouchable.” According to him, there are 4 types of untouchables;

1 - Special - Especially talented, skilled or unique (e.g. Michael Jordan)
2 - Specialized – Becoming so specifically trained and capable that your skill are a necessity and therefore non-fungible
3 - Anchored – being tied to a location (doctors, construction worker, waiter, etc…)
4 - Adaptable – constantly acquiring new skills, knowledge and expertise to always create value and relevancy… in short, learn how to learn.

It really is amazing the way everything is becoming so accessible to everyone. This is extremely obvious when you look at the number of self-made millionaires and even more self-made business-owners. Folks nowadays are able to perform their own due-diligence instead of paying a “professional.” They’re starting, managing and legalizing their own businesses without accountants or attorneys. It really is amazing! I’m not sure if all of this leveling is a good thing or a bad thing!

The "Good Idea" Paradox

2009-03-13T16:33:00.000-07:00

Although I’ve always known it as common sense, I’ve only recently admitted to myself conscientiously that a “great idea” isn’t always a “good idea.” Allow me to clarify…

For a very long time now, I’ve been morphing increasingly into, what my many of my friends call an “idea man.” I love ideas. I love the excitement they conjure up inside me. I love the energy, innovation, creativity, and development of new ideas. Not only do I love coming up with my own ideas, but I love helping other people develop their ideas too. Intrinsically speaking, of course, I recognize this as a good thing. I mean, who doesn’t want to have good ideas, right? Practically speaking, however, it’s a very inconvenient thing for me. The very prospect of a new idea can derail me from whatever I’m currently working on faster than a pebble can derail a whole train from a set of steel tracks. It doesn’t seem to matter what I’m doing… If a new idea occurs to me internally or is introduced to me externally, the result is the same… DROP EVERYTHING! It’s my natural instinct.

I noticed the beginnings of this phenomenon about 10 years ago. At first, I had some good ideas, and they were manageable as that... just a few individual projects. However, before they were fully explored or developed, more ideas would accumulate. It seemed the muses started gathering in masses and forming lines at my side, each with their own project ideas. Invention ideas, sketch concepts, business ideas, books I could write, ways I could organize the way I did things, ways to be more effective and efficient… Before long, it felt like the muses were actually competing with each other and yelling over the top of one another to be heard rather than quietly and subtly whispering into my ear. Soon, it felt like I was a super-charged idea magnet sucking in every idea that hung floating in the air around me like iron filings.

Okay… sure, I’m being a little dramatic here. It’s not like I’m the John Travolta character from the movie “Phenomenon” or anything, but still… I have had a LOT of ideas over the years.

A few years ago, I started to capture and “pickle” my ideas for later development using a technique that I've coined “BrainVomiting.” It’s really just free-flowing your thoughts into written (or typed) documentation for later sorting and processing. This blog, for instance, is a form of this process, but back then my BrainVomit consisted mostly of a large note book that I used to tote around to record all my ideas, their dates of conception, and a brief (or sometimes lengthy) description of each as they came. The physical book, over time, became a bit cumbersome to heft around everywhere, so I eventually converted my process into a digital method. I created a single Excel file on a flash drive which I now carry with me everywhere I go. This one file is made up of many, MANY tabs. Each tab represents ONE concept or idea. Some are very well developed, while others are simply meant to be book markers to just get the idea documented so as to not be forgotten.

Some of my own ideas have been fleshed out, by not many. Some have made it through the spreadsheet exploration phase, past the drawing board, and even on to production and publication. Ideas of mine with actual real-world development and/or recognition are rare and highly valuable to me. And herein lies my problem.

I rarely get past the BrainVomit part of any idea before another one comes bursting into my brain like a ticked-off S.W.A.T. team! Next thing I know, I’ve completely shelved a perfectly good adolescent idea for another infantile one. There’s little growth.

The other day, my wife approached me with an idea she had heard about on the news. Of course, she knows me well enough to know that I can’t just hear an idea without exploring it, if even just a little. Without going into detail about the idea itself, it's sufficient to say that it had a lot of merit. It wasn’t her idea, and it certainly wasn’t a new one in and of itself, but it was a good solid idea. In fact, it was such a good idea that I, fell right into my typical pavlovian response of promptly dropping every other project I had been working on like lead weights and took it with me to one of my next Fulcrum Group meeting. I was sure that this new exciting idea would get some attention and traction there. I told my friend about it and he lit right up just as expected.

"It's a no-brainer! LET’S do it!!"

Newly refuled with the familiar and intoxicating excitement and zeal that I always feel at the prospect of a new GREAT IDEA, I started to develop it in a new tab in my digital BrainVomit file. However, something different happened this time. The more I worked on developing it, the more I started to rethink it the whole thing. Not the potential of the idea itself – no question there... it’s still a GREAT idea – no, I started to rethink my idea-flowing method. All of a sudden it hit me, as though I hadn’t ever considered it before (although I must have done at some point before) that jumping to a brand new idea now might not be…ironically… a good idea. Not the BEST idea anyway.

I ended up talking to my Fulcrum Group friend about my concerns, and it turned out that he was feeling exactly the same way about this new project, and had anticipated bringing it to my attention. I was really glad that he, in fact, felt the same way. We mutually agreed that, despite the legitimately GREAT opportunity this particular idea had presented us with, it was ultimately not wise to pursue. I’ll be honest… It was unsettling to do this. I wasn’t used to intentionally deciding NOT to chase another great idea.

What I’ve learned; it isn’t always a good idea to chase a GREAT one.

The Analogy of Leverage

2009-01-29T10:32:00.000-08:00

Last night the Fulcrum Group met together and had a very productive session. At the beginning of the meeting, and after learning that Archimedes discovered the lever, I heard a quote by Archimedes which began a very thought-provoking discussion. The quote was,

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”

The question was then asked of the group at large,

“If this group is, in fact, a fulcrum - which represents motivation, accountability and resource - then what does the lever represent, and what does the object being lifted represent?”

After listening to the opinions of the others, I gave them mine. I told them I thought that the object being lifted represented each individual project that we’ve assigned to ourselves and that the lever represented the talents and/or abilities that we have. Our talents and abilities, alone, may reach and be applied to our projects, but without the motivation, accountability and additional resources of the fulcrum, we are left armed only with our own strength. The Fulcrum Group has provided me with the ability to multiply my own strength and give me the leverage over my own projects that I lack without it.

Stirring the Back-Burners

2009-01-20T12:41:00.000-08:00

Well, along with my "front-burner" projects (namely, the illustrating of a children's book with an friend from the Fulcrum Group, writing, editing and illustrating my own Training Wheels series), I'm also trying to keep some of my other already-existing ventures fresh. Among other things, I'm currently designing a logo for a convenience store company in Florida which is always fun for me. Not only do I really enjoy designing logos themselves, but every once in a while, I find it refreshing and even creatively necessary to jump from one project to another. It allows me some much needed change of scenery and the switching of concepts.

Most recently, my LittleLDS brand has been getting some subconscious mental attention. I've discovered that while I work on one project, inspiration and motivation will often build and eventually crescendo into an outright epiphany at some point in favor of the projects that I've had simmering on my mental "back-burners" for a while. I think this is the responsible side of my brain's way of keeping things exciting and fresh for the childishly impatient attention-span’s side.

Anyway, while working on something completely unrelated the other day, I had an idea that would be a lot of fun to do with LittleLDS. Until now, the products that I sell with LittleLDS have been designed specifically for LDS (Latter-Day Saint) children. Of course, logically, the marketing of these products has been geared only towards young LDS parents (mostly mothers) because those children can’t buy for themselves. The other day, however, it finally hit me that I’ve been completely ignoring the parents themselves as direct consumers all along! Here I am, trying to get parents to buy stuff for their kids when I could have been simultaneously marketing different products to the parents themselves! Immediately after making this realization this weekend I went to work to expand the brand to include the new simple, consistent, and logical next step… BigLDS!

LittleLDS is all about using coloring pages to help LDS kids understand their faith better. So, what is BigLDS? Simply put, it’s the vehicle I’ll be using to package all my other LDS-related ideas into. All the ideas I’ve had that just don’t quite fit well into the LittleLDS brand. Things like the Latter-Day Side comic that I created months ago, which hasn’t had a logically place to be displayed. It’s also where I’m featuring the WMC stuff. The WMC was a gag-concept that, oddly enough, is morphing into a real thing right before my eyes (more on that later). Anyway, check it out. Go to the BigLDS store link (in the right column of this blog) to see what I’m building there. I’m still tweaking everything, so explore with the same restrained scrutiny that you would if you were walking around the construction site of a funhouse. Enjoy.

The Fulcrum Group (Part II)

2009-01-05T15:11:00.000-08:00

This is the logo I designed for The Fulcrum Group. I'm a big fan of simplicity in my logo designing, and I think the light "F" and the dark "G" in this one are a good contrast to one another. The trick was coming up with a good balance of weight between the positive and negative spaces. My thanks to the Amazing Glennardo for helping me narrow down some of my concept's weaknesses and suggesting this version's +/- effect.

Meeting "Notes"

2008-12-28T23:01:00.000-08:00

Reason #155 to NOT work for someone else;
"Holiday Meetings"

On Christmas Eve I had to work. It was a rediculous day to be at work from the get-go, but to make things worse, my boss actually scheduled a real meeting that day for the whole team. I'm not sure if he was trying to keep us focused or if he was just being mean. Either way, it was retarded. This image is the result of the "notes" I took during that meeting. I call it "Barbbed." I guess that is the way I was feeling about having to be in a meeting on Christmas Eve. Hhhh...

Taking Care of "Business"

2008-12-28T23:00:00.000-08:00

The other day, while "seated" in the men's room I was looking at the randomly patterned marble tiled floor, as I always do during "business time", and found myself image-hunting. I've done this all my life. In the random designs of the floor, I see images and then I draw them. Faces, space ships, hands, animals, and creatures. Weird, I know, but I'm an artist, and inspiration has to come from somewhere. I don't pick the places where the muses choose to whisper to me. Pitty, though, that the muses feel it necessary to converse with me while "I'm taking care of business." This is the sketch that resulted from the image I saw last Friday. I call it "The Nukkelip"

The Fulcrum Group

2008-12-23T12:31:00.000-08:00

Although I’ve always liked the idea of having a business partner, I’ve never been able to find a good match for myself. I like the idea of having someone else to bounce my ideas off of to give me feedback. I’m not talking about the, “Yeah, that looks nice,” type of stuff. You know, “real” feedback. The kind that you can’t get from your mom, and that is legal tender in the real world. I’m a big boy…I can take it. I like the idea of having someone pushing me for deadlines and helping me exercise accountability for my goals. I like the idea of having someone to consult with before making a big decision. I like the creative process of playing the devil’s advocate in conversation and brainstorming. Sure, working on your own has its benefits too, but still… having a partner would be fun.

I’ve never had a business partner, though. I’ve tried it before – a couple of times – but it’s never really worked out. It’s never seemed like a real partnership. It’s always been more like one person piggy-backing on the ideas of another. I don’t want to work on someone else’s project and I don’t want them taking equal credit or profits for something I did 90% of. Maybe I’m picky, but I’m also realistic. Still, I like the idea of a partnership. I think I like the idea of partnership more than the actual thing.

This is why I have some of the friends that I do. I like surrounding myself with motivated and like-minded people. And although this helps, even this sometimes doesn’t cut it. Recently I started my own little think tank. Once a week, a few of my like-minded friends and I get together to bounce ideas off one another, talk about trends, set written and verbal goals, and report on the progress of previously set goals. We have a written agenda with each meeting, some sort of dinner, and some great intellectual conversation. Really, our group is a smaller version of Benjamin Franklin’s “Junto” group, from which I got the idea.

We’ve called our little get-togethers “The Fulcrum Group” because of its roll in each of our respective projects. A fulcrum is a strong and steady object or pivot point which provides the leverage necessary to make lifting or moving possible where it might not otherwise be. Each of us has our own projects to work on and our own deadlines. The group provides the sounding board the motivation, and the brainstorming that we all respectively lack without it. It also provides a sense of accountability and camaraderie.

Too Young? I think not!

2008-12-18T09:36:00.000-08:00

I think Whitney Houston said it best when she sang the words, “…I believe that children are our future. Teach them well, and let them lead the way…” A bit cheesy perhaps, but still true.

Ever since I started working on my Training Wheels series, I’ve been on the look-out for other sources of education for my kids in the areas of business & entrepreneurship. I’ve been looking for others who share with me the sense of urgency to give my kids a head start on a good foundation of financial concepts and education. After doing some research, I’ve discovered that apparently I’m not the only one who thinks it’s a great idea to start teaching kids early about “grown-up” concepts like the ones I teach in my Training Wheels stories. Check these out!!

Rich Kid, Smart Kid (Rich Dad, Poor Dad’s Robert Kiyosaki teaches kids about assets, liabilities, and how money works through the Cash Flow for Kids board game. We have this game, and my 6 year-old daughter LOVES it!!)

The BizWorld Foundation (business and entrepreneurial training & education for kids… also check out this video. This is an incredible program!!)

Give Me 20 (Helping kids learn about money & credit through allowance and other resources)

A Smart Kid (The Foundation for Change helps teach kids about financial literacy through the “Moolah Matters” program.)

Moonjar (Teaching kids about money through their “Save, Spend and Share” program & products)

Kids are a LOT smarter than we give them credit for. They pick up on things quickly, and are too naïve to believe in the “I can’t do it” logic that many adults have subscribed to. If kids can learn about weather and kinetic energy, they can certainly learn about the simplified concepts of economics and entrepreneurialism! This weekend I’m meeting with my programmer about the new Training Wheels interactive website that I’m building. He’s flying into town tomorrow and we should have a great company-funded weekend here in Vegas!!

A Timely Statement

2008-12-04T09:29:00.000-08:00

The following statement was forwarded to me this morning by my grandad. It's succinct, profound, and I couldn't agree more with it:

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that, my dear friend, is about the end of any nation.You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

- The late Dr. Adrian Rogers

"That's work-related, right?

2008-11-21T10:06:00.000-08:00

Reason #262 to not work for someone else;
"The Miromanager"

So, it’s Friday again. Another week has passed and it’s time to start winding down. I’ve got my typical Friday-friendly t-shirt and jeans with Hard Rock Café hat on. It wouldn’t be Friday otherwise. The anticipation of next week’s short 3-day pre-Thanksgiving work week hangs in the air and has everyone feeling pretty good. When I got to the office, I started out with my normal prepare-for-the-day, and more importantly, prepare-for-the-weekend routine. Styrofoam cup full of steaming no-name brand instant hot chocolate to warm me up…check. Boot-up the computer…check. Open work email and check for company notices…check. Layout my first project folder…check. Make my list of things to do today…check. Open my “Brain Vomit” spreadsheet so I can jot down any random epiphanies I might have during the workday…ch… Suddenly, my boss, “Poptart” is standing behind me staring at my screen with paycheck in hand and smugly says, “That’s work-related, right?”

Hhhhhh…… Seriously??

After a very awkward few seconds, as I alt-tabbed my way back to a work-related screen, Poptart left and I resumed my now-interrupted workday. Not even two minutes later, through my peripheral vision, I noticed him walking towards my cubical again, and this time I didn’t even look up at him. In knew exactly what he was doing, and it really rubbed me the wrong way. Without stopping, he nonchalantly circumvented my work area. When he was no longer within my peripheral vision I knew he had to be behind me. Without moving my head, I looked up over my computer monitor at his reflection in the class partition that divided my space and the next just in time to see him look ever his shoulder at my screen.

As if this wasn’t’ bad enough, he did exactly the same thing AGAIN just 4 or 5 minutes later!! What the crap?? Why is he busting my chops today??? Did he think I wouldn’t notice? Don’t managers, supervisors and bosses know that a happy employee is a productive employee? His obvious attempts to catch me off-task only fueled my desire to NOT be productive!!

You know, normally, I’m a great worker. I consistently have some of the best numbers in the department. I’m always on time, I meet deadlines, and get along well with my co-workers. And yet somehow this retard feels the need to micromanage me based one single out-of-context moment when I was not looking at a work-related screen. I would actually have understood his suspicions had he at least caught me on an offensive or distasteful website (which I don’t do either). That, at least would seem validated. But a spreadsheet of randomly jotted ideas??

Please!!! This is like when retarded cops pull people over and ticket them for having one headlight out. Seriously? There aren’t enough drug users and domestic violence cases out there to focus on? Ugh…

The Winning Edge

2008-11-18T14:37:00.000-08:00

I heard two pretty awesome concepts today while listening to some audio books. The first concept was about what it takes to beat the competition in business. I thought this analogy was really brilliant;

“If a horse runs in a horse race and comes in first, by a nose, it wins ten times the prize money of the horse that comes in second…by a nose. Now does this mean that the horse that comes in first by a nose is ten times better than the horse that comes in second? Does it mean that it’s even twice as good? Does it mean that it’s fifty percent better or even ten percent better? The truth of the matter is that it’s only a “nose” better, but the difference in prize money is enormous.

The person who gets the sale for their company gets one hundred percent of the business and one hundred percent of the commission. The person who does not gets zero. This does not mean that the person who does not get the sale is only half as good as the person who gets the sale. It just means that they were slightly different while selling. The key to success is to develop that winning edge.”

The second one was about developing our intelligence. In this book, the author was expressing a belief that there are multiple facets of one’s intelligence. I like the breakdown and thought it even supported the first audio book’s point about developing the winning edge. The more of these areas of intelligence that we can develop, the better suited we can be to gain the winning edge in that area.

1- Lingual Intelligence – The ability to grasp vocabulary, grammar, and languages
2- Numerical Intelligence – The ability to understand numbers, mathematics and logic
3- Spatial Intelligence – The ability envision 3-dimensionally within the mind’s eye
4- Musical / Rhythmic Intelligence – The ability to read, write and play music and rhythm
5- Bodily Kinesthetic Intelligence – The ability to coordinate one’s physical activity at will
6- Interpersonal Intelligence – The ability to understand, communicate and relate to others
7- Intrapersonal Intelligence – The ability to understand and master one’s self
8- Naturalistic Intelligence – The ability to understand one’s environment and nature
9- Visionary Intelligence – The ability to foresee, predict, and anticipate trends and cycles

A Good Day

2008-11-04T15:02:00.000-08:00

The last 24 hours have been really good. Despite what happens the rest of the day today, I've placed myself one step closer to two of my goals.

A few weeks ago I purchased 'Cashflow for Kids', a game created by Robert Kiyosaki to help teach kids all about fiscal responsibility. K and I played it by ourselves a few days ago to get a feel for it, and then last night, because she was just going off-track and didn't have any school this morning, K and I allowed my 6 year-old, M, to stay up late. Once the other two kids were in bed K and I decided to play the game with M. It turned out even better than I had hoped. Not only did M seem to grasp the game quickly (which I expected), but K seemed to really enjoy teaching it to her. I was very impressed. It was awesome watching my wife teach my daughter about concepts like assets vs. liabilities and income vs. expenses. K and I have never enjoyed conversing about that stuff to each other. Like every other married couple, finances have not always been the easiest thing to work with. We manage, but never easily. Seeing this game in action was much more than fun for me. It was so satisfying to watch M get excited by her good fortune as she passed paydays, collected money, made purchases and learned from sobering pseudo financial experiences. One step closer to seeing M succeed in life financially.

Today during breaks and lunch I finally finished my 6th Training Wheels story too! It's called "Dig Another Hole" and I'm really looking forward to reading to the M and E tonight at bedtime. I've already given them the title, and they've been asking about it. I do that on purpose so that I'll stay motivated to finish each one. I've already got my next topic picked out and will be starting it tomorrow. One step closer to publishing my Training Wheels stories!

It's been a good day.

"Pumpkin Face"

2008-10-29T23:43:00.000-07:00

Prioritizing vs. Posteriorizing

2008-10-21T10:28:00.000-07:00

A Tuesday Tip:

I learned something this morning that, for many, probably seems rather obvious. I’ve found that for me, however, some things just need to be SAID. Too often, things that are just assumed are consequently missed by simple people like me. I heard the following in one of my audio books this morning, and it really resonated with me.

"Sometimes, in the process of restructuring, reengineering, reinventing and reorganizing, you have to be prepared to completely change what you are doing. You have to be prepared to discontinue some activities so that you can spend more time on other higher-value activities. Since your most precious resource is your time, and the key to time management is your ability to set proper priorities, there is another concept that is invaluable to you; this is the idea of setting posteriorities as well.

A priority is something that you do more of, and sooner. A posteriority is something, on the other hand, that you do less of, and later… if at all. A priority is something that you move up on your list of activities and focus on getting done earlier and well. A posteriority is something that you decide to cut back on or discontinue altogether.

Here’s the secret… You can only get your life under control to the degree to which you STOP doing certain things of low value, in order to free up more time that you can then use to do things of higher value.” (Quote by Brian Tracy)

Until today, I’d never even heard of a posteriority. I’ve heard the word posterior, but never would have thought to link it to this context before. I like the concept, though, of not ONLY prioritizing but also posteriorizing. It makes EVERYTHING on your “to do” list more intentionally planned and organized. It also puts things on your list that should be done LESS. These things would never be on any of my lists otherwise!

Its true, for me anyway, that when I create my “to do” list each day, I usually prioritize those things that are most urgent to happen first. Then, I move on to the important things. By contrast, however, I’ve often heard that when most highly successful people plan the consumption of their time, they first distinguish between what is urgent and what is important. Then they do what is important FIRST. Easier said than done, I think, but a wise and valuable technique nonetheless.

Prioritizing alone, results in a process of elimination method, which leaves other things which are, by default, just not high priorities. This isn’t a very thorough way of planning with purpose. It leaves activities that are simply un-prioritized things to do. They are just things to be done…”sometime.” These are usually the things that carry over from one day to another, or in many cases, from one month or even year to another. The ironic part is that had those things NOT been added to the “to DO” list at all, they would still be undone. We put them on a list, but we don’t do them because they have not been prioritized highly enough. The day expires and we’re left with the list’s left-overs…again. And not too many people like left-overs. Occasionally, we need to just through left-overs out. Free up the space in the fridge for other things that need refrigeration. By posteriorizing, we can determine whether an activity even merits any place at all on our list. By this same technique, we can also determine which of the many activities consuming our time throughout the day needs to STOP consuming our time.

"Attributes"

2008-10-17T07:17:00.000-07:00

This is my latest Tangle piece. Yes, it is meant to be busy... it's got all of my tangles in it; Love, Joy, Honor, Family Peace, and Amor. In order to fit them all into a nicely shaped rectangle, however, some have been cropped. Serendipitously, this gives the effect that the tangles are boundless and just keep going forever beyond what you can see in this frame. Their ignorance of the black borders accentuates this effect. I've place the Harmon tangle in the center (for those who have a hard time distinguishing the tangles).

We interrupt this blog...

2008-10-08T10:08:00.001-07:00

On this blog I typically don't post about topics that don't relate to my interest in entrepreneurialism or about my business aspirations and observations. However, the following topic is SO important to me that it merits the interruption of my typical blogging theme. Please view this video, and check out the following links. I would STRONGLY encourage everyone reading this blog to do whatever you can to take a stand for what is right as it relates to the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman:

http://www.protectmarriage.com/

http://www.whatisprop8.com/

... we now return to the regularly scheduled blog already in progress...

Project 10 to the 100th

2008-10-03T13:02:00.000-07:00

A buddy of mine recently told me about a contest that the mega-company GOOGLE is doing. They’ve called this contest "Project Ten to the Hundredth” and it has captivated my interest. The winner(s) of the contest will be the one(s) who have the most broad-reaching idea. The idea is to help as many people as possible. The following are the areas which each idea should cover:

Community: How can we help connect people, build communities and protect unique cultures?
Opportunity: How can we help people better provide for themselves and their families?
Energy: How can we help move the world toward safe, clean, inexpensive energy?
Environment: How can we help promote a cleaner and more sustainable global ecosystem?
Health: How can we help individuals lead longer, healthier lives?
Education: How can we help more people get more access to better education?
Shelter: How can we help ensure that everyone has a safe place to live?
Everything else: Sometimes the best ideas don't fit into any category at all.

Now, normally, after hearing about a project like this, I would have wanted to come up with an idea. However, this time, it was quite different. This time, just such an idea already existed in my head. In fact, I had an idea several weeks ago that seemed too large for me. I wondered why it had been sent to me at all, until this contest came along. It’s almost as if the idea came in anticipation of the contest, or perhaps the contest came along to accommodate the idea.

So, when I heard about the contest, my recently conceived idea IMMEDIATELY came to the forefront of my mind. It was weird. Now, I’m not retarded…I don’t expect to place in the top 100 finalists, let alone win. The only reason I’m entering is only because the idea came to me and I have nothing else to do with it. Out of the context of this contest, my idea is too big for my otherwise incapable hands. So, I’m going to use this contest as a way to help the idea along to someone else who, if noticed, could get the attention and resources it would require. That isn't me.

So, today, I wrote it all out and entered. The idea is so grandiose that I'm embarrassed to even mention it here. It's sufficient to say that I've entered and my idea conduit is cleared again having had a movement and passed a rather large.... well, idea. I've entered the contest as myself, so on the 27th of January, my entry will be visible to the public with everyone else’s.

Now, with that idea out of the way, I can get back to writing my "Training Wheels" stories again. Whew!

Another One Down

2008-09-29T12:18:00.000-07:00

My latest “SOP” Project is finally finished! For the past few weeks I’ve stolen a moment here and a few moments there while at work and in my home office late at night to work on my most recently finished “Training Wheels” story. This one (the longest one so far) is called ‘The Stilt Garage,’ a strange title, no doubt, until you’ve read the story. I debuted it officially the other night to my two daughters at bed time and was impressed (and a little surprised) at how much of it my 6-year-old understood. As she always does at the end, she eagerly repeated to me what she had understood to be the underlying plot, moral, and varying details of this new story. My 4-year-old, on the other hand, had fallen asleep during the reading. Nice. Ah, well….she is only 4.

I’ve already got an idea for the next two stories that I’ll be writing soon. In the meantime, as they develop, I think maybe I’ll start illustrating my first one now that I have several stories finished. Believe it or not, I think illustrating them will be the hard part for me – fun - but a bit of a challenge. I’ve flirted with the idea of hiring another artist to illustrate them simple to have them get done sooner. I’ve enjoyed writing them so much that illustrating them has seemed almost a chore. Last night, however, while discussing this point with my better half, I was reminded about dumb I would feel having a series of books on the market who’s cover said, “Written by Ty Harmon and illustrated by Mr. Some Other Dude.” A good point. She’s totally right. No matter how long it takes me to illustrate them, I NEED to be the one do it.

The Amazing Glennardo!

2008-09-16T10:12:00.000-07:00

I just got off the phone with my kid-brother Glenn, who just happens to be one of my very favorite people. I look up to him a lot. He’s shown a lot of ambition in the last few years in chasing his dreams to become a big time animation artist, and this week, all his work has finally paid off! He just told me that he’s moving to L.A. to take a job as a Story Artist with Sony Pictures!!! I’m SOOO excited for him!!! Selfishly, I’m secretly excited, too, because he’ll only be 4 hours away from me now! Just a few days ago he was on the verge of accepting an offer to work for Blue Sky Animation in New York. That would have AWESOME for him, and really hard for us. L.A. will prove to be a GREAT opportunity for him too! Here is a link to a site that shows some of the TYPES of things he'll be working on. Oh, and did I mention that I taught him everything he knows about art??? (pshhhh, right. I wish....)

Congratulations Glenn!!!

Keeping the Bunny Energized

2008-09-12T11:59:00.000-07:00

I’ve always been a very up-and-down kind of guy. I’m the type of person who wears his emotions on his sleeve for the entire world to see ALL the time. I have a really hard time concealing it. The change in my continence is not only obvious, but often. I’m like a roller coaster… up, down, up down, up, down… If I’m feeling disappointed or depressed, it’s obvious from my deflated posture and sullen facial expressions. When I’m successful or excited, there’s a noticeable spring in my step, a grin splitting my face in half and a palpable energy around me. I can barely contain myself with the need to share my glee! Mad, nervous, stressed, frustrated, confused… it’s all the same. Obvious, and…. up, down, up, down, up down. My face is like a billboard exclaiming to all passers by how my day is going. I don’t do any of this intentionally. I’m not sure how to NOT do it. Conversely, and inconceivably, I have friends who, upon winning the lottery, would react as though they had just heard the beep of a microwave telling them that their hot pocket lunch is ready. “Oh, that’s good.” That's it?? That kind of temperment and mentality baffles me to no end. No passion, no exageration, no zeal...

I’m also a very idea-infatuated person. I’ve got more ideas bouncing around in my little head than Las Vegas has hotel rooms! Some of them are even good ideas. With all of this neural activity, one tends to shift from inspiration to ambitition, then distraction, deflation, and finally frustration… all in short succession.

I’m no Energizer Bunny! The constant mixing of all that brain traffic and roller coaster mood-swinging can be exhausting. And being this way, my ABs (Ambition Batteries) often require recharging. Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. I agree. And I’ve not only discovered the necessity to recharge my ambition batteries, but I’ve also invented several methods to do it. These work for me anyway…

Discover what inspires you, and inspire yourself with it regularly: For me, this means audio books, success stories on YouTube, and casual drives through rich neighborhoods. Although I’m always looking for new ones, I listen to the same 2 audio books over and over and over again. Each time, I get something totally new from them and ALWAYS a charge to my “ABs!” I love watching clips from interviews and documentaries on YouTube about successful people. There’s just something very inspiring about see “how they did it.” I love driving through neighborhoods of the wealthy. I like to see their lavish yards, fancy cars and amazing houses. It helps me to remember what’s possible with hard work, creativity, and innovative thinking.

Surround yourself with like-minded “birds of a feather”: You don’t play in the mud with pigs without getting dirty, and you don’t surround yourself with smokers without eventually smelling like one. The same can be said about cleanliness, education and success. Becoming what you want to be can be greatly accelerated by associating with those who are already living it.

Keep your eye on the prize through lists: Achieving many little goals leads to achieve the big ones. Slow-going or not, a step in the right direction every day will eventually result in arriving at the desired destination. I’m a total list-maker. Every day I create a new list, check things off when they’re done, and then start over again the next day. Writing things down not only frees up my mind for more active brain traffic, but it also helps me sleep more soundly, feel more accomplished, actually achieve more goals, and, in the end, keep my “ABs” charged.

Simple Words of Wisdom

2008-09-11T15:19:00.000-07:00

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic and power in it. Begin it now.”

~ W. H. Murray

Most Recent Logo Design

2008-09-03T12:36:00.000-07:00

I just finished this logo design for a company in California called "House of Chocolate."

I've been told that the difference between a customer and a client is "repeat business." Most of the logo design work I do is for one-timers. Not too many people need more than one logo design unless they're ambitious enough to have more than one business venture going on. Consiquently, I typically don't hear back from my customers after finishing their logo designs. Every once in a while, though, I'll get an extra ambitious customer who, after having worked with me before and loving what we came up with, will commission me for another project, thus officially becoming one of my "clients." I love these business relationships. Typically all that is required are the details of the new design and we're off and running.

This logo was done for a "Client." This particular client was a delight to work with. She didn't even contact me to let me know she needed a new logo in an email. Instead, I suddenly had a 50% deposit arrive in my Paypal account with a little note from her saying that she need another design. What a lovely surprise! Wish all my business dealings could be so easy. Thanks House of Chocolate! Mmmmm... Kind of makes your mouth water, doesn't it?

"Training Wheels" #5

2008-09-01T23:01:00.000-07:00

Well, today was a holiday (Labor Day) and I used my free time to write. Knowing how important my creative time is to me, my wife was kind enough to "allow" me to hide in my office for a large part of the day. Eventually I came out long enough to get some "extra Saturday" work done in the garage, but by then I had already had my fill of being creative.

I finally finished writing my 5th "Training Wheels" children's story today! I've been working on this one for a while, and I'm really happy with it. It's called "The Tree-Man's Trade." I tested it out tonight on my two little daughters for their bedtime story tonight. They were entertained, and that is all I could ask for. My oldest, being my biggest fan, paid extra close attention to the story, and when it was finished, told me that she was very proud of me for writing such a great story. What a good kid.

Now I've got to get these first 5 stories illustrated and find myself a good literary agent. Not sure what that's going to run me, but I'm assuming it won't be cheep. I'm going to start my 6th title tomorrow. I've already got a lot of ideas for it.

Latest Word Tangle

2008-08-24T23:03:00.001-07:00

The Theory of Mediocrity

2008-08-22T10:14:00.000-07:00

There's a funny (and I use the word "funny" very loosely here) relationship between most bosses and their employees. It's been said that the word "JOB" is an acronym for Just Over Broke. This would fit right into my perspective on employment. The way I figure it, employees work just hard enough to not get fired, and employers pay just enough to keep their employees from quitting. It’s a horrible tug-of-war between two parties who have only themselves at heart and only mediocrity in mind.

Quote for the day:

2008-08-21T12:18:00.000-07:00

"Sometimes you win, and sometimes you learn."

- Robert T. Kiyosaki (Rich Dad, Poor Dad)

Casual Friday

2008-08-15T15:54:00.000-07:00

Reason #476 to not work for someone else;

Office “Equality” (Psshhhh….right!)

Like every Friday morning, I started out the workday in a good mood. Not only is it Friday, but “casual Friday.” Every Friday is casual Friday at my office. Like many offices, though, the word “casual” is used quite… well, casually. All it really means is that you’re allowed to wear jeans instead of slacks, a t-shirt instead of a dress shirt, and, if you’re feeling really lazy (which I always am on Friday mornings) a hat. So, this morning, I’m wearing one of my many Hard Rock Café hats, as usual.

When I got to the office, I noticed that everyone else had dawned their “Friday-best” as well. “Ace” had his t-shirt, jeans and hat on to match his funky shoes (the guys got more shoes than most women!), “Hyena” (don’t judge me…every office has its cackler…) was wearing her khaki capris, “Dung” was wearing his jeans…wait…go back. Hyena was wearing capris? Ugh… No, this wasn’t the first time, by any means, but today it got to me for some reason. Those nasty, pudgy, pale, white legs… for only showing about 6 inches length of skin per limb, they’re pretty gross. My mood soured a bit.

I must have been in a trance, because I didn’t even here my supervisor approach. Suddenly he was just standing next to me with my paycheck in hand. “And how’s Ty doin’ today?,” It fell out of his mouth almost like an involuntary reaction to seeing me. He says it that way verbatim every single day. I wonder if he even knows he's doing it? I always want to look around the immediate vicinity, and say back, “Oh, are you talking TO me? Why don’t you ask Ty directly and maybe Ty will tell you.”

“Fine, thanks, how are you?” This was my actual reply.

I’m usually pretty tame at work. I don’t talk a whole lot, though I am a bit of a jokester. I work well with others and I blend into the productivity model well. I always have good marks in my reviews. So, as I stared at Hyena’s capris, it surprised even me when out of my mouth came the words, “So, what exactly is the difference between capris and shorts?”

My supervisor, “Poptart” was a bit taken back. Of course I don’t call him Poptart to his face. Ace and I call him that because he always seems to pop up whenever we’re off-task or chit-chatting. He followed my gaze to Hyena, looked back at me, and replied. “Capris hang below the knees.”

“That’s it?” I snapped. “So if I were to wear shorts that hang below the knees, that would be fine?”

“No, shorts are not allowed.” He said.

I knew this, and I knew he knew I knew it. This seemed like a technicality, though, and a matter of work-place semantics. Seeing Hyena in capris had totally changed my mood because it reminded me of something that has bugged me ever since I started working here. Other co-workers had been breaking the company’s dress code long before this incident, but I’d always just ignored it before. Today, for some reason, I had to say something.

“Why is it that business casual is different for women than it is for men?” I said semi-sarcastically. When no reply came quickly I went on. “This office is full of women who where spaghetti strap tank-tops, capris, low-cut blouses, short shorts, open-toe shoes, and even outfit-matching hats on a regular basis! And that’s not even on casual Friday! Why can’t a man wear shorts or flip flops on casual Fridays?”

“Ugh…” sputtered Poptart.

“If you say it’s because I’m a man, you’d better be careful, because THAT is sexual discrimination.”

I pulled out the employee dress-code book and looked up the details of casual Friday and read them aloud. I tried to keep my voice light and jokey, but didn’t want to compromise the legitimacy of my point. No names were mentioned in my descriptions of the office's eye-sores, but many generalities were made. In the end, my supervisor jokingly threatened to put us all in uniforms. I told him that was a GREAT idea, as long as all of us had to do it.

After all, men and women are equals now, right? Isn't that what they've been fighting for all these years; the right to be treated equally in the workplace??

Psshhh… Yeah, right.

Recent Logo

2008-08-14T08:00:00.001-07:00

I just finished a logo design for yet another gift basket business. Usually women, the owners of these gift basket businesses are always a delight to work for. Then again, creating logos for any business is usually a good gig. If you think about it, anyone who needs a logo is probably starting a NEW business, and if you're starting a new business, you're probably excited about it.

Hence, 99% of all my logo clients are excited and a joy to work with! Gotta love that! Not to mention, my logo work becomes my own employee in disguise. I send my work out there and people see it. The owner of the new logo is proud of their logo and they show it off with enthusiasm. They WANT people to see it and WANT to talk about it when asked about it. There rarely any need for me to advertise beyond that. After all, it's true what they say; word of mouth really is the best form of marketing.

Quote of the day:

2008-08-06T14:06:00.000-07:00

"Show me your friends, and I'll show you your future."

- Unknown

Amor

2008-07-30T09:07:00.000-07:00

Last night I finished the design of the "Amor" word tangle at the request of someone who had been browsing my Etsy storefront. His request was actually for the word "Amore" (notice the "e" at the end), which is Italian. So, I decided to create two versions of this tangle reasoning that the Spanish version (with no "e") would probably also be valuable as a finished tangle. So, I've got two new word tangles... sort of.

My first official S.O.P. project

2008-07-29T14:59:00.000-07:00

So, after weighing my options over the weekend, I carefully narrowed down my list of ideas, and have decided that my first S.O.P. (Succeed On Purpose) project ought to be children’s books. Of all my ideas, this seems to be the one that I have the most control over. Control, in this case, translates into a higher probability of success simply because there are fewer outside factors to inhibit me. I’m only dealing with my time, my talent, my motivation. I’ve always enjoyed writing, and illustrating comes naturally to me. I’ve already written several things that will all go into this project.

Happy with my new focus, I told my wife on Friday night about my S.O.P. strategy. She thought it was good too, until she heard which of my ideas I had settled on to start with. She’s never shared my vision for this one, and that’s okay. Don’t get me wrong, she thinks I’m a good writer and artist, but she thinks the particular project I’ve decided on isn’t the most promising. Let me explain.

As a big ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’ fan, I realized some years ago that there is a virtually un-tapped market out there waiting for someone to dive into. It’s the rich (or soon-to-be rich) kids, the smart kids, and kids with proactive parents and anyone else who just wants to start educating…well, sooner. I believe kids are much smarter and capable than we give them credit for. I think kids now days are brighter, and that their general learning curves are shorter than ever before. I think they’re capable of learning things earlier than we actively teach them. Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad” started teaching him as a young boy to be financially literate. He started early and on purpose, and he kept things simple at first. The resulting foundation that was built was sturdy and has far exceeded mere endurance.

Accordingly, my idea is to create a series of books based on the principles and concepts that we, sponges of information, don’t typically learn until a little later on. I think many things are not learned earlier simply because they’re not taught any earlier. But kids pick up on much more of what they’re exposed to than just what they’re actually taught. For instance, how many kids sense marital tensions between their parents and figure out there’s a problem? How many parents discover that the “code” they’ve been using (be it Pig-Latin, sign or just spelling things out) to keep their kids in the dark hasn’t worked for months, and all of a sudden, Junior knows there’s no Easter Bunny? My own six-year-old, who hasn’t even started 1st grade yet, is already sending me text messages on my wife’s phone and building a miniature empire in the online world of Webkins for heaven’s sake!

I told "K" that my idea is to create these books to introduce young kids to principles (which they will eventually learn anyway) through rhymes and fables. Will they understand the principles immediately when reading the rhymes and fables? Not likely. Does that even matter? Not at all. How many kids understand the lesson behind “Oh, The places you’ll go” by Dr. Seuss? The POINT is to entertain them, like any other book. If the underlying message is perceived at all, it’ll be merely to introduce them to the principles…perhaps only via osmosis. I’ve always believed that when it comes to children’s books, you sell the words to the parents and you sell the illustrations to the kids. Eventually, though, the words will sink in. Entertain them now with illustrations and clever rhymes and perhaps someday, while in an elementary or middle school class learning about some fundamental principle, they just might look BACK at these childhood stories and say something like, “Oh, hey, this is just like the story of the….” The trick here is to keep things simple, and not to give in to the temptation to over explain or complicate. Teach just the principles.

The types of books "K" would like to see me writing and illustrating are the kind of books that have withstood the test of time and sales. They’re the type that focus more on morals, values, attributes, and personal character. While I can appreciate her perspective as a mother and consumer, and certainly her sense of “what already works and sells”, I also feel like that defeats my whole novel idea; the idea that kids are capable of handling more complex principles. Both of these perspectives are useful, but only one is novel. Anyone can write about the ABC’s or the 123’s. Anyone can write about opposites or colors. Anyone can create characters and wrap them in a cute story that teaches bravery, honesty or helpfulness. But that’s been done…over and over and over again. I want to tackle the challenge of simplifying general priciples for KIDS! Not everyone can do that.

In the end, I think there’s a very good chance that "K" will be right. I think my idea will be a tough sell. But, it’ll either sell or it won’t. Those are the only two outcomes. I’ll never know if I don’t try, and I’ll always regret it if I opt to conform. I like the idea, so I’m going to go for it. This project will be much more interesting to me than writing something that will ultimately become camouflaged in the sea of conventional children’s books.

Succeed on Purpose

2008-07-25T12:05:00.000-07:00

For the last few days, I’ve been doing a lot of research on JK Rowling. Internet searches have led me through pod casts (or “Potter Casts” as they’re called in the Harry Potter world), videos, interviews, documentaries, statistics, and images. I’m VERY interested in her, first as a writer of my favorite science fiction book series, and second as a person who has achieved phenomenal success just by doing what she loves. She’s very realistic and humble about her success. Like that.

My existing deep interest in JKR has been super-heightened over the past few days after a conversation I had with my mom and wife while the former was in town visiting this last weekend. I was discussing with them both how much I enjoyed the HP books (I’ve been listening to Jim Dale’s audio reading of ‘The Deathly Hallows” at work), and how much talent she has when, all of a sudden, my wife blurted out how creative I am. I was a bit taken back. She mentioned to my mom about a book idea I had described to her years ago. This particular idea has always been severely underdeveloped, but she (evidently) thought the idea had real potential even back when I had first mentioned it to her. Until this conversation, though, I’d never known her enthusiasm for the concept. I was flattered, to say the least. She's always been supportive of my aspirations, but never this openly interested about any of them, besides maybe LittleLDS.

Anyway, after discarding my humility about the idea, I finally consented to explain the little detail I did have formulated for the book idea. My mom seemed to think it was an interesting idea too. Both of them suggested that day that I ought to explore, even if only for fun, the option of actually fully developing and writing a book. I laughed but admittedly began working it out in my head.

I’ve been toying with the logistics writing a book for the last week or so. This is why my interest in JKR has intensified so much. I’ve been hypothesizing, fantasizing, and even daydreaming of the idea ever since. I’ve fleshed out a few solid ideas, but haven’t committed myself to the idea fully. Like always.

Like always… Hhhh…

This morning, this really started eating at me. The fact that, “like always” I’ve not fully committed myself to the idea. If I’m truthful with myself, I’ve never really fully committed myself to ANY idea. I’ve played with ideas before, and even made seemingly good strides in the development of some of my ideas. But, where my ideas are concerned, LittleLDS, I think, has been my single greatest achievement. Writing it out even now, though, seems almost pathetic. Nothing substantial has ever come of that idea. Granted, as ideas go, it’s gotten much farther than any other. It’s gone from concept to actual sellable product. That’s something, right? I mean, it’s given me a small taste of what it’s like to actually DO it. But even with all the tradeshows, marketing ploys, and commercial networking attempts, it’s still gone nowhere. Very few people even know it exists. It’s generated a negative net value overall and hasn’t got any foreseeable future without serious effort. I’m not above effort…Even I know that’s just due process, but I am a realist. It’s probably not ever going to go much further than this.

After watching dozens of videos on my favorite entrepreneurs and role models, I’ve been given a renewed perspective that I can appreciate. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from any successful person I’ve ever really admired, it is that they didn’t give up. They had an idea and WENT for it. They saw it through to completion. The scale of their success may have been unforeseen, but their disire to accomplish their goals were pre-determined and absolute.

Now, because I don’t know any of these successful giants personally, I don’t know how really focused there were during their respective journeys toward success. For all I know, they were all as scattered as I feel with my many ambitious ideas. I doubt it, but it’s possible. As I’ve reflected on this point today, however, I’ve realized that I really need to add purpose and focus to my effort. I need to CHOOSE just ONE thing I believe in and go for it. I’ve done that once – with LittleLDS – and though it wasn’t the raving success I envisioned, I am VERY proud of having done it. It feels good to have one under my belt. I still feel very satisfied whenever the planets align just right and I actually do get that one single sale each year. What really matters is that my idea…this ONE concept, was nothing more than a thought before I did something with it. LittleLDS exists because I pulled it out of my head and did something.

So here’s my NEW resolution: to succeed on purpose. This means to DECIDE in advance what I want to achieve, PLAN how I want to work it out, and then DOING what I’ve set out to do. To this end, I’ll do three things each day. First, I’ll review my goal and recharge my motivational drive, then I’ll take action toward achieving that goal with a reachable milestone for that day, and finally, I’ll document my progress and then begin again. If I step forward every day, even if each of my steps are miniscule, tomorrow will always find me closer to my successes than yesterday did.

Because I have so many ideas, the most important thing for ME will probably be to prioritize first. I need to look at all my ideas, and decide which ones are realistically achievable, and which ones are more likely just pipe dreams.

Then I need to decide which of my achievable goals I can do without the assistance of others. I know this probably doesn’t sound smart, but it seems like every time I try to achieve a goal that depends on the time, talents or motivation of someone else I fail. So, for me, I need to narrow down my ideas to just ones that can be worked out alone. I alone can control my time. I alone will motivate my actions, and I alone have full access to my talents. Therefore, I need to focus on an idea that involves only me.

Next, I need to decide which of these few ideas, have the greatest potential when finished. Which have the greatest chance to catch someone’s eye, open someone’s wallet, or ultimately close the deal? Which one has the greatest leverage with respect to my invested time & talent vs. a profit margin?

Finally, I need to decide HOW I want to bring the idea to completion. I need to create a completion schedule with waypoints, dates, and contingencies plans.

I begin today.

Shifts

2008-05-30T13:16:00.000-07:00

Let’s face it, mankind is selfish by nature. “What’s in it for me” has been the underlying theme of humanity since its conception. However, through the ages, the evolution of technology has required us to modify the way we answer this self-indulging question. Up until the Iron Age, mankind spend most of it’s time hunting and gathering. Little thought was given to preservation or material accumulation because most of their effort was spent on basic survival. Civilizations, tribes and individuals struggled with the elements of nature, diseases & illnesses, hunger, and the trials migration. Power was exhibited mostly through physical force, and leadership was mostly determined by strength and cunning.

Through the Iron Age, men began thinking differently. There was a shift. We settled, built and traded. Trade necessitated currency, and agriculture obliged the accumulation of land. The power rested with those who had amassed most of it. Although land became the new measure of wealth, it still needed to be worked manually. Crops needed to be planted, harvested and sold. Work ethics were strong, but life expectancy was low.

There was another shift in our way of thinking, and the Industrial Age brought with it some alternatives to hard labor. Invention, manufacturing and interchangeable parts became the solution for many agricultural problems. However, the ability to facilitate hard work with less physical effort began to build an entire economy of its own. Soon, the production, maintenance and replacement of machines and their parts became its own independent industry. Big businesses wielded most of the power. Men slowly started replacing themselves in the work place with smarter computers, faster machines, smaller gadgets, and more efficient systems.

In an effort to stay competitive, another shift was inevitable. We now find ourselves in the rush of the Information Age, where the world is shrinking. Whole nations are being swallowed up overnight by other nations through business deals instead of warfare. Local and national economies are weakening under the weight of a looming global economy. With virtually everything at our finger tips, and with the advent of the internet, information and ideas are the new currencies of mankind. The power lies with the clever and the creative. Anyone with a good idea can compete. Coins and paper money rarely exchanging hands anymore. These days, transactions are made with electronic credit exchanges. The digits in one account decrease while another’s digits increase. In today’s world, mankind still hunts and gathers. The difference is that, now, we hunt for profits, thrills, and shortcuts while we gather weight, debt, and storage.

I’ve made a few key observations and followed them through a bit as they relate to me. It seems that everyone and their dog has their own business. I think this is due to two things. First people are more gutsy and creative than ever before. Second, prices of everything are sky rocketing because the US dollar is collapsing, and income isn’t keeping pace. Most families have been almost forced into either 2 income situations or starting their own “side businesses.” I’m no exception, though my motives are mostly creative. I can see where the future is headed too. Social security won’t exist when I retire, and no one works for a pension anymore. No one in my generation even works for one company for more than 5 years anymore for that matter. Investing in stocks, bonds and mutual funds is a gamble if you’re not an economics major. I’ve experienced by own shift in thought. “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em."

I’ve examined my own business methods, services and products and have concluded that I don’t need to produce more, or work any harder. What I need to do is to work smarter. Over the past few weeks, my Word Designs have begun evolving a bit themselves. The more of them I do, the more elegant and symmetrical they get. For nearly a decade now, I’ve been designing these custom designs for friends, family and the occasional friend of a friend, or visitor to my website. Until recently, my designs have always been custom orders. Folks contact me, give me the names or words they would like to see in the design and I fill the order. Although I’ll always do the custom designs (because I love doing them), I’ve started to think a bit more…well, intelligently.

I’ve noticed that many people love Chinese and Japanese characters. They love them for their artistic appeal as well as for the words or mantras they represent. I see my designs as the English equivalent to these characters. Artistic and symbolic. So, what I’ve stared doing is utilizing my unique style to create pre-made designs that can be sold over and over again. I’ve stared designing around words such as Love, Honor, Family, Peace, and Friendship. These are all words that most everyone can identify with in some way. Combine these with my custom (but reproducible) mat and frames, and I just might have something. Design once, and sell over and over. Work less…make more.

Slugs, Crabs and Ants

2008-05-23T14:58:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me really well knows that I’ve got more ideas than I know what to do with. Sometimes I share them, but hardly ever make a very big deal about them. Although I have a few successes under my belt, the vast majority of my ideas are back-burner projects. Still, I always write them down in my "Brain Vomit" book for safe keeping. That book, however, as its name might imply, really isn’t meant to be shown off. It is just a collection of randomly archived ideas that I don’t want to forget altogether. Sleeping seems easier when I don’t have a ton of ideas hovering over me at night.

Besides the obvious archival purpose, one of the reasons I keep this book is to put my ideas through the test of time. It’s been said that one way to know whether an idea is good or bad is to sit on it for a little while. Let it roll around in your mind and simmer a bit. If the idea you have still seems good after a few days or weeks after its initial conception, it just might have some merit. Recently, as I was reading through Brain Vomit, it occurred to me that I’ve got quite a few ideas accumulated that still seem very good to me…some, even after YEARS of sitting.

I’m not the only one sitting on potential success. Many of us have hidden and undeveloped talents, lofty aspirations, or just simply great ideas that we do nothing about. While there are a myriad of reasons, one reason in particular is very interesting to me. It has a lot to do with the company we keep. Now don’t get me wrong, you might be surrounded by great people, but consider this. We’ve all heard the sayings "You are what you eat," or "Birds of a feather flock together," or "It takes one to know one." Are these just sayings, or is there some truth to them? Personally, I couldn’t agree more with all of them. Figuratively speaking, I think you ARE what you eat. Or, put another way, I think you will become what you study, fantasize about, or immerse yourself in. I believe that if you want to become a great musician, your chances are GREATLY improved by seeking out the best instructors of music and listening to the types of music that inspire you. I think the opposite is also true; that if you want to become, say, a neurologist, hanging out with a bunch of deadbeat high school drop-outs will surely decrease your odds for success in THAT goal.

Birds of a feather do, in fact, flock together. The well-known maxim is really just a clever way of stating the obvious. For example, motivated achievers tend to seek out others who will push them towards their goals. They do this, naturally, to improve their chances of success. One might call it natural social selection. It may not even be a conscious effort. They often just click better with those with whom they share common personality traits and interests. In my opinion, there are 3 kinds of people when it comes to ambition.

First, there are slugs. Slugs are slothful and generally indifferent to they’re surroundings. They are apathetic. Theirs is the "don’t bother me, and I won’t bother you…," mentality. They don’t do much more than litter their path with a slimy residue of mess, and they’re very sensitive. For many people, just the word slug conjures a mental picture of "eeeww." As the very epitome of laziness, they even have their very own adjective…”sluggish.” The people who I put into this category are the ones who either ride on the coat tails of others, or go through life offering nothing of substance for one reason or another. They prefer not to act, but to be acted upon. Some are shy, some are incapable, but most are just lethargic and irresponsible. Ironically, many are easily offended when accused of being lazy or free-loading, and retaliate by "working hard" on winning frivolous lawsuits and seeking welfare checks.

Second, and most common, are the crabs. Almost everyone knows that once you’ve successfully captured a few of them, you don’t really need a lid on the bucket or hole you’ve dropped them into. Crabs won’t let each other escape. Once one of them begins climbing towards freedom, the others will pull it right back down. Is it an act jealousy? Fear of abandonment? Is it selfishness? Or perhaps it’s just stupidity. Who knows? But it does teach a good lesson. Most of us are not only stuck in a bucket of mediocrity, but we’re also surrounded by “crabs” that won’t let us leave. Unlike slugs, crabs are not lazy. Oh, they’re busy alright. They’re so busy criticizing your efforts that they totally discontinue any of their own. Sure, they say they want you to succeed, but their actions indicate otherwise. Although their discouragement is usually not even intentional, wishing you success is really just lip service when commiseration is the underlying intention. Misery really does love company…and just to be clear, so does laziness, despair, selfishness, insecurity, and jealousy. When we begin to succeed, the crabs around us naturally come out in droves and act on instinct. "How dare you achieve your goals when I have not achieved my own?" Of course they don’t say that…but they do feel it, and they will try to pull you back into the bucket of inaction. "Let’s watch TV." "How about we grab a bite and then catch a movie?" "Let’s just hang out and play some games." Watch out!!

Finally, there are ants. Now ants know how to make things happen. They’re among the most ambitious and resourceful creatures in nature. They’re virtually impervious to distraction or fatigue. If you’ve ever dropped an object in the path of an ant trail you know what I’m talking about. They acknowledge the obstacle, and then immediately begin searching feverishly for ways to overcome the obstruction by reconstructing a new path of progress. Ants are notorious for taking on projects that are many times bigger than they are. They’re amazing enough individually, and still, they opt to synergize their strengths through a network of their equals. There are very few people that fit into the "ant" classification. These people are usually the millionaires and billionaires. They’re they ones who can make a come back after losing everything because they’ve got that ant-like trait of unyielding ambition.

There comes a time when you need to evaluate your own performance. Actually, to maintain a balanced life, this evaluation should happen regularly. The result of these evaluations can either cause discouragement and cessation of effort, or inspiration enough to ignite the spark of change for something better. Success and failure can both be objects placed in our path of progress. Both have the potential to encourage and discourage. We all have the ability to take on projects that are many times bigger than we are. The trick is to mimic the ant while avoiding the crabs and slugs.

Quote for the day:

2008-04-29T14:29:00.000-07:00

"That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Liked, Right, Comfortable, or Triumphant?

2008-04-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

The other day I was listening to a conference put on by one of my roll models, Robert Kiyosaki, and heard him say something very interesting. He said that he felt the world was made up of four kinds of needs. The needs are the need to be right, the need to be liked, the need to win, and the need to be comfortable. His opinion was that we all have these needs in varying degrees, but that some of us have a heightened or extra measure of one or two of these needs.

I have to agree with him to a certain extent, and would add that, in my opinion, many career paths tend to attract individuals with these same magnified needs in a very categorical way. For instance, I think it would be pretty safe to say that individuals with a strong or abundant need to be right end up pursuing careers in law such as attorneys, judges, politicians, and police officers. People with a pronounced need to win might include entrepreneurs, salesmen, professional athletes, professional military, doctors, and high executive positions. Those with a need to be comfortable might include engineers, designers, authors, and decorators. And those with an acute need to be liked might include those in the arts - such as actors and painters, cooks, and those in service industries.

Most of us have all of these needs in varying amounts and most of them, I would hypothesize; become more emphasized at different stages of our lives. I think that early in our lives, we tend to need to be liked more than at any other time of life. We strive for attention from family and then friends. As we enter school, sports and careers, we might shift our focus more towards our need to win, striving for grades, accomplishments and positions. As we develop and improve through our careers, we specialize and become experts in our crafts which might increase the need to be right. Perhaps, more often to validate or justify our career choices, than anything else. Then as we begin to age and retire, we might feel an increase in our need to be more comfortable. We reduce our subjection to risk, we increase our pursuit of fulfillment though hobbies, family engagement, and we certainly seek the relief of age-inducing ailments.

So, why am I writing about this? The world takes all types, as they say, and well, after thinking about it I'm trying to find where I fit within these categories. As an aspiring entrepreneur, am I a seeker of victory? As a husband and father, do I pursue the luxuries of comfort? As the clown of my family, am I driven by a proclivity for admiration? Or as a lover of information, am I motivated by a hunger to be the one with all the answers?

What needs are most prevalent in you?

Quote for the day

2008-01-28T17:46:00.001-08:00

True freedom, when given the choice between "Option A" and "Option B", is choosing to create "Option C."

- Robert Gruden

Lesson of the Day

2007-09-21T16:55:00.000-07:00

I’ve been reading (well, listening to the book on CD of) “The Millionaire Mind” by Thomas J. Stanley. While it’s no “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” it is still quite informative. Today I heard a section that is really worded very well. It says;

“The really smart people in professional athletics are the team owners and the agents. These agents are an especially crafty group. They don’t have much specific talent themselves. They don’t run, kick, block, or score goals. They don’t sing or dance, yet they last and last. So what if you are one in a million on the football-talent scale? You were a high school All American, a First Team Collage All American, and the first running back drafted in the Pros this year. But you blew out a knee. Your agent, on the other hand, has a growing stable of your kind. He grows his business like people grow apple trees. Once you are in his orchard, you keep producing for him. When you can no loner produce apples, they remove your dead or dying trunk from the field. A replacement apple tree is inserted like the interchangeable parts of a machine.”

Brilliantly put, and applicable to so much more than just the world of professional athletics!

Breaking the Cycle

2007-09-20T11:18:00.000-07:00

In my opinion, one of the most interesting principles that Robert Kiyosaki (the author of the best-selling book, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”) teaches is about the lack of financial education in our youth's curriculum. As a father of young children, one of my main goals and greatest ambitions is to provide my own children with the foundation that Kiyosaki says is lacking in today’s educational system. If you think about it, it really is true that schools only teach basic skills such as math, science, history, language, art, and health. While obviously necessary building blocks for a strong foundation in life, these skills are really only that...“building blocks.” What about the mortar? What's keeping it all together? What's lacking here?

The answer, in Kiyosaki's words, is simply "financial intelligence."

It’s true that the skills currently taught in schools is paramount in helping someone to get a good job and start earning money. But what about once that money is accumulated? What then? There really is no formal curriculum that teaches how that money can (and ought to be) intelligently spent. There’s no education about how to most effectively invest, how to truly save, or how to powerfully leverage money. These skills are the mortar that keep the building blocks together. This is what’s missing. These are skills NOT taught in the current education system. It’s really like teaching someone how to hunt for game, and neglecting to teach them how to properly prepare and cook their catch. Dangerous and stupid.

Think of it this way; by learning skills of language and history, for example, one might develop an aptitude for, and interest in, say, practicing law. Becoming an attorney is potentially a very lucrative profession. However, there are many VERY well-paid attorneys out there who, despite their high salaries, still have mountains of debt and financial stress. This is a good example of what is meant by one lacking financial intelligence. Individuals like this lack a foundation in the education (or at least the practical application) of how to SPEND money wisely. This point can be accentuated by the fact that there are also a lot of moderately-paid individuals out there who, regardless of their relatively conservative incomes, go on to live quite comfortably, having little or even NO debt. Smart.

Having said all that, one of my goals as a father is to teach my own children what they will probably never learn in a public school - financial literacy. I want them to have more than I have. I want them to know more than I did when I started out with my first job. I want them to have a heads up on the pitfalls involved with financial life.

There is, of course, one major problem with my ambition. See, I grew up in, what I believe to be, the lower middle class. As a member of the middle class, I had middle class parents, friends, and teachers. This middle class environment (although rich in good morals, values and experiences) just taught me (via osmosis) how to continue being middle class. And unless some kind of intervention took place, I would be destined to perpetuate all my middle class opinions, tendencies, fears, habits, and mindsets. As a product of the middle class, what qualifications do I have to teach my own kids anything OTHER than middle class principles and dogma? As Kiyosaki puts it, "What can a poor person teach his kids about being rich?" I wrote the following poem to illustrate this point in a more elementary way for my kids:

What can a Duck teach a Duck?

Near a forest thick with trees,
A duck lived by a pond.
Though many sounds came through the trees,
Of one he grew most fond.

The Lion is the jungle king
As everybody knows,
And the roar he makes commands the beasts
And keeps them on their toes!

To Duck, this sound was bold and strong,
And demanded his respect.
He marveled as he said aloud,
“That’s such a cool effect!”

Now, Father Duck had overheard
The musings of his son,
So he waddled over to the lad
And knew what must be done.

“Son”, he said, “I heard your quack,
And as your father duck,
I feel that I should show you how
That mighty pitch is struck.”

Excitedly the lad sat poised
For the lessons to be begin.
As Father Duck perched on a rock
The boy began to grin.

“Lesson one,” said Father Duck,
“To roar you need webbed-feet.
Not so much to make the sound,
But more to keep the beat.”

“Second then, to make a roar,
You’ve got to have a bill.
With that a duck can roar with ease,
Without, he never will.”

“Finally, son, to roar with skill
Your feathers are a must!
For each keeps water off your back.
You have them all, I trust?”

With a nod, he left his perch
And patted Little Duck.
“That roar is yours with tips like these,
And, of course, a little luck.”

The little duck, with hopes set high,
But now a bit confused,
Stood up and climbed the little rock
That Father Duck has used.

With flapping wings, he stomped his feet,
And felt a sudden chill.
Then, imagining the roar inside,
He opened up his bill.

“QUACK! QUACK!” Burst from the duck,
And sorrow lined his bill.
“You’ll get it, son”, said Father Duck,
“With practice and some will.”

He hadn’t learned to roar, but yet
The duckling understood.
He’d never heard his father roar,
And probably never would.

A duck can teach you how to quack,
But what about to roar?
Does he qualify to teach you that,
Having never tried before?

When taught to roar by other ducks
Experience might lack.
So however bold their sound comes out
They still sound like a “QUACK!”

Father Duck would be much better off doing one of two things; admit that he didn’t know the first thing about the “art of the roar”, or learn (from a Lion) how to actually roar before teaching that skill to someone else. THIS is my quest. This is the reason I have adopted the "Rich Dad" lessons with such enthusiasm and passion. I agree with it. And by USING it I can, in effect, break the middle class mindset cycle in MY OWN home. I might not be a creator of financial intelligence, but I certainly can be a student and perpetuator of it.

The Green Age

2007-09-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

Now days, the “IN” thing for many businesses is to be GREEN. Everything is green now. Green used to be just a color, but now, it’s a whole way of life. The new definition of “green” is “environmentally responsible,” and everyone seems to be jumping on the bandwagon. While some are doing it to be responsible, many are doing it to be seen. It’s not just a movement towards a better way of life. It’s also very much about marketing strategy. Think about it… If you can provide a product or service in this new millennium, you can compete. But if you can provide that same product or service while adhering to the new GREEN trends, you can win!

What started out being widely recognized only once per year as just “Earth Day” beginning in 1962, has since evolved into something much more ubiquitous, and dare I say…trendy. Business has aggressively taken a sharp turn in a new direction over the past few years.

Auto manufacturers are going green with hybrid vehicles, and the race is on to find alternative sources of fuel that emit fewer pollutants into the atmosphere. Water is being conserved with “Xeriscape” landscaping in desert communities across the western states. Businesses and individuals are participating in recycling programs. Heck, light bulbs are more energy efficient! Politicians have all turned green with envy at all the attention this hot topic is generating, and have thus aimed many of their own priorities at affiliating themselves with some sort of green agenda. Just look at Al Gore! Enough said.

Not be left in the “limelight” even the search engine giant, Google, has jumped on board. They’re so green that they’ve gone black. Literally! They now have a new website called “BLACKLE” which “…saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. Image displayed is primarily a function of the user's color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen." As 20/20’s John Stossel would say, “Give me a break!”

Even my “day job” is going green. In a few weeks we’re moving out of the building we’re currently in, and into a building that is designed to be more “environmentally responsible.”

According to the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) website (www.usgbc.org), this means employing programs like “LEED.” “The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System™ is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buildings. LEED gives building owners and operators the tools they need to have an immediate and measurable impact on their buildings’ performance. LEED promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality.”

Unfortunately, for me this just means lower moral in the work place. With smaller cubicles and lower partition walls this move is already feeling like a demotion. The cubical dividers will now be glass windows instead of opaque dividers, “so as to allow in as much natural sunlight as possible.” While saving on energy consumption, it will also manage to eliminate any privacy we now have at work. C’mon, no one wants to have people looking over their shoulder at work! Although, all the “kiss-ups” at the office say things like, “well, if you’re worried about people seeing your monitor, you must not be on task.” Oh, brother. That’s a bunch of crap. Everyone needs some type of sanctuary, even at work. I don’t need everyone to see when I blow my nose, check my email or eat a snack. I don’t want to see my fellow employees picking their noses, adjusting themselves or doing anything else they would normally do behind a wall! I’m just saying what everyone else is thinking, but is too chicken to say for themselves. This GREEN building is my newest reason NOT to work for someone else! I can’t wait to go out on my own!

Well, at least according to Google, I guess Tyed Art, Inc is already adhering to a higher and greener standard of business. Tyedart.com has been “predominantly black” from its conception, and I’m a mostly “paperless” company because almost everything I do is digitally created and stored. Take that Al Gore!

Now THAT is a chair!!

2007-09-07T12:09:00.000-07:00

Bud Light presents...

Real Men of Genius

...Real Men of Genius...

Today, we salute you, Mr. Deluxe-Comfort Design Chair-Inventor.

...Mr. Deluxe-Comfort Design Chair-Inventor!

Whoever said sitting at a computer all day is a pain in the butt obviously didn't have your vision for ergonomic cyber comfort. Why take a break, when you haven't exerted any physical effort all day. Carpel tonal, please! You can design entire cities without flexing a single muscle!

...I'm sinking into a coma...

Forget standing up to stretch your legs during the work day... In fact, forget exerting your self at work ever again. Thanks to your "Ergo-Throne", now you have a way to stay immobile for whole pay periods at a time. Reclining seats…Adjustable monitors… Back massager… Intravenous hydration drip...A catheter and colostomy bag... Now all you need some hospice care and a spounge bath.

...Is it atrophy or rigamortis?

So crack open an ice cold Bud Light, Oh King of Comfortable Computing! Because, while your mind can handle complex design computations, it should never have to handle another simple muscle maneuver again.

...Mr. Deluxe-Comfort Design Chair-Inventor!

Anheuser Busch, St. Louis, Missouri.

There's no time like the present

2007-09-04T08:51:00.000-07:00

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”

“The definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting varied results.”

“The most common impetus for progress is change.”

“The best way to achieve life’s greatest comforts starts by leaving your own comfort zone.”

“Become a student of change. It is the only thing that will remain constant.”

“When was the last time you did something for the first time?”

“When you change the way you look at things, things change.”

“You can’t change the direction of the wind, but you can adjust your sails.”

“There are two primary choices in life; to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.”

“It is never too late to become what you might have been”

“There are 3 types of people in the world; those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened.”

Question: What do all of these sayings have in common?
Answer: Your future. You better get started.

Tyed Art Tips: Edition 1

2007-08-31T16:59:00.000-07:00

The other day, I was asked by a friend of mine, how I was able to stay motivated and organized with all the different ideas I have on a regular basis. The mere fact that I actually came across to someone as being motivated and organized in the first place made me feel pretty successful in an of itself. I don’t always feel that way. What I do always feel, however, is busy.

The truth is, I really do have quite a lot of ideas, and they come at me all the time. Sometimes they come when I’m looking for them, but more often when I’m concentrating on something else entirely. In order to keep all these ideas from slipping away and lying idol along the dusty walls of the back of my mind, I’ve learned how to bottle, catalog, and shelf them for later use. You might think of them as “pickled epiphanies.”

My first Tyed Art Tip is to keep a RUNNING LOG OF IDEAS. You can call this log anything you want, but the concept is universal. I call my running log of ideas, my BrainVomit book. I call it that for semi-obvious reasons. More often then not, my ideas come in a very random order and often at very inopportune times – kind of like when you get sick and launch your lunch – it’s not exactly planned or convenient. The difference between the regurgitation of food and that of the mind, however, is that I love it when my brain vomits ideas. It happens often enough these days, that I’ve learned how to always be ready for it. I learned a long time ago to trust my unconscious mind. I've also learned that my mind never shuts down. Whether my conscious mind is occupied with something challenging & intense, or peacefully sleeping, my unconscious mind is constantly brewing up something valuable. This is why catching these ideas when they chose to manifest themselves is so important. I never know when they’ll come, but I always know they’ll fascinate me, and I never want to forget them.

When I’m near a computer, I have a digital version of my BrainVomit book that consists of nothing more than a single Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that is 100% dedicated to these random thoughts, ideas, and epiphanies. The file is made up of many different tabs. Each tab represents a new idea, and within each tab, the idea is expressed and explored. When I write in here, I rarely concern myself with things like plausibility, grammar, or spelling. This is free-flowing environment where anything goes. Many ideas go undeveloped and even half-written. The point is to record something and bookmark the concept for later visitation. That's it. I keep all my ideas in one file so that I can keep track of them all. When I’m not close to a computer, I have a notebook version of BrainVomit that I carry with me wherever I go. Things written here eventually get transcribed to the computer version for simplicity.

My second tip is to create a LUNCHTIME POWER-HOUR for yourself. My “day job” (Booooooo)required its employees to take a mandatory hour-long lunch break from 12:00pm to 1:00pm every day. I’ve never like mandatory breaks. I’m the kind of person that would actually prefer to just work through lunch. Yes, I eat, but because of the type of work that I do in my “day job,” I can do that while I’m working at my desk.

Interestingly, over the years I’ve observed that most people spend this mandatory hour of “non-working” time actually NOT working. Meaning, that in this lunch hour, many of my colleagues play games on the internet, read magazines, socialize, and “go out” for lunch. I find this very interesting because of its contrast to my way of thinking. Let me explain. Just because I’m required to NOT work on “day job” tasks, does not mean that this hour should be spent lazily.

I decided years ago that, for me, this lunch hour could be much better spent eagerly investing in myself. This investment of time could be better spent developing my ideas, furthering my education, pursuing my interests and exploring my hobbies. Here’s the way I think about it;

With every work week, this single hour represents a total of 5 hours, right? I can easily spend 5 hours creating a Tyed Art Word Design that sells for about $300. Each pay period, this hour adds up to 10 hours, or the equivalent of 2 word designs. That’s roughly $600 of value. Every month, this time can accumulate to 20 hours, or about $1,200 worth of product work. In a nutshell, by the end of just one working year this otherwise wasted lunch hour has amassed to about 250 potentially productive hours (give or take holidays and days off)!! That’s the equivalent of nearly 10 full days of project productivity, or about $15,000 of potential Tyed Art income!! Power Hour indeed!

Now, of course I’m not always going to have a Word Design order to work on, but because I’ve got my BrainVomit Excel file, I’ve ALWAYS got something productive that I can work on. It could be a new book idea, developing an idea for an invention, a software product like LittleLDS, website improvements or marketing, or perhaps just simple business system ideas and organization. The best part of the lunchtime Power-Hour is that it is totally MINE! Just think….I’m “trapped” at work, with a computer and the internet at my uninterrupted disposal. I may as well use it to work on strategies to get me out of the proverbial “rat race.”

Simply put, when planned and spent properly, this one hour of each day could be the most important hour of my day. Call it overstatement, but it could even end up being worth more to me in the long run than the other 8 hours surrounding it, for which I actually get an hourly pay!

Try it…see if you don’t even “eventually” accomplish one of those long-term tasks!! Read book for that hour. Write in a journal. Do SOMETHING beside playing internet games and chatting! You’ll be glad you did.

The art of “Free Seminar Crashing”

2007-08-30T12:46:00.000-07:00

Ever seen Wedding Crashers? Me neither....it's rated R. But you know the premise, right? It’s based on these two guys who, as a hobby, go to the wedding receptions of people they don't know to hook up with girls, eat free food, and make new contacts. Well, between my 18th and 19th birthdays, my friends and I were the Rated-PG equivalent to the wedding crashers. Only we didn't crash wedding receptions, we crashed missionary farewells. I know, I know....shameless. But MAN was it fun!! We use to go in there to meet cute girls, eat free food and then bail before the prospective missionary-of-honor "DIDN'T" recognize us and kick us out! Well, now days, I'm doing something similar, but a little less unethical. Now, I'm a "free seminar crasher." My friend told me the other day that people like me - people who go to seminars, tradeshows, and conventions for the free goodies, give aways, and information are called "Plate-lickers." Hmmm.... I'm not sure how I feel about that...but I digress.

Anyway, you know what free seminars I'm talking about, right? The ones that you get invited to all the time through the mail? You know, the ones that promise to give you a free gift and a complimentary lunch or dinner just for attending? They’re usually about some sort of packaged real estate, marketing, or motivational deal that they’re trying to sell you. The way they promote them is really pretty annoying, I have to admit. They seem to try to make you feel like you’ve been specially hand-selected from an elite handful of A-listed professionals and executives to attend some secret meeting that no one else in your industry has the right to attend. Psssshhhhh…please. We all know better. Because we know better, most people HATE those things. Well, I’ve got a little secret. I LOVE those things!! I’m not kidding either. I go to almost all of them that I get invited to.

Last Friday I attended a one that was put on by StoresOnline Incorporated. It was considered a “preview” (I later found out) to what would soon be a “great opportunity”. After work at 6:00pm I attended the seminar with my buddy "Think-tank". This is the guy I go to when I need to bounce an idea off of someone. He’s the kind of guy who won’t just say, “mm-hhmmm” like most other people do. He’ll jump right in there and conceptualize with me. He’s probably just humoring me, actually, but that’s valuable to me. If I ever really do achieve my big break through, this is the guy that’s going to claim the assist. Like me, he’s always got a new idea or two floating around, and needs a good sounding board and/or devil’s advocate perspective.

So anyway, “Think-tank” and I went to this thing and enjoyed the presentation. Now, just for the record, I very rarely go to these things to buy into what is being sold. Yes, I know that there will ALWAYS be something for sell. However, I typically go for the free information that is being packaged around the products that are for sell. The free give-aways are nice too, but even they are really just a novelty fringe benefit that ends up getting discarded. For instance, a few months ago, I attended a seminar by a guy named Randy Crane. What a fascinating dude. He’s a very successful and very good presenter of information, and quite approachable. His deal was real estate. Yes, he was selling products and services, but that isn’t what I went in for, nor is it what I left with. I left with a free give-away (CD by Robert Kiyosaki - one of my long-time motivational mentors), some mints (you can never have too many mints), and some information about the mortgage industry that I had never heard before. This was my first introduction to MMA’s (Merge Market Accounts), and about how negative amortization loans work. I learned how to buy homes that are in foreclosure, how to keep from going into foreclosure and I learned about bit more about what other types of investments there are out there. That was a VERY valuable education to me. Being a people-person, I also walked away with a better understanding about how to make a good presentation, how to keep the interest of the audience, and how useful a good PowerPoint presentation is. It was a well-spent 90 minutes.

Well, at the end of Friday’s seminar, “Think-tank” and I discussed what we liked and disliked about the presentation. Did the guy maintain a good level of attention from the audience? Did he use good slides and other visual aids? Was he compelling enough to close the deal with his audience? And so on… The free dinner was okay (but FREE), the give-away (a planner/calculator/address book) was crap, and the internet marketing information was actually pretty good. The best part was that I actually wanted to know MORE about this company’s internet marketing strategies by the time the presentation was over. At $20 for two people, it was a no-brainer. So, for just $20, we signed up to participate in their ALL-DAY internet marketing workshop. My logic; in the worst case scenario, I’d just get up and walk out of the workshop at a cost of $20, and go back to work. “Think-tank” was in too, so at least I would have someone there to commiserate with and cut the cost in half since we could BOTH attend for that price.

Monday morning I came in and put in for a day off on Wednesday the 29th. So, yesterday, I got to sleep in until 7:30 (and hour an a half extra) and got into my usual business casual attire, and headed out for the Red Rock Hotel & Casino, prepared to learn a new thing or two about the great world of internet marketing. As an owner and administrator of 2 websites, I was definitely NOT disappointed! This ended up being one of the best spent $20 I’ve had in very long time! They’re not kidding when they say that investing in your education is the best way to go!

The workshop started out slowly and typically enough. First things first, they wasted the first hour or so reviewing stuff we had been told about StoresOnline last Friday at the “preview”. More about the “deal” they were offering. Then, finally, their equivalent to a keynote speaker was introduced. The guys name was Victor Gonzales. This guy was GREAT. He was funny, insightful, educational, engaging and NOT pompous (a relief after listening to some of the StoresOnline staff). He wasn’t an employee of StoresOnline, but was invited by them to speak as a successful StoresOnline software end-user client. I have to admit that as the day went on, I found myself REALLY wanting the StoresOnline software. It seems all-inclusive, extremely intuitive, and very useful. Unfortunately it would cost me more than I was willing to part with (for now). I already HAVE two websites, e-commerce capability, and enough curiosity and drive to learn on my own how to find other needed resources. Nevertheless, the software looks AWESOME. Not $2,700 per year and $30 per month awesome, but awesome nonetheless.

The non-biased and generic internet marketing information Victor taught throughout the day was invaluable to me! I learned a TON of new marketing strategies that I’m VERY excited to try out on my own websites. Lunch was provided as a part of the $20 is cost me to attend (yes, it cost me $20 and not just $10 because “Think-tank” was unable to attend). Lunch was definitely a secondary thought when this whole thing was planned. Ugh… I wasn’t even sure chicken (if, in fact, that’s what it was) could come in that shape. Oh well... it wasn’t extra and I didn’t starve. It may, however, have contributed to the major migraine I ended up going to bed with last night.

In hind sight, I would gladly have paid $100 to attend that workshop for all the valuable information I came away with. Here are just a select few of the strategies that were covered in great deal over the 8 hours I attended;

Drop Shipping (a way to earn money with relatively no overhead in a win/win relationship
What a Conversion Rate (CR) is and how it can affect my business
What Value Per Visitor (VIV) is and how I can use it
The 8 critical website features (LOL…I’m currently only employing 3 of them…Oops!!)
The 3 most commonly made internet marketing mistakes (I’m making 2 of them…Ugh!!)
Definition of a “Shadow Site”
The value of a Reverse Search Engine
How to effectively target specific demographics
The 2-Step Distribution method
The correct process to new website creation and research
How search engines function
How to optimize a website to be highly ranked by search engines
The definition and use of Geo-targeting
The differences between vertical and horizontal portals and how to use them effectively
The definition and uses of Affiliate programs and Link Trading

Overall, the workshop was WELL worth my time and $20. Was it worth taking a day off from work? ABSOLUTELY!

I've learned: that not being on the first page of a search engine is like putting a billboard up in the middle of a forest.

I'm glad: That I now have some tools that have been proven to improve internet marketing success

I wish: that I would have had this information before I built my websites initially!

I will: spend some much needed time refining my websites and building more based on this new information.

Got Talent?

2007-04-24T15:58:00.000-07:00

I’ve just finished browsing my kid-brother’s art blog. Call me biased, but I think he is one of the most talented artists I’ve ever met. Beyond talented, however, Glenn has proven himself to be a good steward of a gift he’s been given. All of us have gifts, but he’s doing something wonderful with his. It’s one thing to be given a gift, and another to take that gift and make something of it the way he is. If he continues with the path he’s on, he’s destined to make something even greater of his gift.

TALENT: a special natural ability or aptitude; a capacity for achievement or success

I find it very interesting the different ways in which people treat their talents. There are many different talents out there and there are also different TYPES of talents. Some talents are what I like to classify as “billboard” talents. These are the ones that are obvious enough to be recognized immediately. Artists, musicians, writers, athletes, actors, comedians, and the like. They’re often the ones of whom people are speaking when they say, “Whoa, I wish I could do that!” However, these “billboard” talent are only one class, and they can comes with a lot of pressure. Just because everyone else can recognize a person’s talent, doesn’t necessarily mean that the talented person can recognize it, let alone know what to do with it. Problems can ensue when those with extraordinary talent fail to meet the expectations of those around them, or even themselves.

Another classification is the “transparent” talent. These talents typically get overlooked, and yet tend to be the most common. They’re the talents that we use to do our jobs. Just think about all the professionals out there. Teachers, Attorneys, Doctors, Mechanics, Pilots, Psychologists, Engineers, and Truck Drivers, just to name a few, all have talents in their respective fields of expertise. They wouldn’t likely last very long in those fields if they didn’t. Ever wonder if you would be good at defending an innocent man who had been wrongly accused of murder? Have you ever wondered if you would be able to execute an arc weld on two separate pieces of steel while battling gusts of wind on the 86th floor of a New York skyscraper? What about performing an in-the-womb fetal surgery? Let’s face it; there are a lot of different talents out there. I’m an artist and I enjoy writing. However, put me in front of a broken down vehicle and tell me to “fix it” and I’m useless. From the dexterity of a stenographer who can type over 100 words per minute to the patience of someone meticulously measuring, cutting and laying perfectly leveled ceramic tile, talent is required.

Many people can sing, but how many people sing their way into Broadway, professional opera, or into multi-platinum album-selling stardom? Sure, many people can write, but not many are confident or bold enough to turn that skill into a regularly featured newspaper column, a movie script or a best-selling novel. I have a brother-in-law similar to Glenn, but in a different area of expertise. Aaron has a brilliant mind. Using wit, creativity, and literary skill, he’s worked his way up to being the head writer for an advertising agency in California. In the past he has written episodes for TV shows like CSI, and worked for Nickelodeon. None of this has come without some struggle for him. Although gifted, he’s had to be persistent. He’s also worked hard to overcome his challenges with own vision impairment. Aaron, like many others, has learned that just because he is talented, doesn’t mean he will be handed the great opportunity. He had to work for it.

In his book, Rich Dad Poor Dad (one of the greatest motivational books I’ve read), Robert Kiyosaki states that, “the world is full of talented poor people.” His suggestion here is, of course, that achieving greatness requires something MORE than just being talented. He goes on to say that most people are “only one talent away from being rich”. By this, he’s implying that by only recognizing our most obvious talents, we sell ourselves just short. It takes more than just slight of hand to be David Copperfield. You’ve got to be a showman too.

Most of us don’t have any physical or mental disabilities impeding us from achieving our greatness. Instead, our extraordinary potential is most often stymied by our own apathy, procrastination and/or laziness. Some of us, after recognizing our gifts, just ignore them for so long that they dim over time and ultimately extinguish. Others of us confuse humility with denial of our talents. When complimented on something we do well, many of us argue with such observations and simply deflect the recognition. This usually also leads to loss of that skill or talent. If you claim enough times that you’re not really talented, eventually you’ll actually believe it and show it.

Those who have excelled in life have done so by choice. They’re the kind of people who don’t wait for recognition to come to them. They perform their talents and recognition follows naturally. They’re tenacious. They’re deliberate. They’re determined. How do we take talents and turn them into magnificent achievements? Like most things in life, there are dos and there are don’ts. Here are a few suggestions;

First, DO acknowledge that you do it well, whatever it is. Yes, be humble, but only AFTER you’ve admitted to yourself that you do, in deed, have talent. If you can’t recognize your talents, then just listen to what others say about what you do. Many times people will say things like, “Man, you’re really good with [blank]” or “I wish I could [blank] like you do.” More often than not, however, we already know what we’re good at simply because we enjoy doing it or because it comes naturally to us. In the world of business, it’s important to not only recognize your talent, but to run with it. If you don’t promote your own skills and talents, no one else is going to do it for you. Don’t brag…Do acknowledge.

DON’T compare yourself to others with similar talent. We can learn from, and even admire others who excel at things we do well without classifying them or ourselves as better or worse. After all, if all artists were equally talented, we ALL would have painted the Mona Lisa. How boring would that be?

DO use it. As the saying goes, “use it or lose it.” I don’t mean to use your talent ONLY when circumstances happen to offer you an opportunity. I’m mean MAKE opportunities to employ your talent. Stop making excuses for NOT doing what you’re good at. Stop pretending that everything else takes precedence. Stop placing obstacles in your own path and take Nike’s advice….JUST DO IT. You’ve been thinking about starting a business….then START it. Stop talking about it. You’ve always wanted to write a children’s book. Well then, sit down and WRITE it. Stop thinking about. You’ve thought about running a marathon… Well, you’re body isn’t going to get in shape by thinking about it. Get out there and train for it! The hardest step to take of any journey is always the first.

DO teach it to others who are so inclined. If you wan to become an expert, teach. In order to teach anything you have to be familiar with it yourself first. The more you teach, the more you’ll learn. The more you learn, the more you’ll enjoy it. The more you enjoy it, the more you’ll do it. The more you do it, the better you’ll get. My own daughter has started showing interest in art. It may be that she is only doing it because she sees how much I love it. Regardless, her interest in art is the first step towards discovering a talent she might have or even develop. Her interest is the first step.

Even though you’ve got talent, DON’T assume that you know it all. Tiger Woods, possibly the most talented pro golfer in the world, had an instructor. That’s right…he took lessons from Butch Harmon (No relation) even AFTER he was deemed “the best”. He didn’t presume to know all there was to know about golfing technique, just because he happened to be better than the majority of his competition the majority of the time. Talent, even natural talent, can always be improved upon.

DO explore yourself to find NEW talents. Just because you’re GREAT at one thing doesn’t mean you can’t be GREAT at other things too! Have you even known anyone who seemed to just excel at everything? I sure have. I used to hate people like that. Many of us assume that just because we don’t have natural inclination that we don’t have any talent. This is far from the truth. There are many very talented people who started with nothing but a desire to be talented.

Got Talent? Go ahead….name three of your own. I dare you.

BOOM...Virus Spreads

2007-04-06T07:56:00.000-07:00

Lately I’ve been reading from a marketing strategy book called “Unleashing the Idea Virus” by Seth Godin. I had a lot of time to read it while I was in the hospital with Kim before and after the birth of our son just over a week ago. This is by far, one of the most helpful books I’ve ever read. It’s not the type of book that everyone would find helpful or even interesting. I think that I find it interesting in the same way that my programmer, Rob, finds his text books on Java script interesting. I’m really into marketing right now and so this book as come at a very fortuitous time for me. Just about every concept and principle I learn is directly applicable to what I’m doing and it's all written in lay man's terms.

One of the concepts that this book discusses is the strategy of making a new idea easy to spread. To illustrate this point, they use the examples of Hotmail, and Blue Mountain E-cards. Both of these “idea viruses,” as they call them, ignited fast. REALLY fast. They did so because of how easy they were for the user to spread them. Think about it. In order for Hotmail to even work, one has to email someone else while USING it. In other words, using it means promoting it. The same thing is true with Blue Mountain E-cards. Once a person receives one, and they think it’s cool, they want to send one to someone else. Just by using the idea, the idea is being spread around. And it is simple to do so. No multi-step processes, just a typed message and a click to send. Amazing! It’s not rocket science, and yet it's incredibly smart. Then again, some of the most simplistic things can be amazing to me. Until I started reading this book, I had never thought about the genius behind the marketing and strategies of these ideas. I took them completely for granted until they were pointed out and broken down for me. That’s how good they really were! Another “idea virus” that I had never even heard of is explained this way in the book;

“In Japan, teenage schoolgirls started and built a craze to billion-dollar proportions. They continue to line up to use a special kind of photo booth. Here’s how it works: You enter the photo booth (similar to the old Polaroid ones of your youth), insert some coins and it takes your picture. But instead of giving you four shots on a strip, it prints out 16 little tiny on-square-inch on stickers. Now, what are you going to do with 16 pictures of yourself on stickers? Share them with your friends! As a result, every popular Japanese schoolgirl has an autograph book loaded with dozens or hundreds of these stickers. Sort of like your high school yearbook signing ceremony, but on steroids.”

“A friend of mine, Sam Attenberg, developed and patented this technology in the States. And while it never became a full-fledged virus in the U.S., it developed pockets of intense activity in certain hives. Some machines were turning $70 an hour in sticker business, every hour on the hour for weeks at a time. In Japan, two companies dominated a multi-billion dollar-industry in Sticker Stations.”

“So what’s the medium? It’s the person-to-person exchange of stickers. The medium is the key to the entire [idea] virus. Once the first person got the sheet of stickers, the only way she could use them was by sharing them with 15 friends. But in sharing them, in using the medium provided, she had to explain where she got them. Boom. Virus spreads.”

“Boom”, indeed. To me, this is high impact stuff. So why am I so interested in this particular marketing strategy? Simply stated…LittleLDS needs the lift-off thrust described here. After reading this excerpt I immediately had a really great idea. Surprise, surprise….I know. The idea is to create some sort of sharable medium. I can employ the LittleLDS brand to create a new type of coloring page that can only be “really fun” when it’s being shared with another child. After all, two coloring children are better than one. So, you get one child excited enough about the idea that they bring the pages to another child to share. The two friends share an experience that begs to be repeated. The second friend takes the pages to another friend to reproduce the experience, and... Boom. Virus spreads.

The pangs of tax season

2007-04-05T14:56:00.000-07:00

Aside from being an average W-2 tax payer in April, I’m also required to pay my corporate taxes by March 15th. This rule is taking some time to get used to. Seems like my panic hits just after the official deadline, and lasts until after the regular tax season is over. By then I’m finished filing not only my regular taxes, but also my now “extended” corporation taxes. You know, for as much as this country depends on small businesses, they sure don’t make any of it easy to run.

It seems like everyone is a little stressed this time of year over taxes. You can even sense it in the commercials on TV. Come to think of it, it’s almost like the whole month of December. You know, those last stressful 2 week-shopping, hustling & bustling days? Fortunately, the Christmas season ends in opening of gifts and lots of smiles….The tax season, on the other hand, promises nothing but will occasionally offer you a small portion of what they “rightfully” stole from you during the previous year with a meager tax return. Ahem…yippee (sigh). A tax return is supposed to make me excited, right? Excited about what exactly, that the IRS took TOO much away from me during the year?? Excited that I’m getting back only a percentage of the excess amount they took?? Give me a break.

I've learned:
- That in order to owe LESS in corporate taxes, I’m forced to spend MORE. This spending is “controlled” or “strategic” spending, however, on things that my business needs anyway. These are things like printer toner, paper, computer equipment, and software.

- That the silly game that the IRS plays with corporations requires that I actually TRY to end up with a net loss at the end of the year. Something’s wrong here. This is backwards.

- That a corporation starts out as with a default status of “C-Corp” which, among other things, subjects me to having my taxes due in March. Last year I filed for an “S-Corp” status so this year I’ll be filing in April again.

- That as a corporation, one of the best ways to keep the IRS from TAKING Tyed Art’s money is to give it away! That’s right, charity. It’s similar to paying a personal tithe as an individual. Any charitable donations and gifts can be written off and tax deducted. This is why the big boys do be sweepstakes and giveaways! It’s not because they can afford to, but rather, because they can’t afford NOT to. If they didn’t give away their money, they’d end up paying MORE in taxes. Again, something isn’t right here.

I'm glad:
That there are capable and competent accountants out there to help me figure all this out.

I wish:
I had a better aptitude towards bookkeeping. It’s a chore for me. I actually don’t mind sitting down and getting things recorded. I’m a very organized person. My problem is remembering to DO it in the first place.

I will:
Have to learn a lot more about what types of tax breaks and legal loopholes there are out there. One doesn’t profit much from being a corporation when one doesn’t know much about being incorporated or about taxes. I need to become more corporation, tax and financially literate.

Your "Inner Truck Drivers"

2007-03-15T15:53:00.000-07:00

Ever feel like you’re actually living two different lives? Or, said differently, have you ever felt like you’re NOT living a life that, perhaps, you should be living? I’m not talking about having different personalities or moral positions, rather, multiple purposes and aspirations. I get this sensation all the time. I often feel like I’m competing with myself for how I spent my own time. Sometimes I think my mind is a truck’s cab with two drivers, both taking turns steering the cargo of my thoughts in their own desired directions. While they don’t argue, each driver takes a different course when it’s his turn. They don’t seem to agree about how to get to where I’m going.

Each moment can trigger a change of the drivers. When I’m about to do or say something, interact with someone, or make a decision, the drivers contemplate switching seats and a course correction. One of these drivers seems to have much more time at the wheel than the other and the result is predictable. One driver gets frustrated with inactivity while the other becomes tired and burnt out.

I’ve given names to my drivers. For simplicity sake, “Ty”, is the husband, father, son and friend. When Ty is driving I get up, go to my regular 8 to 10-hour job, answer to a boss, request time off, get a paycheck, and come home. This is the guy with the gorgeous wife and 2.9 kids, a hefty mortgage to pay, yard work to do, a list of honey-do’s awaitin’, and hang out buddies to spend time with. This part of me worries about how much is spent, how well I’m providing, and how to out-do my last romantic gesture for my bride. When I’m living the life of Ty, I go to church, rough-house with my kids, watch TV shows & movies, and eat too much of my wife’s fantastic cooking. I’m a family guy…no different than any other.

When Ty, isn’t driving, “Tyed Art” is. This trucker is the very embodiment of the phrase, “Me, Incorporated.” Depending on the day, I’ve could also refer to this driver as the entrepreneur, LittleLDS, business, or ambitious driver. This driver is tenacious. Tyed Art only drives when it’s convenient to do so. He only drives during Ty’s down-time, or when special scheduling arrangements have been made. It’s during the hours of this driver’s navigation that I find my time slipping away effortlessly. It’s during this time that I feel empowered by doing something I know I’m good at. While Tyed Art drives, I only spend Tyed Art money. I act like the person I wish I was. I’m bolder, riskier, and certainly more sophisticated. When Tyed Art drives, my moods don’t fluctuate as much either. If given the chance, this driver would ALWAYS have me in my home office working on my projects. I get consumed by it.

This perspective is a little weird, I know.

But don’t we all have a life that we’re NOT living? A life that we always either talk about living, or just dream about living? Although I’d felt this way many times, I’d never really analyzed it until I heard someone else express it in words. Steven Pressfield, author of The Legend of Bagger Vance, puts it this way in another book entitled The War of Art:

“Most of us have two lives; the life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands resistance. …Late at night, have you experienced a vision of the person you might become, the work you could accomplish, the realized being you were meant to be? Are you a writer who doesn’t write? A painter who doesn’t paint? An entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what resistance is.”

Unless you have a strong tolerance for harsh language, I don’t recommend you actually read that book though. It’s unfortunate because the net result from the book is VERY positive. Anyway…
Although I inherently know where each time-consuming activity belongs on the totem pole of priorities, I’m still hounded by the desire to fulfill my cravings for success, recognition, and accomplishment. Reconciling the two routes is an ongoing challenge. I think the key is to develop a gradual and harmonious merge of the two. Just like two different drivers, I think they can co-exist, but they can never simultaneously drive. I think those who are doing what they LOVE (for a living) are blessed to have inner truck-drivers who are in agreement about where their cargo is headed and how to get there. No matter who’s driving, they’re still heading in the same direction. That balance is my goal.

Moving right along...

2007-03-13T15:06:00.000-07:00

As usual, inspiration has been hitting and missing me the last few days. I’ve been working recently on a project with Building the Kingdom that has offered me a lot of creative license. After seeing my LittleLDS website and artistic style, they have invited me to work with them on creating a Farside-like comic, based on LDS humor and culture, which will be positioned on their website’s home page starting next month. The project has a lot to offer us both. There’s a bit of a vacuum in the LDS comic market, so it’s hoped that the comedic images will generate talk and traffic for their site, which will automatically produce the same for mine. My comics will be ever-present on their home page, which will mean free and constant advertising for LittleLDS products. Because they want a new comic once per month, I’ll have little pressure to produce them quickly…that’s good. It really is a win/win idea. At the end of one year, they’re proposing to produce and sell a 2008 calendar using the comics that will be titled, “The Latter-Day Side.” The title was my idea. I’m very excited about the project and have already started working on the first image.

I’ve also been working a lot on my LittleLDS Product Party idea. No, I haven’t forgotten about it. Not by a long shot. It’s actually coming along nicely. I’ve finished most of the written concept, and am now starting to revise, refine and tweak the overall model. There are still a few gaps to fill in there and there yet. When it’s available, the Party Kit will include an introduction to the product and party model, hosting instructions, activity ideas, dessert recipe suggestions, party invitation templates, and other useful party tips. I’ve already got a few volunteer hostesses lined up to launch the first parties when I’m ready.

LittleLDS CD#4 is relatively slow-going, though certainly not standing still. I’m moving at a crawl, but each new day brings progress. “Be the torus, not the hare”, I keep reminding myself. My programmer is nearing this semester’s end, and is looking forward to working with me at an accelerated rate to get it done. We’ve also planned to begin production of a new program that will enable me to generate my own LittleLDS titles independently of any programming individual. This will not only allow me to move at a quicker pace, but it will also provide me with some autonomy as a designer, as well as an ability to expand my scope to a more generalized children’s’ market. LittleLDS is a great launching pad for this new digital coloring book medium, but I’m finding that it’s a bit too limited as an overall market. Although I will continue to develop it, LittleLDS will eventually be a smaller parallel vector in the same direction as my next big project. After I have this new program fully functional, I’ll be able to begin working on my “Never-ending Coloring Books” brand. The same illustration style and great teaching focus, but no more exclusively LDS-specific titles. Never-ending Coloring Books (whose name is still subject to change) will be generalized for all kids. A much broader market will hopefully translate into a much faster-growing company and product.

I've learned:
That we almost always get out what we put in

I'm glad:
That I usually feel empowered by my challenges

I wish:
I my programmer was finished with school already

I will:
Never feel comfortable sitting around while there are things to be done…I am my father’s son.

Expensive Real Estate

2007-03-07T15:24:00.000-08:00

I recently renewed my membership with a great online community of LDS business owners which, hopefully, will help me with the promotion of LittleLDS. I’m excited about it. The site is www.BuildingTheKingdom.com and they have generated quite a bit of traffic this year. They’ve revamped their site, and have expanded their staffing, marketing and focus. I’ve actually been a member for a while, but only recently started using this virtual venue as a place to advertise. That’s actually what I’m targeting with this blog today; the price of banner advertising.

The web is literally made up of many millions of sites all interconnected and making money on each other through “per-click” technology. This means that they link to each other with banners and profit not only through the business they are advertising on the websites themselves, but also (and at times, more importantly) just by the traffic that runs to and through their websites. It’s a fascinating world, the internet.

It works because the nerds who used to get made fun of in school have now taken over the world by turning us all into computer-dependent cyber junkies. It’s pay-back time. Just look at us “bloggers.” We’re a whole sub-culture of ordinary people who act like we’re all columnists for some New York newspaper. Some of us just write for fun, or to stay connected to friends and family, while others have made an actual career of it…either way we all do it to get readers. Then there are the “pic” sharers. The internet is bursting at the seams with photos and other images. Some of us don’t stop with online photo albums, but advance to online scrapbooking, and full-scale website portfolios. Regardless, we’re making the world smaller with the ubiquitous internet (hasn’t its clout earned it the respect of being capitalized by now?).

At the heart of this mass-transit medium, there is another thing that I find fascinating. Advertising. In order to catch the eye of the cash-wielding consumer, nerds have employed artists to create “banners”. Aptly named, these are virtual billboards that wave at us (sometime literally…i.e., animated “GIF” banners) from the corners and margins of the sites that we visit. Ironically, many of the banners that have been specifically designed to attract our attention have caused us to conversely “evolve” into ad-ignoring internet browsers. This evolution has, of course, spawned the annoying, breed of advertising known as “pop-ups”. To by-pass our keenly developed tendency to ignore the lure of the sales pitch, “pop-ups” were invented to interrupt us in the middle of whatever we’re doing, with total disregard, just incase we intended to NOT click on that “suggestive” banner on the website. Exit, the polite style of advertising… Enter, the “in-your-face,” “See-it-whether-you-want-to-or-not” style of advertising. And with that, out came the inevitable weapons of mass obstruction. Software specially designed to impede the intrusion of “pop-ups.” Suddenly we’ve all become total experts at AVOIDING the very stuff that we, as business owners, are working so hard to put in front of each other. Is this getting complicated, or what? What a paradox.

Well, not to be left out, I’m putting in my two cents. I want a piece of to chaos. While learning about the dos and donts of web-based advertising, I’ve noticed something about this virtual world that seems down-right counter intuitive to me. Stay with me, this is going to get a little technical…

In the real and tangible world, we’ll say, Las Vegas (a relatively hot topic-of-a-town), physical real estate is pretty expensive. Of course, it varies from day to day, and even throughout different locations in the city, but generally speaking, it’s still costly. As I write this, the average cost for a piece of residential real estate, will run you about $372,046. Let’s just assume for simplicity sake that this amount will afford you an average sized 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom, 2,000 sq. ft. house. If you do the math (I’ll do it for you), that equates to about $186 per square foot of physical real estate. Now keep in mind that this number is for a tangible thing….an intrinsically-valued commodity.

Okay, now wrap your brain around this….

The space that I’ll be populating with my homemade LittleLDS banner on the Building the Kingdom website is only 150 pixels wide and 100 pixels high. For those of you who are NOT nerds or artists, like me, I’ll put it into lay man’s terms. 150x100 pixels, at 300 dpi (Dots Per Inch), is only 1.625 inches by 1.0625 inches. That’s right…this virtual real estate that I’m RENTING (nope, can’t even BUY it) is barely larger than a POSTAGE STAMP! And we complain about those at only $0.39 (so far)! Now, for me, a renewing member of the community, the banner came free with my membership renewal. However, let’s just play devils advocate here. What if they hadn’t given it to me as a special promotion? Wanna take a guess at how much this tiny piece of virtual real estate costs? Go ahead…guess. $25? No. Not even close. $50? Nope, try again. $100? Keep going … It costs $130 to NOT OWN this intangible space in a virtual world. Even crazier than that, is the fact that my banner will be among many others of the same size which will take turns in a per-click rotation. That means that about every 5th person who logs on to their website will actually see my banner. Nuts, isn’t it? In the real world, that would be like buying a house, but having it disappear after you drive away from it….only to discover that it only reappears every 5th time that you look for it. Wait, it gets better. Let me put it into even greater perspective. Let’s compare apples to apples.

If I take that same 1.625” x 1.0625” of virtual space and convert it to area (length x width), I would get about 1.73 square inches. In order to compare apples to apples, I need to convert that number to square FEET. So, 1.73” divided by 12” (the number of inches in one foot) equals about 0.144 square feet. Still with me? That means that the cost of this piece of virtual real estate, costs $130 for less that 15% of one square foot! That’s roughly $903 per square foot!!! If I built the same 2,000 sq. ft., 3-bed, 2-bath house on land in the virtual real estate world of the internet, it would cost me over $1.8 million dollars!!!! And the rule of “location, location, location” still applies. Depending on the website and its traffic flow, $130 for a banner can actually a good deal where web advertising is concerned! Dang! Isn’t business GREAT??

So, get a good look at it folks… the infamous LittleLDS banner!

(actual size)

ZZZZZZzzzzz.....huh? HUH?? AHHHH!!!

2007-03-06T14:07:00.000-08:00

Reason #1,979 to not work for someone else;
The “Late Headless Chicken” Mode

I don’t care how “responsible” you are, everyone has one of these mornings at some point. It starts out unlike most, and usually spirals uncontrollably into a “bad day”. When it happens, nothing short of a miracle will get the day back on track. This was my morning….

“OH CRAP!!”

From a deep sleep, and with a sudden jolt of realization, I sprang out of bed, probably looking like a jack-in-the-box popping out of its cube. I bolted over to my cell phone on the dresser hoping to dispel my dreaded suspicion. Having been let down many times by plug-in alarm clocks which had been silently rendered useless in the middle of the night by power outages, I came to the realization long ago that I can only depend on battery powered electronics to wake me... even then, it’s a challenge.

Because I’m already not a morning person (a handicap that I’m certain is delaying my entrepreneurial success a few productive early hours at a time) just reading the time on the cell phone’s tiny back-lit screen was hard enough, let alone trying to process the meaning of the numbers. I’ve done this enough times, however, to know that if it doesn’t say 6:00 am, something’s definitely wrong. Sure enough, it said 6:28am!

“DANG IT!!”

“Okay…I’ve got exactly 2 minutes to get out of the house before I’m late! GO!” Yeah right. As I bolted into the bathroom, a torrent of thoughts flooded my mind… “Why didn’t my alarm go off? Maybe it did… Did I snooze it? Wouldn’t be the first time… What should I wear that’ll look good? No time… What’s clean? Who cares… Shirt. Pants. Wait…..if you can’t shower today (…ugh…) you’ve GOT to, at least, for the love of all that’s sanitary, change your underwear! Okay, socks… Shoes. Belt. What am I going to do with my hair? Dang it…it’s too long! I need a hair cut! If it were shorter I could do it seconds… This is going to take no less than 5 minutes! Precious minutes… No time to stylize… Must settle….Just get rid of the bed-head…” I stuck my head in the sink, soaked, and then dried it. I moosed up the fro and then tried to tame the mop to look, well…at least like I didn’t forget it. Ugh….

Just then I heard a sound I had hoped to avoid on this, of all mornings… My 2-year old was awake and knocking on the bedroom door…crying.

“AAAHH, GREAT!!”

On any other day, while still on schedule, this would only be moderately annoying. Second only to being on time for work, my number one goal every morning is to get up, ready and out of the house before the girls wake up. When they’re up, they always slow me WAY down because they’re so loud and needy first thing in the morning. They always either need to be changed, fed, hugged or entertained somehow. If you don’t do this, things get ugly real fast. Normally, I try very hard to address their immediate needs in order to give Kim an extra few minutes of much needed pregnant-mother sleep. Unfortunately for all of us, today I was in “late headless chicken” mode. I quietly trotted over to the door and poked my head out and attempted to “reason” with her. Nothin’ doin’. Not sure what I expected there. After a few minutes the seconds on my watch started to speed up and synchronize with my adrenaline-filled pulse! "There’s no time for this!" I shooshed her, closed the door, and bolted back to the bathroom. By the time I’d finished the pointless job of de-bed-heading my hair, Kim had already gotten up, changed the diaper, and diffused the ticking time bomb that was my daughter by inviting her into our warm comfy bed for a snuggle. All of this while still mostly asleep. Amazing. Another quick glance down at my watch…

“OH SNAP!!”

"It’s 6:53 am! Aaahhh!!! I’ve got to be AT work in 7 minutes!!" I got nearly to the bottom of the stairs when I realized I didn’t have my cell phone with me. I bounced off an invisible rubber wall and raced back up the stairs. "Got it! Must…get out!" Suddenly I felt like I was in an episode of 24 trying get out of a house which had been compromised by a timed explosive that could go off at any second. Not a second to spare, I flew down the hallway to my office and grabbed my work bag, threw on my jacket and tore back down the hall towards the kitchen. “Shoot, my work ID badge!” Back to the office, and back to the kitchen to rummage through leftovers in the fridge for lunch! 6:55 am…tick tock, tick tock…. “Where are my keys?? In the office? No. Upstairs? Oh, please, for the love of Pete, not upstairs again!” Hoping, I swung around the kitchen and spotted them on the counter. “Whew! No time for relief…”

“GO! GO! GO!”

Lugging my work bag and some Tupperware, I made it out to the porch, locked the front door and headed for my car. I looked at my watch again… Okay, even The Flash, himself, couldn’t make it to work on time at this point. Reality started to set in. "Hhhhh….I’m late. Really late." I got in the car, rolled down the driveway and pulled out my cell phone. As I searched through my list of contacts for my boss’s number, I tried to hurry and think up some cleaver excuse as to why I would be so late. How do you tell your boss that you're late because you snoozed through your alarm? It was just seconds before 7:00am. Luckily for my pride, at least, I got my boss’s voice mail instead of him. “Hey, just wanted to let you know that I’m running behind this morning and will be a little late. I’m on my way now and should be there in just a few minutes….” Click. HHhhhh..... The rest of the drive was just damage control. I was already late. From this point on, it would just be a matter of HOW late. “Mitigate the time loss….don’t be stupid, but punch it!” Foolishly, I weaved in and out of lanes, screeched off the line when the lights turned green and sped up at all the yellow lights. I’m sure somewhere, my old Driver’s Ed teacher was in hives.

By the time I finally got to work, I had set a new record for myself. I was at my desk by 7:19am. Nervous, I looked over all the cubicles at my boss’s office door and saw that it was closed. Wait, HE'S not even here yet?? I skipped a shower, ignored my needy daughter, broke just about every traffic law possible and arrived sweaty, panting and ready to humbly apologize only to discover that my BOSS wasn’t even in yet?!?! As I clouded up, a question surfaced in my mind. "If my boss wasn’t here to witness me being late…was I late? I mean, technically, yes, but it’s not like we clock in around here... As far as he’s concerned I arrived before him just like every other day. As far as he’s concerned, I’m a model employee…. As far as he knows…." Then it hit me. Insult suddenly joined the injury… There was a message on his voicemail from me TELLING him that I’m going to be late.

HHHhhhhhhhh……. I’m retarded. And still late.

I've learned:
A boss will always be more concerned about your tardiness than he’ll ever be about his own.

I'm glad:
I've got a boss that's understanding

I wish:
I were more of a morning person

I will:
have to go to bed abnormally early if I'm ever going to become one

Carrot on a stick

2007-02-23T12:07:00.000-08:00

The Horse:

“I know that I’m a lucky horse,
For every day I’m blessed.
A crispy carrot I’ll get to eat,
If I pass my daily test.”

“I’m not required to do that much,
The reward seems worth the sweat.
I’ve always earned it by day’s end,
It’s a safe and secure bet.”

“When I awake on each new day,
I feel the hunger pains.
This causes me to look around,
For a carrot to take the reigns.”

“Just before I give up hope,
I spot it hanging low.
Dangling just above my nose,
And tempting me to go.”

“So I arise and get a taste,
Mmm…sweeter than a peach!
But just before I bite again,
It jerks beyond my reach”

“Of course this is expected,
For it happens every day.
I work all day to catch the prize
And it always runs away.”

“I’m not really worried though,
The prize is always caught.
True, at times, it seems too small.
After all, I’ve done a LOT.”

“I’ve hauled, I’ve pulled,
I've sustained a lot of stress.
I’ve been yanked and jerked around,
Hmmm… But I digress…”

“This is what I’ve always done,
I see no need to change.
I’ll follow where the carrot leads,
And fight off the hunger pains.”

The Rider:

“I am a lucky man indeed,
For every day I’m blessed.
I’ve planned ahead and found a way,
To excel beyond the rest.”

“I push myself to reach new goals,
And at first I had to sweat.
But now the plan is paying off,
And my future’s not a bet.”

“When I awake on each new day,
And I feel those hunger pains,
I’m reminded of the goals I’ve made,
And resolve to take the reigns.”

“In order to maintain my wealth,
I learned this long ago;
Ignore the fads and trendy things,
And be not tempted so.”

“Instead I’ve found more value,
In the pit than in the peach,
Potential lies within the seed,
That’s worthy of my reach.”

“To cover the great distances,
Of where I go each day,
I ride astride my trusty horse.
Which makes work seem like play.”

“With just one simple carrot,
I’ve got this horse well taught.
To be contented when we stop,
And eat what he has sought.”

“I’ve never seen a written rule,
That work should cause me stress.
Instead of hard, then, I’ll work smart
And ensure that I progress.”

“Striving for expiring things,
Means temporary gains;
And following where the carrot leads
Brings tomorrow’s hunger pains.”

The "Sick Leave" Ambush

2007-02-13T21:00:00.000-08:00

Reason #3,628 to not work for someone else:
The "Sick Leave" Ambush

Will someone please explain to me the logic behind "sick leave?" I've found this concept to be a complete trap. Make no bones about it, everybody gets sick. Some get sick more often than others, but we all have those days when we'd rather just stay in bed and feel miserable all by ourselves than come in and LOOK miserable in front of everyone else for 8 hours.

The theory behind sick leave is well enough intentioned. When we're first hired on with a new company, most of us attend some type of orientation where a million different policies and procedures are fired at us. By the time we leave this "orientation" meeting, however, most of us feel much more disoriented than when we went in, despite the HR rep's reassuring, "Don't worry, it's all laid out for you in the handbook!" While drinking from this fire hydrant of information, you might hear them whiz through some policy regarding paid time off. This, for the average working American, is the needle in the haystack. The light at the end of the tunnel. It’s the one piece of this meeting that gives us something to look forward to. Don't kid yourself, you're already looking forward to the next paid holiday, or vacation that you qualify for. After all, not many of us are working just for fun. Ahhh...time off. But I digress...

Let's say, after you've been with a company for a probationary period of 30 days, that every pay period you now accrue 3 hours of "vacation time" and 3 hours "sick time." Now, let's say that you've been working for this company for about 6 months and have never taken a day off. Assuming it were possible, you would now have about 36 hours (nearly 4.5 days) of each. Ever wonder what would happen if you used all your vacation time at once? Probably nothing more than a little extra paperwork to catch up on by the end of your vacation, right? On the flip side, however, what if you were to call in sick every day for a entire work week? What would happen then? Chances are, your boss would start to make negative assumptions about you, don't you think? "He's faking it to make a vacation out of the long weekend!" "He's got interviews with other places on COMPANY time!" "He's milking the company!"

Although it is never said aloud, most people know that "vacation time" can be used without any worry about their reputation. Why is it then that those 3 hours of time, when used as "sick time," will usually negatively affect the way your employers judge you? The only difference between "vacation time” and "sick time", after all, is the amount of time we have to notify our employers that we'll be using it...right? Aren't vacation hours and sick time hours both GIVEN to us to use? Why then, for the love of Pete, should we feel guilty or looked down on when we actually DO use it...even if we use ALL of it?!

Although I've got a great boss now, and this isn't a current issue, in the past I've actually been dangerously close to getting canned just for using the sick time my company has allotted me. This doesn't make any sense to me. If I were to ask my previous boss whether or not the sick time I had acrued was actually mine to use, surely he would say, "yes"...wouldn't he? It's not like I had ever dipped into borrowed time off in order to be out sick.

I suffer from migraine headaches. I generally get a really bad one about once per week, and almost always have about 3 or 4 less severe, but nagging headaches during the rest of the week. Sometimes they're just annoying enough to make me miserable while I'm at work, while other times they're capable of forcing me to stay at home where it's quiet and dark. Someone like me can't just NOT work. I've got to make due with what I've got...

With the last company I worked for, which will go unnamed, this happened a lot. However, because I usually wake up with my headaches, I would pop a pill in the early morning, call in sick, and then lay down to sleep it off. More often than not, I'd feel well enough within a few hours, and be able to make it into work by about 11:00 am or noon. Granted, with a situation like this, the biggest problem is that my employer is expecting me to be at work until he gets my message. With vacation time, it would have been planned in advance. I can understand that. But they did GIVE me those hours to use....didn't they? I mean, they are allowed, right? It doesn’t make much sense to me to give someone "time off" hours (regardless of what you're calling them), and then get disgruntled when you take them up on their offer to actually use them.

Even the actual call-in to the boss is a joke. I've had a boss actually tell me, while briefing me on their call-in-sick protocol, "When you call in, you don't need to try to sound sick. Just say you’re using sick time." I had to laugh at that one. Obviously, that employer was tired of employees faking a desperately frail whimper in order to sound legitimately sick. I'll admit it...I've done it before. I'd venture to say that most of us in the working class have done it at one time or another; You know, when you called in sick, and, at the risk of sounding too healthy to be taken seriously, gave an academy award-winning sick voice performance. Psshhh....we've all done it, dude.

Listen, not much is worse, in my world, than having to call some other human being (who is only my boss because they got there before I did) and inform them that I'm not feeling well. Nothing else makes me feel as inferior and enslaved as having to call-in. Whether I'm truly sick or just want the day off. That, for me, is a great reason to work towards my goal of working for myself.

I've learned
That if you ever feel like you need to take a vacation from your work, you're in the wrong field. Those who truly love what they do, never really work a day in their lives, and subsequently never need (or even want) to take a vacation from it. To them, vacations are just interrupting them from doing what they enjoy.

I'm glad
That the general public has not caught onto the great investing secret of precious metals yet. I've still got some time. Gold and silver are both performing terrifically, and folks are bound to notice it soon. By the time they do catch on, it'll mean it's too late to buy it at a good deal.

I wish
I was able to consistently focus on just ONE of my ideas and get it totally finished. This is my greatest challenge as an aspiring entrepreneur. I can't seem to just put new ideas aside until after I've finished previously conceived ideas. All of them seem viable, and none of them seem unimportant enough to prioritize lower.

I will
Have to push a lot harder if I'm going to finish the Virtual Vault before the baby-boomers retire. They'll start within this year. I think they'll be my target market with all the pensions, investments and assets they'll need to manage during their retirement years.

The Fragility of Small Business

2007-02-09T13:49:00.000-08:00

Like any measurable thing, businesses can be categorized into scaleable and quantitative groups. For instance, they can be categorized by demographics, or by the amount of jobs they create. They can be sorted by the amount of revenue they generate, by the amount of stock holders they have, by the products that produce, or by their marketing budgets. There are the major league players like Microsoft, Wal Mart, and Google, there are the mid-sized businesses (that still seem huge) like Post Net, Big-O Tires, and Pier One, and then there are the little guys. I mean the really little guys. You know the ones who “claim” to be businesses and who just barely qualify on paper as “legitimate” businesses. Sure they produce products and provide services, but generally speaking, the only difference between them and the average employee is which hour you happen to catch them working. It is this latter category that, ironically, makes up most of America’s economy. Strange, isn’t it? The big businesses make more money when compared side by side, but collectively it is the small (sometimes only technically) businesses that drive the national economy. How is this possible? Well, there are just that many of us out there. Folks like me who have great ideas, dreams, and aspirations, but not much clout. Many of us are starting from scratch. it’s all about good timing and being ready to welcome opportunity when it knocks on our door.

They say that 90% of small businesses fail within their first year. After that first successful year, they say that 90% of those fail within the next 5 years. I think failure and success are both relative terms. At the risk of sounding cliché, the only true measure of one’s success or failure is one’s own goals and aspirations. Those goals and aspirations are determined by commitment, optimism, and patience. Like all the other non-believers of the get-rich-quick method, I’m in this for the long haul and I know it’s going to take a long time before I see the results I’m looking for. It’s takes time to build a strong business infrastructure and system. I don’t expect to be wealthy overnight, but I do expect that it’s somewhere along the path I’m on. I just need to stay on the path and push....hard.

I’m in my 2nd year of business as a corporation. However, I’ve been working as a hobby business for about 6 years now. One might say I’ve beaten the odds of surviving longer than the 1 to 5 year life expectancy of a small business. Although, one might also argue that I haven’t been involved in the real business world long enough to have any measurable track record. Again, I think it comes down to perspective.

Why is it that most small businesses fail so early on anyway? I mean, why is it that so many well-intentioned, hard working, smart, and talented people’s business ventures go belly-up shortly after beginning? Businesses are like trees. They start out small, fragile and vulnerable. Expecting a business to start out generating massive amounts of money right from the beginning is as about as smart as expecting a newly planted sprout to start producing fruit in its first season of growth. They need lots of attention at first. Attention and NOT much expectation. Just like a new plant needs lots of sun light, fertile soil and water to grow, a business needs dedication, ambition, optimism, and conviction.

So, why am I writing about the fragility of small businesses today, you might be wondering? Well, today I feel small. Determined and confident, but very small. I guess I'm probably still trying to establish my own roots in the soil I find myself in. I'm still trying to look at my business' potential instead of seeing the current status of my fragile sprout. I'm trying to remain satisfied my pace as the torus, and not the hare.

I've learned...
That inspiration comes when it will. While I don't believe you can FORCE yourself to have good ideas, I certainly DO believe that you can help the process along. The implementation of "The Breakthrough Principle" has worked just about every time. In a nutshell, this theory states that once you've exhausted your mental resources, you should "walk away" from the project. This will allow your subconscious to work out the block while you're otherwise engaged...similar to when you dream while sleeping.

I'm glad...
That I discovered CNDD and have been able to help other identify it in those around them.

I wish...
I had the tenacity to quit my job today and work full-time investing in my own ideas.

I will...
Try harder to distinguish between what is urgent and what is important...and then do what is important FIRST.

Artistic Paradigm: the means or an end?

2007-01-12T13:13:00.000-08:00

On occasion, when I log into my gmail account to check for email messages, I’ll find that my younger brother Glenn is logged in too, and we’ll chat. We actually do this fairly often. It’s nice because we’re not only states away from one another, but also because he and I share similar interests, and we like to discuss them. Like me, Glenn is an artist. Second only to his wife, I’m sure, I'm his biggest fan. Although he’s my younger brother, I really look up to him. I’d like to take credit for having “trained” him as an artist, and I actually do joke about it with him. We kid around about him being my artistic version of the Star Wars Padawan Learner…a prodigy born of my masterful skills and brilliant and artistic teaching techniques.... However, I hardly think that simply being born first and “allowing” him to watch me draw while we were growing up qualifies me as a mentor of any kind. Yes, I showed him a few things along the way, and yes, I “graciously granted” him access to my pencils, colored pencils and drawing pads (with some prodding by Mom and Dad), but really, Glenn made himself. I was a good soundboard for his own good ideas, just as he was for me. While I can’t take credit for his talent or techniques, I will accept credit for helping him to gain the initial interest in art (I was, after all, probably his first introduction to anything artistic), and for being supportive of his pursuit of his talent’s development. There’s really nothing noble in that….he’s always just been my little art buddy.

Glenn and I have really gone different directions with our talents though. Over the years, I’ve become much more specialized, while Glenn has chosen to broaden his range of expertise. While I’ve taken advantage of my artistic talent to produce sellable artistic products and, yes, some good artwork, Glenn has excelled in his exploration of his own remarkable artistic capabilities. He’s done something that I’ve wished for and dreaded all at the same time. He has, through school and experimentation, artistically diversified himself. Glenn has not only enabled himself to express his many creative ideas, but he’s also enabled himself to do it through many different mediums. Where I’m limited to my pencils, colored pencils, some acrylic paint, and some great computer programs, Glenn has really extended himself. In addition to the skills I've learned he’s also worked with clay, oils & water color, chalk, and ink. He’s also diversified the applications of his art. He’s gotten into live model drawing and artistic anatomy, rendering and animation, storyboarding, video production & editing, and is currently studying at BYU while being courted by Pixar. I've focused my talent mainly towards the creation of product lines, reproducible pieces of art, and industry-specific logo design. I've been working towards establishing a name for myself and to implement business systems that are propelled by my artistic styles. I've learned how to use my talent to increase my chances of building a profitable business through website design, corporate logo design, software interface design, and the design of artistic products.

While art is certainly my means, it isn’t always my end. With Glenn, however, art is created for the sake of being artistic. I admire that. I have ideas and systems that I endeavor to establish, and my artistic talents enable me to achieve those goals. Glenn creates art because he love to create art…it just so happens that other people LOVE his art too, and therefore commission him for their projects. For me, art is a tool. For Glenn, it is the prize, in and of itself. Both of us love art.

Recently, while chatting with Glenn online, we started talking about a blog entry I had written a few weeks back called, “Working for Money”. In it, I wrote a poem that I had created to make a point. The poem is called “What am I working for?”. In a nutshell, it’s about a wandering tradesman who, while in the middle of his daily routine, stops to reflect on the purpose of that routine. He questions his inherited motives for working and earning. After deliberation and a powerful realization, he ultimately decides against continuing on his current path, and instead, takes a new one that will enable him to achieve a comfortable and enjoyable life in his old age. I originally wrote this poetic analogy to illustrate a point only. Once it was finished, however, I envisioned actually illustrating its verses for a childrens book. Being busy with other things, of course, this idea dropped into its place in my brain vomit book to be regurgitated later. Glenn told me that when he read the story, it jumped out at him. He said the words produced powerful imagery to him and that he could appreciate the message of the analogy. I was suddenly very proud of it and hopeful again of my original idea to illustrate it into a childrens book. However, the wheels in my head started turning in a different direction this time.

Needless to say, I’ve invited Glenn to work with me on the project. He as the illustrator, and me as the author. Between his amazing artistic talent and my words and direction, we might have something here. He was delighted that I would ask him to help me with it, and accepted. I was delighted because I had just employed one of my favorite artists. We’ve already discussed the idea in great detail and we’re both excited about it. We’re also both very realistic about it. It is, after all, yet another idea on our already-full plates. We’ve agreed that this project is estimated to take a long time to complete. Fortunately for me, the story itself is already finished. When asked when I wanted the illustrations to be finished, I simply told Glenn that we should just take it one image at a time, rather than trying to squeeze out the whole project at once. I think that will be much easier for us both...especially with our schedules. We’ll constantly have ideas to bounce back and forth along the way, and we’ll have the liberty to take the time to really develop the imagery the way I've envisioned it.
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I’ve learned…
that while some people converse with others to exchange ideas, some merely converse to be heard and deliver ideas. This second type of person isn’t interested in learning or sharing, but only in knowing and telling.

I’m glad…
that the CD which is stuck in my new car’s in-dash CD player is of MP3 songs that I compiled specifically to play to over and over. Hhhhhhh…… (C’mon Ty, stay positive…) Could be worse. The CD player could have chosen to permanently swallow a CD that only has ONE song on it that I like.

I wish…
that there were more than 24 hours in a day. Of course, knowing me, if I actually had more than 24 hours in a day, I’d probably fill them all up too, and still wish for more hours. Perhaps I should, instead, be thankful for the amount of hours I have in a lifetime.

I will…
not make a very good millionaire unless I first learn how to be a good steward over the few thousand that I’ve earned, managed and lost already.

I've learned, I'm glad, I wish, I will...

2007-01-05T12:25:00.000-08:00

Like every other person on the planet, I too have made some new resolutions with the onset of a new year. Unlike most people, however, I don't really like talking about them very much. I think the biggest reason is because I don't want to raise the expectations of those around me and then face their perceived judgments of my perceived failures at the end of the year. Sounds like I'm trying to dodge some accountability there... hmmm.... another topic for another day I suppose. Anyway, moving on…

This year, one thing I’m going to do is to start a new “segment” in my blogging. Aside from the regular thoughts I might have about my daily occurrences as an aspiring entrepreneur, I’m going to include some short blurbs called, “I’ve learned…”, “I’m glad…”, “I wish…”, and “I will…” in my blog. These will, if nothing else, give me a more regular launching pad for my thoughts as a blogger. I think by declaring something I’ve learned, I am, in a sense, forcing myself to learn, well... something on a regular basis. It may be something new, and it may just be something reviewed and re-realized – an “Oh, right!” moment, if you will. By specifying something I’m glad about, I’ll be identifying things I’m thankful for, big or small. No one can be too grateful. The more thankful I am, the more generous I’ll have a tendency to be myself. Wishing for things, while usually in the context of only hoping or dreaming, will be more like aspirations for me. Things I can strive for. Sometimes people wish for things, however, that just ought to be so, without any other intention. I’m no exception. And finally, by saying, “I will…” I’m committing myself to something. For me, this is important. It keeps me goal oriented, motivated, proactive, and productive. So, here we go…

I’ve learned…
That Rob is much more talented that I thought. Rob, one of my 2 best friends, and a guy I’ve known since the 4th grade, has always been a very sharp individual. This isn’t new to me. He’s always been quick-witted, great at chess (a calculated thinker), and good with numbers. In fact, Rob even has a strange talent that proves how quick he is. Not many people know this about him, but if you were to give Rob a word…any word…he’ll be able to tell you how many letters are in that word almost immediately. It’s kinda weird, but it's pretty cool to see him do it too.

I’m glad…
That he had chosen to pursue a career in computer science because it gives me an excuse to work with him like we’ve always talked about! Because he’s learned so much about computer programming I can “employ” him as an independent contractor to work with me on my business ideas! I’ve got a lot of them, and he seems to be just the man for the job! Over the New Years weekend, he and I worked tirelessly day and night to further my LittleLDS program re-design. He’s come up with a LOT of improvements to the old program and has already got most of the revisions finished.

I wish…
That I had more money to pay him what he’s really worth, and that I could employ him full-time. I am paying him, but in my opinion, he’s worth a lot more. For now, however, he told me that he’s content to be working with me, and doing what he loves to do…programming!

I will…
Definitely be looking forward to working with Rob to finish LittleLDS CD #4, “Scenes from the Plains,” and subsequent LittleLDS as well as LittleArtist titles. I’m also looking forward to having his expertise on some of my concepts for other Tyed Art products and programs! We’ve talked about a few of them and he really seems to be up for the challenge! I've learned that a good entrepreuer surrounds himself with people who are smarter than himself. Rob's employment is a good step in this direction.

I’ve been working a lot on my LittleLDS product party model too. After doing a lot of research and taking some surveys, I’ve got some really great ideas on how I can improve the concept of the product party. I’m currently creating a PDF file that will be downloadable to anyone who might be interested in hosting one of these parties. I should have it finished within the next few weeks, I think. After that, I’ll be posting it on my LittleLDS website for public access. I’ve had some very interesting challenges in making this work, but have met them all head on. Kim has helped me a lot with many of these tough issues. She’s been instrumental in helping me work through some of the hang ups and dead ends. I’m really looking forward to starting the parties publicly. I don’t expect them to “take off” right away, but I think they will be nice tool to have if I’m ever approached again with the question, “Does LittleLDS do parties like Tupperware?”…..to which I will now be able to proudly reply, “As a matter of fact, we do, Ma’am, and you can get all the information on the website.”

A product of "What-if" sight

2006-12-12T15:49:00.000-08:00

Without formally deciding to do so, I’ve essentially allowed myself to “let my hair down” during the holidays this year. Normally, I’m a pretty relentless busy-body throughout the year with regards to my business aspirations and projects, but with the onset of Christmas I’ve taken a much more laid back approach to business this month. Sure, I’ll be back in full swing come January, but for now it’s all about my family. We’ve actually been pretty busy as a family with all the fun holiday things going on. The annual live nativity, Christmas movies, gingerbread houses, Christmas projects for the kids, and attending holiday get-togethers…. So much to do, and so much FUN to be had…who has time for business??

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not putting on any blinders to opportunity, by any means. I’m just not proactively LOOKING for new stuff this month. I have had a few things fall into my lap over the past few days though. Projects and ideas actually. I’m currently working on a Name Design for a client which will be a Christmas/Hanukah gift and, after sending out a mass email to my friends, relative and client database, I’ve even generated a few holiday-related sales for LittleLDS. My goal is to make Christmas much, MUCH bigger for LittleLDS next year.

On Monday, November 20th I was in a car accident that robbed me of my old and faithful friend “Bodona” (my horribly beaten, but very reliable 12 year-old ’95 Honda Civic). I had been driving about 30 mph when a car failed to yield to me, the on-coming traffic, and made a poor attempt to turn left across my lane after incorrectly determining that no one was coming. As he cut through my lane, I nailed him head on. My car looked like I had just hit a light pole dead center. Both air bags deployed, and the windshield shattered. My classes were thrown out of my open window but were recovered without a scratch. Despite being punched in the face, I walked away with only minor bruises, as sprained elbow (discovered later) and a headache. The car wasn’t so lucky. It didn’t make it. While waiting for Kim to come pick me up, I watched the tow truck hoist it up and away, and inadvertently I started to reflect on what had just happened. This was one of those priceless opportunities that life gives us once in a blue moon. Having just been saved and pummeled simultaneously by an airbag my seatbelt, I was given the gift of, what I like to call, “What-if sight.” Similar to hind sight, what-if sight gives us a clear and highly prioritized perspective of where you ARE vs. where you COULD be at that moment. While surveying the horrific scene in my mind’s eye of how this accident could have ended up, I started wondering the typical what-ifs. “What if the airbag had shoved my classes into my eyes and blinded me?” What if I had been rendered unconscious and wasn’t able to tell Kim what had happened?” Then came the inevitable mother of what-ifs….”what if I had died in this accident?” While processing this morbid thought, I noticed once again, as I have many times before, that opportunity was faintly knocking on my door. By the time Kim had picked me up, I had worked out, in my mind, another great money-making idea. That was the catalyst, here’s the result and premise.

People, in general, have amazing amounts of data floating around in the conscious and subconscious minds. Its something we usually just take for granted until it’s pointed out to us. Let me help you appreciate the amount of data you’re currently storing up there in that big muscle between your ears. Think about all the different names you have to remember and all the faces that you must recognize that go with them. Now, think about all the voices that accompany those names and faces. Think about all the phone numbers you’ve memorized. Past and present. Think about all the mailing address, email addresses, and website addresses you recall on any given day. Think about all the words you can spell on any given moment. Think about the sounds of the alphabet and the letters that make them up. Do you speak another language? I’m not just talking about boarder languages, but programming languages, body languages, etc… Add those to the list too. What about all those account numbers, user names and passwords? Which ones belong to which banks, website, memberships, and organizations? Think about all the schedules and appointments you keep. Think about all the financial process, calculations, and conversions you can remember. You’re able to remember quantities, measurements, medication names and their dosages, grocery lists and anniversaries. Think about all the sizes your brain can remember. What sizes are your clothes now vs. what you wore a year ago? Amazed yet? At any given moment, in today’s complex world, our brains are capable of harboring incredible amounts of data. It’s no wonder this is considered the information age. It’s also no wonder we’re constantly forgetting things either. It’s not necessarily that we’re that forgetful either. Perhaps it’s just that we have SO much to remember at once!

Because there are so many things to remember, it’s easy to inadvertently leave things out when recollection is really important. While waiting for Kim to pick me up from that accident scene, I asked myself, “What if I had died today? What information [what data] would I have taken with me?” The answer was a little startling. As a husband and father, I spend a considerable amount of time planning and strategizing how to generate new income, how to efficiently manage what we have, and how to invest in our future. I’m constantly re-evaluating our goals, moving around our investments, and exploring new ways to protecting our personal property and information.

However…

If I had died in that accident, would Kim know how to liquidate the assets we’ve accumulated together? Would she even know we HAD some of them? Would she know how to cash in our precious metals? Would she know how to access our I-bonds? Would she know where to go to collect my life insurance? While mourning my loss, would she be in a state of mind to contact my employer? Would she have the means to sell our house if she needed to? I don’t doubt Kim’s capabilities, but I do doubt the ease of accessibility to my own preparations. If I had died that day, would I have left my house in order?

The idea I came up with was software that would store and maintain all that critical information for me. Not only would it store that data, but it would also remind you at pre-determined intervals of time, via email, to update your time-sensitive information such as policy renewals, living wills and trust information, vehicle maintenance, and health check ups. The software would not only act as a guide for those surviving a lost loved one, but it would also serve the living user as a rolodex for personal & professional contacts, an inventory of personal & business property, a calendar for bills and bookkeeping, a database for codes, combinations, usernames, and passwords, a storage for images, a storage for important documents, and a living resume. There are many, MANY more things I would want to program into it. The idea is to make all of this information manageable, and accessible for me now and for her (or others) later.

I’ve looked into this market and have found several pieced of my pie. In the financial world, some companies, in order to help their clients manage their investments, bank accounts and insurances, have come with a paper form called a “family love letter.” Its purpose is similar to mine. Make financial information and assets easily located and liquidated when necessary. I’ve found software out there that specifically handle home and property inventory. These software programs are closer to what I’m looking to do, but they are still only pieces of the over all “preparation” pie.

I’m still not sure what to call the software, but after having met with Rob in Utah over Thanksgiving weekend, I definitely know that I want to work with HIM on it. He’s brilliant! I’m excited to work on this idea, although it may have to reside in my Brain Vomit book for a while first. LittleLDS needs some real attention after the holidays.

Opportunity is knocking

2006-11-16T14:49:00.000-08:00

Opportunity is a very interesting thing. I’ve heard many people say that “you need to be prepared for when opportunity comes a knockin’ on your door”, as if there’s no telling when it’ll meander your way. It seems to me, however, now that I’ve answered that proverbial door several times to find opportunity smiling broadly at me from my front porch, that it has been there all along. It has actually been knocking all along too, but my ignorance has kept me from knowing what to listen for. Though many would probably disagree with me, I would contend that it is also completely an unbiased and non-discriminating visitor that knocks on almost everyone’s door on a regular basis. If this were not so, what other explanation could we give for the fact that multi-millionaire business owners, popular celebrities, famous authors, influential inventors, successful entrepreneurs, recognized athletes, and powerful world leaders have come from both affluent and poverty-stricken backgrounds alike? Yes, a good deal of their success CAN be attributed to talent, but as Robert Kiyosaki said in his book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, “the world is full of talented poor people.”

Timing also plays a significant part in the achievement of those afore mentioned, but even timing is just a companion to opportunity. In fact, one might even say that opportunity is always punctual for its appointments. Opportunity has many such companions. Ambition, patience, humility, tenacity, ingenuity, faith, imagination, hope, diligence, wisdom, curiosity, and experience are just a few of opportunity’s many friends. Opportunity, itself, is a perspective…a method of observation. It is said that once you learn HOW to recognize opportunities, you’ll never STOP recognizing them. It’s like putting on a pair of night vision goggles after stumbling around in a pitch black room, and suddenly seeing EVERYTHING you’ve been bumping into for years. Finally, you can not only see what you’ve missed out on, but also what lies ahead of you. It’s a paradigm shift from ignorance to enlightenment. You’re able to see what others miss. You can see others stumbling around in the dark, feeling blindly and aimlessly on a path that might or might not lead them to a safe and profitable place.

It’s important to note that not all opportunities are equal either. Some are very small and have as little an impact on our lives as what we wear to work from day to day. Others are can be utterly life-altering in potential. Regardless of their magnitude, though, all opportunities are good things. That’s why they’re called “opportunities”….they’re opportune, fortuitous, timely and favorable in nature. Ever heard of a bad opportunity? No, those would be accidents, mishaps, mistakes and misfortunes.

The other day opportunity knocked again on my door. This time it happened with some new friends who were invited over for dinner. While eating dinner and getting to know this couple better, we discussed some of our similar interests. One of these interests was art. Michelle, it turns out, is a very talented photographer. She’s in the beginning stages of her new business and, like me, is always looking for great new ideas. While asking her about her photo shoot process, she said some things that struck a cord and caused me to recognize the knock of an old friend. Yes, opportunity had just made a surprise visit. Over the next few minutes, I proceeded to present my new idea to her as it unfolded in my mind. I felt more like a conduit for the arrival of this new immerging idea than a recipient of it.

This blog entry is supposed to be about the nature of opportunity, itself, and not the idea that it handed to me on this occasion. However, if I were you, the reader, I’d probably be irritated at read about an alluded idea, and not the idea itself. So, to appease your curiosity, here’s the idea in a nutshell.

Michelle’s photography is, in her own words, “images created [to] truly give a depiction of your relationship with each other and the love you share.” I’ve often referred to my own Tyed Art Name Designs as artistic reflections of the family’s love for each other and their sense of togetherness. These two ideas seem to really compliment each other well. The two talents that we have, photography and artistic design, collaborated in my mind in the form of a piece of combined artwork. My Tyed Art Name Design surrounded by the photographic images of family members and then framed within custom matting and framework. I created a virtual prototype of the product to show her and she seemed to like it. I took one of the Name Designs that I had already done (didn’t want to crate a new one JUST to get my point across), and combined it with a bunch of pictures I had on file.

I’m excited about the idea, and hope that it doesn’t become a mere member of the “lost-in-the-sea-of-ideas” club that resides in my brain vomit book. I don’t know the magnitude of its potential opportunity yet, but I suppose hindsight alone will afford me that perspective. For now, I’ll have to depend on opportunity’s friends, motivation, imagination, and curiosity.

Customizing a proven formula

2006-11-07T15:35:00.000-08:00

The other day I had a customer express an interest in hosting a Tupperware-like party for LittleLDS. I thought it was very interesting because LittleLDS parties don’t exist (yet). The most interesting part of this is that it isn’t the first time someone has brought this up to me. The first time I had someone show interest in the idea, I was merely flattered. It was at one of the tradeshows that I was doing in Salt Lake City. The second time I thought was a bit coincidental, and the wheels started to slowly turn. I passively considered the details of such an idea, but never really did much about it amid all the other projects I’m currently working on. This time, however…with a THIRD request….a pattern has been formed, and I can ignore this issue no longer. There is obviously a market for the idea. It might be small, but it obviously exists, and, being the opportunist that I am, I MUST try my hand at it.

This could actually be just the system I have been longing for. It would be a way to sell, without doing all the work myself. I could set up the system, introduce it to the interested parties and then let it take off (Okay, that’s a little over simplified, but you get the idea). It would be like having employees without out the hiring, firing or technical tax issues!

Because I’ve never been to a Tupperware, Pampered Chef, or Mary Kay party, I only had a very generalized idea about what kinds of things are done at one. At the onset of my research into this idea, this is what I knew;

An interested person contacts the company and expresses an interest in wanting to host a party. Invitations are made and sent our by the host, and the company sends a representative to the party to demonstrate the product. The hostess’ motivation for having the party is two fold (I presume). First, she’s hoping that her guests will order something which will help her to earn some sort of pre-established credit toward the company’s products. Second, the host wants to have a fun little get-together with her neighbors and friends (psshhh…..right. Let’s not kid ourselves. It’s ALL about the products).

The other thing that I know about these types of parties (and I’ve also witnessed this one first hand) is the kind of reaction one has at receiving an invitation. There are only TWO reactions. Either you’re thrilled, or you’re totally put out. I’ve seen and heard of the latter reaction much more often. That being the case, I decided to ask Kim some questions about the nature of the “hosted product party.”

Question: What do most people hate most about these types of parties?
Answer: The pressure of feeling like they HAVE to buy something. Knowing your friend invited you so that you would buy something and also knowing that if you don’t buy something, your friend won’t earn enough credit towards what SHE wants to get out of this party.

Question: What do most people like about these parties?
Answer: If they do like the company and the products, then it’s fun to look through the catalogs and find something fun to buy. They also like hanging out with the other guests at the parties.

Question: What is the major motivation for someone to host a party like this?
Answer: Aside from being able to hang out with some friends, as a hostess, when your guests purchase items at the parties, you earn credits toward products you want from the company. Unfortunately, you never know if you’ll earn enough through your guests’ purchases or not until after the party is over. Some companies will even give extra rewards when one of your guests sets up an appointment to host a future party at their home with the company’s representative.

Question: From a corporate perspective, what are the drawbacks to hosting product parties?
Answer: A representative needs to be paid when present.

Question: From a corporate perspective, what are the major advantages of hosting product parties?
Answer: They generate word of mouth advertising, which is the most powerful method of advertising there is. Also, these parties can be self-perpetuating…on party can be the catalyst for a host of others when the party is done successfully. It is a low-cost, high impact method of selling and advertising.

Okay, so, taking a logical and practical approach, I’ve come up with the following assessment of the information that Kim gave me; First of all, if I can eliminate the hassle and pressure away from potential guests of feeling like they HAVE to buy something at one of these parties, I could probably change the initial reaction of receiving an invitation from “Ah, crap!” to “Oh, sweeeeet!” I could do that simply by letting the hostess and the guests know beforehand (through the instructions packet and party invitations) that credits earned by the hostess are NOT contingent upon the purchases of the guests. Easy enough. If I allow the hostess to know ahead of time what she can expect to earn from the party (regardless of purchases), then she might be more motivated to host in the first place. I can achieve this by making the level of credits earned directly related to the number of guests who merely show up (not by how much is purchased). For instance, I could say that in order for a hostess to earn one LittleLDS coloring CD, she would have to have, say, 5 guests attend her party. Those guests could then, in order to be considered “in attendance” provide their contact information for a future follow up letters and email – thus adding to the LittleLDS advertising data pool. Also, because LittleLDS is new, I can’t afford to hire a representative for each of these parties, and heaven knows I’M not going to be attending them! Instead, I could set up a pre-packaged demonstration & party suggestions with game ideas, and activity models that the hostess, herself, could handle. Essentially, it would feel more like a shower than a product party. Most women I know actually LIKE going to showers. Guests arranging to host their own LittleLDS parties as a direct result of the party they had just attended would only be an added bonus for the hostess by earning her ancillary rewards.

After making some of these suggestions, Kim admitted that this modified version of the hosted product party model might be more conducive to a fun outcome, rather than a pressured one. Kim did bring up something that caused me to really think. Right now, I only have 3 CDs for sale. I’m working on my 4th title now, and my LittleLDS Page Keepers, but they’re a long way from completion. I don’t exactly have a catalog’s worth of products to choose from. Say my hostess receives one free CD for every 5 guests that attend her party. If she has 15 guests show up, she’s just earned my entire available collection! Or, what if one of the guests buys 2 of the CDs at the party, and then decides to host her own? She really would only have to invite 5 people to receive the 3rd and final CD. This got the wheels in my head spinning faster. I could spend some time developing my Café Press products and have some on hand to include with this party packages. They could include free giveaways with the LittleLDS logo…things like, mugs, hats, throw pillows, t-shirts (for kids), mouse pads, tote bags, pins, stickers, etc…. Or, what if I were to network? What if I were to contact FHE on DVD or Little Play Dates, or another LDS company to create a joint product party model? What if the guests of the party are able to learn about, win, and buy other products besides just my own at the party? Chances are, this would help to advertise my product further. Not only would I be helping other LDS businesses to grow, but they would be helping me too, and neither of us would need to sell our products ourselves. I might have to formalize this on paper and make a few phone calls…

The daily grind

2006-10-25T17:42:00.000-07:00

I’m finding my artistic inspiration and entrepreneurial motivation, lately, to be unreliable, and predictably inconvenient. For some reason, while I’m here at “the job” from 6am until 6pm I’m VERY motivated and even anxious to work on LittleLDS or other Tyed Art projects. In fact, my ideas tend to distract me from my work at “the job.” I’ll be sitting there working when all of a sudden I have an idea for an image that would look great on the tyedart.com website, or I’ll suddenly get a strong desire to illustrate one of the LittleLDS pages for CD#4. Of course, I CAN’T work on that stuff while I’m at “the job,” so I do what I’ve always done. I write down the idea in my Brain Vomit book or on my “to do” list, and put it back on the mental shelf to be visited later. The idea tickles my brain for hours. That’s the best way to describe it. It’s not hammering on my mind and giving me a headache. I’m perfectly capable of focusing on my work, but I don’t always WANT to ignore the idea. That’s the very nature of the beast though. It’s not necessarily annoying because it’s a GOOD idea, but because I can’t do anything about it, it does start to become a bit frustrating.

One would think that all this pent up inspiration and frustration would cause me to experience total uninhibited flow by the time I’m able to work on it at home. But, no….not lately. For a while now, when I get home all I want to do is vege-out. I’m in a funk and I need to snap out of it and get back on the horse. I need to give myself a schedule for completion of CD#4. I’ve done it before and I can do it again. It’s weird though, I think, that somewhere between getting out of work, the 30 minute drive home, and arriving in my driveway, I lose all desire to switch back into the driven and motivated President of Tyed Art, Inc. All day long I conceptualized, plan, and psych myself up for a good productive evening just to get home and fizzle out. Weird. Hope this funk doesn’t last long. I think it’s probably time I re-listen to Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and recharge my business battery. Maybe a little “War of Art” by Stephen Pressfield wouldn’t hurt either. I need to recalibrate.

Fortunately, tomorrow is a virtual Friday since the actual Friday this week will be a day off from “the job” due to Nevada Day. I’m looking forward to a long weekend. I’m actually hoping to really be able to get a lot done on CD#4. If nothing else, I’d like to add more Thanksgiving holiday coloring pictures to my November line up for free coloring pages on LittleLDS.com. It’s a new feature I’ve added in hopes of drawing more people to a “living” and changing website. I learned once in a seminar that people tend to revisit websites when they know it’s going to be different later. I know I fit that description. I’m hoping that rotating new holiday coloring pages on my site and offering them for free that I’ll get a great viewer base and perhaps more talk generated about the website.

Funny how things work out

2006-10-17T15:26:00.000-07:00

Ever since we can remember, my two best friends and I, or "The Triangle" as we're known to our families, have dreamed of working together in the professional world. Oak has always been interested in financial fields, Rob has certainly found his niche in the world of computers, and I’ve always gravitated to the visual side of life. Although I’ve been working in the drafting and engineering industries for all my working life, I’ve always wanted to step out on my own creative pathway. Rob has done a few different things but has always had a brilliantly sharp mind which he has, until now (in my estimation anyway), never really been challenged. I’ve always thought of Rob as being more intelligent than I am. He’s quick-witted and very determined when he WANTS to be. He’s been involved in customer service (phones), restaurant management, and even pizza delivery. Oak, as his nickname implies, is steady, sturdy, and well rooted. He’s very practical, very loyal, and very conservative. By way of contrast, I’ve always judged myself to be short-fused, emotionally driven, and passionate about just about everything I do. I’m always either way up or way down. I’m a go-getter, yes, but I’m often only half cocked. For me, this combination usually translates into lots of new beginning projects and few actual accomplishments. Between the three of us, though, we’ve got drive & motivation, longevity & perseverance and of course intelligence & education. What a great combination of traits to begin a business venture! Combine these attributes with a GREAT business idea, and a couple of unbreakable friendships and what have you got? You have the ingredients necessary to realize our life-long dream. If we really wanted to, I think the 3 of us really could quit working for the man…any man. We could become the MEN. We could be partners and support each other like a well balanced tripod.

The closest we ever came to this in the past was when I first returned from Portugal in 1997. Rob had returned from Russia 2 months earlier and was working for a medical supply delivery company. When I got back, he helped me to get a job there too. While we spent the majority of our working hours in separate delivery vehicles, we spent a LOT of time messing around on company phones, sneaking out on joint deliveries, and taking lunches together. If nothing else, we received our paychecks from the same employer. That was good enough at the time. Although short-lived, it was fun while it lasted. Oak, at this time was still in South Africa. Oak and I have also had brushes with “the dream”, as he has used his marketing skills from his years of experience in trade shows to help me with my own trade show booths for LittleLDS. Those are some of the most fun “working” experiences I’ve ever had.

When Oak got back from South Africa, we all fanaticized over the idea of working together…just the three of us, on our OWN business venture, but none of us were ambitious enough at the time to really do anything about it. Instead, we all did what everyone else does. We did what is natural to do in our society. We spent our spare time hanging out together and the other 2/3 of our lives sleeping or working to make someone else rich. I’ve been fighting that ever since. I’ve always hated working FOR someone else. I’ve always done it, however, because that’s just what you do. It’s responsible…especially as a husband and father. I’ve brought the dream up a few times to the guys over the years, but mostly just in passing or in jest. I think over the past 10 years I’ve probably had about a million different hair-brained ideas of how we could all work together on our own, but none of those ideas have really been serious enough to merit any real devotion.

So, independently, the three of us have pursued our respective paths. Oak has used his education to specialize in selling and marketing of insurances, securities and some financial planning. He has recently, through some unforeseen opportunities, discovered an interest and knack in property management. Rob has not only climbed a corporate ladder from a customer service tech to a world-traveling computer programming instructor, but has pushed himself to become multi-certified, and technologically creative. Through necessity in his work, he has taught himself to invent solutions to problems with the computer skills he has acquired.

Busy with our respective lives, the three of us don’t have a whole lot of regular contact with one another. Oak makes fairly regular visits down to Vegas, usually between 2 and 3 times per year. Contact with Rob tends to be more cyclical, and we’ve been in the “out of contact” stage of the cycle for the last several months. I recently called him to see how things were going and as we were catching up, the subject of Tyed Art and LittleLDS came up. After hearing him describe some of the programs that he has designed for himself in his own work, I thought I might probe a bit to find out what types of programming he’s capable of. If I didn’t know Rob, this might have sounded like a job interview, where I’m looking for an independent contractor to work on my project. That’s exactly what it turned out to be. It turns out that Rob knows a ton about the very stuff my program is made to do. Although Charles did a fantastic job designing the LittleLDS original software, there are many things that I’ve wanted to improve and/or change from the very beginning. Charles is a brilliant programmer, but he’s extremely busy, and a bit difficult to work with. He talks over me when I’m trying to give him an idea of what I’m looking for creatively and artistically. He tends to try to talk me out of functionalities that I think would be beneficial for the user, when I think it is in HIS best interest to do so. I may be misreading that part of his personality. Charles has been a great instructor, and friend, but it’s time that I took a bit more control of MY project. I want to be able to meet eye-to-eye with my programmer. I want to have greater creative license and I want to be able to make things happen on a better time table. Rob seems to offer those options better. Charles, not being LDS, also seems to lack a bit of real-world practical knowledge of the LDS community which may be part of the reason he resists many of my modification suggestions. I want my software to be MAC-compatible so I can reach more customers. I want some of the functions to run more smoothly than they do now. I would like to change the overall development process for the development of each new CD so that it’s not so cumbersome and time-consuming. I think Rob will be just the man for the job.

Rob is going to be coming down in the next week or so as a “business trip” so we can work out the details of our new working relationship (if in fact we can do it). I’m VERY excited to finally be able to work with one of my very best friends. Now I’ve just go to work to get Oak involved or develop a new idea that we can all work on together. Shouldn’t really be too tough, right? I mean, I’ve got million ideas rollin’ around up there.

The cost of conviction

2006-10-13T12:43:00.000-07:00

The dictionary defines CONVICTION as, “an unshakable belief in something without need for proof or evidence.” It is, “A fixed or strong belief” or, “the state of being convinced” It means to be “certain.” The opposite of conviction, then, is to have doubt, or to be uncertain. "To waiver when there is a lack of evidence.” Conviction, in a religious context, is the reason Job continued to worship God despite his incessant mortal test of anguish. Conviction, in a business context, is the reason Walt Disney, Colonel Sanders, and Charles Shultz all succeeded regardless of how many times they heard the word “no.” Conviction is what enables amazing people like my brother to train for, start, and finish a grueling 26.2 mile marathon in less time than any previous race. Conviction is the “what if” killer. It is arch nemesis of resistance in any form. Conviction can cure laziness, bad habits, addiction, and any illness. Conviction wrote the Declaration of Independence. It also built the Egyptian pyramids, the Great Wall of China, and put men on the moon. Conviction can walk on water and even overcome death itself.

I admire those with real conviction. I strive for it myself. But it’s not an easy thing to commandeer. I would dare say that most people strive for conviction in some area or another, but only a few seem to truly hold on to it long enough to realize their deepest aspirations. The rest of us see these individuals, these movie stars, brain surgeons, and rocket scientists as special. Extraordinary. Our reverence for them implies that they are the proverbial Sneeches with stars. We observe them from the sidelines and we wonder if they are in some way different from us. It’s almost like we think they’re made of better stuff than we are. While we’re all made up of the same elements, chemicals, and organs, there is some truth to them being different than we are. They’ve done something that we have not. They’ve tapped into something that we have yet to discover in ourselves.

So why is conviction so difficult to attain? Is it like trying to reach perfection - an attribute no mortal can achieve in this life? No, I don’t think so. I think it’s more like being completely honest. It’s REALLY difficult to do because it means giving up something else. You can have it, but it’ll cost you. It'll cost you enough, that most opt out. So, the question then is….what IS the cost of conviction? I think it depends a great deal on the thing in which you are striving for conviction. I think striving for conviction in something that is inherently false or corrupt is futile. It might be possible to fake for a while, but ultimately, that false or corrupt thing will fail, decay, whither, or otherwise vanish, leaving us obligated to believe in something else. This process will continue until we learn NOT to place our convictions in any false or corrupt thing. That having been said, I belive that true conviction, in order to be absolute, must be in something true, honorable, or intrinsically valuable. These are the types of things that illicit the forces of resistance the most. After all, Conviction and Resistance are, as I said, arch rivals. Here are some examples of different types of conviction;

The Marathon Runner:
My brother Mike amazes me with his constant cravings for physical feats of excellence. He’s always pushing the limits of his own physical strength and endurance. He gives literal meaning to the phrase “going the extra mile.” This is the guy who rode his bicycle from Salt Lake City to Lake Powell with some high school buddies just because he could. He’s run 3 of these 26+ mile marathons now, and if I were a betting man, I’d wager this most recent one will NOT be his last. He’s the realistic version of a cross between the Energizer Bunny and Forrest Gump. In describing this grueling act of self imposed terrainial torture (the way I see it, anyway), he says, “I cannot say that I ever got to that "sleep" point where you're not thinking of running, but of other things, meditating or dreaming of a hot tub or whatever. It never happened. I wished it had because focusing on your pain filled legs and the miles of pavement before you can be grueling. I looked around at the red rock once in awhile, watched those passing me (there was a lot of that!), and more or less just kept thinking to myself to keep going.” Now those are the words of someone with real conviction. Though physically hurting, hot, tired, and perhaps even mentally stressed, the runner runs on. Why? Because of his conviction. He knows this is a worth while course of action. He knows he’ll be better for having done it. He knows the value of sacrifice… that by denying himself the relief of immediate physical comfort will, at the end, earn him a lifetime of respect, experience, and precedence of willpower. He’ll always be able to say to himself, “Hey, if I can run a 26.2 mile marathon…3 times, then I can certainly get through this” regardless of whatever this may be. He makes me and everyone around him proud.

The Leader:
Whether they are a Bishop of a Singles Ward, the CEO of a company or the President of the United States of America, all leaders must have a strong conviction of some kind. Whether it’s an elected, nominated, appointed or assumed position, leadership demands conviction. For the leader, conviction allows bold speeches, confident commands & directions, and an authoritative appearance. For the followers, a leader’s conviction establishes trust, assurance, and a sense of safety and direction. A leader without conviction is easily overthrown because they have no firm footing. Rather than establishing a standard to which all can adhere and confide, they sway to amidst diverse opinions, allowing division and abandonment.

The Investor:
Everyone knows the theory behind basic investing…that in order to make money in this game, one must buy low and sell high. Everyone KNOWS this is the formula. So why doesn’t everyone APPLY this knowledge? Conviction is the answer. When most people are making a mad dash to grab a piece of that HOT stock that everyone is talking about, the investor is typically the one who is selling it. He knows that HIS fortunes were made when he purchased it when it was still under valued. The investor is a different animal. An investor - at least a successful investor - has to have a different type of conviction. He knows what’s coming because he keeps his ear to the ground and does his homework. He does this so that he CAN have a conviction in his investment. He’s got to know the worth of whatever it is he’s investing in. He’s got to believe in it. He’s got to be convinced deep down that the venture he’s pursuing is worth MORE than the amount he’s investing in it. To buy low, means to ignore what’s popular. It means to NOT let it bother you that NO one else is leaping at the chance to buy that stock, or that commodity at bottom basement prices. It means KNOWING, regardless of popular belief that the object in the center of your investing cross hairs is under-valued and will eventually become the object everyone wishes they would have purchased “way back when it was a steal.” He knows to buy the rumor and sell the news. The conviction of the real investor is also what keeps him riding the fierce bucks of the wild bull market through its misleading dips and nervous corrections. His confidence in his choice of investments allows him to place his bet on the table and then turn his back to the market and ride out the turbulence that comes with every bull performance. He doesn’t allow emotion to creep in and talk him out of the decision he has already made. This is one type of conviction I strive for.

I’m a beginner in the precious metals market. First started watching the market shortly after 911 and invested small amounts in 2002. Over all, both gold and silver have appreciated, but there have been MANY corrections along the way. Most have been very slight, but some have been real testers. The more I learn about the world’s economy and about the history of these metals, however, the less ANY of these corrections affect my conviction in their values. I’ve learned what conditions make the metals rise and fall. I’ve learned about the rule of supply and demand as they pertain to this market. I’ve learn about the connections between our national and world economics and the precious metals. All that I have learned lead me to my conviction in their intrinsic values. This knowledge has translated into my conviction. The Bull won’t buck me off.

The work will speak for itself

2006-09-25T14:10:00.000-07:00

I’ve always been an attention and compliment seeker. It’s diluted and insecure, I know, but true. There have been countless times in the past when, after finishing an artistic project that I’m really proud of that I’ve been really excited to show it to someone. That someone, before I was married, was usually either my mom, or my little brother Glenn. Mom was always my biggest fan. Available, interested, and seldom critical. When Mom wasn’t around, or when I needed an extra pat on the back, Glenn was always there to be fascinated, genuinely complimentary, and relatable as an artist. After getting married, Kim took over this role, like a fish takes to water. She’s very supportive, and always has been. She plays a much better devils advocate than my own blood did, however. I have to admit that she was much more awestricken by my “amazing talent” while we were just friends and dating than these days. To be fair though…I was certainly much more romantic and attention giving back then too. I guess we’re a bit more realistic now. But I digress…

I’m the type of guy that NEEDS to share his ideas. I NEED to express myself to others. I would be miserable on this earth alone. I can work alone, and even play alone for days on end, but eventually I’ve got to tell someone about. It’s just the way I’m hard wired. Consequently, I have a hard time living by some of the rules that many of my mentors have advised. In his book, Think Like A Billionaire, Donald Trump said that if what he’s doing is good enough, and merits it, it’ll generate attention by itself. I think that is generally true. Then again, he’s Donald Trump. He could probably just fart in a crowded room and get front-page media attention.

Steven Pressfield, the author of The War of Art wrote, “Seeking support from friends and family is like having your people gather around at your death bed. It’s nice, but when the ship sails all they can do is stand on the dock, waiving goodbye. Any support we get from persons of flesh and blood is like Monopoly money. It’s not legal tender in that sphere where we have to do our work. In fact, the more energy we spend stoking up on support from colleagues and loved ones, the weaker we become and the less capable of handling our business.”

Although difficult to live by, I agree with this line of thinking. If the work that I’m doing is worth any attention, it’ll generate that attention naturally. People will talk when they find it. All I have to do it make it obvious enough to be discovered. Advertising doesn’t’ necessarily need to be in your face. It needs to be where you’re looking when you’re ready and willing to see it. Our planet is littered with advertisements. Billboards, television and radio commercials, product packaging, backdrops in sporting events, newspapers & magazines, the internet…heck, some people even sell space on their bodies to advertise these days. However, them more we advertise, the more we seem to tune out the advertising. We mute the TV between program segments and surf the radio stations until we find music. Tivo was even invented JUST to avoid advertisements. We’ve become masters at IGNORING advertising. This is a natural filter. The only things that get through this filter of our attention are the things that we are actually looking for. The things we are seeking out. The things were READY to have pitched to us.

In other words, I need to curb my desire to proactively share (advertise). Especially to loved ones. Why burden them with the obligation of acting interested? What I need to do is develop my ability to recognized opportunities to passively share. I need to cast my net and wait. Rather than starting a conversation about a project I’m working on, I need to be ready to expound on the topic it when it’s brought up naturally in conversation. I need to wait for the wave to come to me, rather than wasting my energy paddling here and there for the ones I see off in the distance. I need to work and create for the sake of working and creating. If I perfect what I’m working on, I won’t need to spend as much energy on the announcing of it. I believe that LittleLDS is a GREAT idea. Yes, I’ll have to do some advertising, but I think that as I endeavor to create quality images for my CDs and create as many of them as I can, the acknowledgement and traffic will come on it’s own.

Risk Management: The Experiment

2006-09-22T12:37:00.000-07:00

I had a great idea this week that I really want to try out. While listening to “The American Advisor” this week I heard Joe Battaglia say something that really struck me. He was talking about the world’s energy situation and how we are all in trouble because we’re all so dependant on oil for fuel. He mentioned how important it is that we, as Americans, be innovative and creative in our way of thinking. He said that it’s time to try new things and to come up with new ways of doing things rather than depending so much on the old techniques and resources that have become so hard to come by in recent times. Well, it got the wheels turning in my head. Not necessarily about the fuel crisis, but about doing things in new and innovative ways.

I had an idea for a game a little while ago and, having been through the game production process before, I know that the likelihood of me, a novice, introducing a new game to the market is VERY slim. I tried this before with my game “ABC’s & Penalties” and immediately lost $200. I had developed the game through the prototype stage and had submitted it to a company who charged a $200 fee to review your game idea and then tell you whether or not they are willing to pick up the project and add it to their inventory. At the time I knew nothing about the industry and how it all worked. I was VERY excited when I sent off the submittal, and a bit deflated after receiving their review of it. They told me that my game as not novel enough and that it had too many similarities to games like Scatergories. Fair enough, they’re the experts. That $200 investment didn’t go wasted. I didn’t lose anything on this deal. I learned a very valuable lesson. Not that my idea was bad, or even good for that matter. I didn’t learn NOT to trust companies like this one. What I learned was that I need to manage my risk better. You see, in this example, I was putting my own hard-earned money into the hands of other people and hoping that they would see my game the way I saw it. I was hoping that they would see the potential of my idea and then run with it. It wasn’t a mistake for me to invest in this idea. The mistake was in how I invested in it. The mistake was putting all my hopes into the hands of someone else. The problem with this is that my chances of success were completely out of my own control. By investing my money into the opinions of a handful of people, I was basically putting $200 on the gambling table and hoping to be dealt a good hand of cards. Who knows what the odds were? 50/50? They either take it or they don’t, right? No, I think the odds were worst than that. Who knows how many other games were competing with mine at that particular time for that particular niche? Who knows what sort of mood the reviewers were in?

This time, however, I have an idea. I’m going to perform a little experiment in the control of my investing odds. I’m going to try a completely new method of gaming production. I’m going to create this game in a way that, as far as I know, has never been done before. If I am successful my odds will increase because of the control I’ve taken in the management of my risk. Whether I win on lose money will still be a consideration, but only I will be responsible for that outcome. If I earn money with my new game, it will be a direct result of MY efforts in it’s development and marketing. If I don’t earn any money, it will be a direct reflection of my lack of efforts in development and marketing. My objective: To see if I can successfully control my level of risk in an investment. The tool: My newly conceived game.

Challenges…

One of the biggest hurtles for an inventor of a new game is in the creation of a working prototype. This can represent a financial and physical challenge. My idea will virtually eliminate this obstacle. Another challenge with getting a new game into the market is the task of finding a well established, trustworthy, and fair company to review and then accept the new game. My idea will eliminate the need for anyone’s approval (other than the buyers themselves). Obviously the final challenge, which can have a very heavy impact on the overall success of the project, is to have a game that people will love to play. In concept, my game offers a wide range of playable ages, will be great for a large group, and is very simple to learn and play.

My strategy…

Most games that a group of people can play can cost anywhere from $10 to $30. There are a lot of exceptions, of course, but that is pretty typical. The reason for this cost (aside from the creating wanting to make a profit) is to make up for production and advertising costs. My game idea is really unique. It’s a game that will be downloadable from my website. Rather than paying for my production and advertising costs indirectly, I’m going to eliminate as much of those costs as possible so they don’t have to be recuperated later through high priced sales. In fact, because there are virtually NO costs involved in my game, my sales prices will be ridiculously low. So low, in fact, that the mere sales price ITSELF will be a factor in my advertising. The more inexpensive the game is, the more of a thoughtless decision it should be to try it out. Most people can afford to pay $3 to $5 for ANYTHING. I would think that many people would purchase it just to see how good the game is out of pure curiosity. There are a lot of people, after all, who spend more for less.

Here’s the novelty of my idea…. ready? My game is mostly downloadable. No expensively made boxes, boards, cards, or dice. The game will have instructions, rules, and playing cards that can be, cut out, and then laminated if desired (for durability). These cards can be printed from a simple PDF file sold on my website. The game does require some physical playing pieces, but in my instructions, on the website, it will be explained that each of these physical pieces can be gathered from other games that folks might already own. Names of games that contain necessary pieces to play my game will be listed so that people can check to see if they have all the required pieces. Fortunately, most people who like to play games tend to already have collections of other games, which facilitates my idea. Basically what I’ve done is create an IDEA for a game, develop it only partially, and supplement it with existing gamers’ work. I’m capitalizing on physical games that have already been made. No production costs for me translates into no expenses passed onto buyers of my game.

The phases of completion…

Phase I - Develop game on paper

(establish rules of play, decide on playing pieces, work out a Q & A page)

Phase II – Create a cost-free prototype

(Virtual & assembled game pieces, and PDF file)

Phase III – Game testing

(Play with test groups to work out the bugs and evaluate levels of interest)

Phase IV – Develop online interface

(i.e., create webpage, download-selling software, etc.)

Phase V – Market testing

(Experiment with family & friends)Phase VI – Public launch (Marketing and advertising)

First Distribution Contract

2006-09-18T16:03:00.000-07:00

This weekend marked a monumental event for LittleLDS. On Friday Kim and I went to a party that we had been invited to by Joe and Michelle. It was Michelle’s birthday party. Michelle is the one who told her mother, Marsha, of Wellspring Publishing, about my LittleLDS Coloring CDs. Marsha and I have spoken on the phone on numerous occasions to discuss the possibilities of me doing some cartoon work for their line of greeting cards and also for the sales and distribution of LittleLDS CDs. Marsha even took the first three CDs to the LDS bookseller’s convention last month and got a bunch of orders! Well, this weekend when we went to Michelle’s party, Marsha just happened to be there! She was in town from Salt Lake to surprise Michelle for her birthday and I was finally formally introduced to her. We had a great discussion, and ended up talking a lot more about LittleLDS distribution over dinner on Sunday. By the end of the weekend, I had signed my first distribution contract for LittleLDS. I’m very excited.

Ever since Marsha told me about how interested people at the Bookseller’s convention had been in LittleLDS CD#4 (Scenes from the Plains), I’ve been thinking, and have finally come to a big decision. I’ve decided that I am going to be reducing and perhaps even rejecting logo designs for the next few weeks or even months to focus strictly on the development of LittleLDS. If this is ever going to become as big as I want it to become, then I really need to put some time and effort into it. I need to really buckle down and get moving. I have quite a bit more to do on CD#4, namely finishing sketches, inking, refining in Photoshop & Streamline, and then getting all the files ready for Charles to create the software. After that’s finished I have to get the cover finished for the case, purchase a new bar code, and get the files to Peter at Conduit! Better get to it!

Working hard, or hardly working?

2006-09-15T14:41:00.000-07:00

Aside from my missionary days in Portugal, I don’t think I’ve ever worked this hard before. I’m working 55-hour weeks at work these days and spending about 95% of my time at home working on some project. Yesterday, for the first time in months, I took a few hours off to unwind in front of the boob-tube, and with all the new season premiers starting, my Thursday-night excuse to not work has returned…Survivor and CSI, Las Vegas. Soon, Lost will come back to sabatage my Wednesday nights, and eventually 24 will return to knock out Monday nights. Yeah, I’ll admit it…. there are some really addicting shows on these days. I actually really LOVE the off-season (summer) just so I can remain productive from night to night.

Productivity, however, seems to be a challenge for me lately. Oh, I'm plenty busy alright, but it's what I'm busy doing that is the problem. I'll explain.

While it’s important to stay connected to my clients through email, I find that I spend a lot more time CHECKING my email for correspondence than I really need to. While doing research on Google for images relating to logo or other graphic design jobs, I often find myself getting distracted by all there is to see on the web. The web isn’t to blame…I'm just a naturally curious guy. I was the same way as a kid with encyclopedias. I would open one to find out about something in particular, and end up spending hours (literally) just reading adjacent subjects that had little or nothing to do with my initial search. I spin my wheels a lot doing things that don’t really need doing. I mean, they're good things to do, but they’re not exactly moving my business forward.

For example, one of my very favorite things to “work” on is the look of my website. Just having a website should be sufficient. However, I find myself tinkering on it all the time. Sure I look like I’m working, and I’m even doing things for Tyed Art, Inc. However, they’re not things that need to be done in order to be productive. Some time ago I noticed something that Google does every once in a while with their home page. I really like it and have tried to imitate it with my own style. For applicable months, I try to create some adaptation of my company logo to the corresponding holiday of that month on my homepage. Spiders and pumpkins for October, four-leaf clovers for March, hearts for February, etc...

For instance, December features a Tyed Art, Inc. logo where the blue image has a Santa hat on it. Another has a glowing red-nosed center with antlers imitating a reindeer. December has a lot of possible iconic symbols to select from so I have done several of these holiday-adapted logo images and I change them out once a week or so. I rationalize this time-consuming hobby by tell myself that I do this so my clients will revisit my website. They’ll come to expect that this is a “living” website. In other words a site that is attended to, cared for, and updated regularly. This creates curiosity in the visitor and a desire to return in anticipation of “what’s next?” Sounds good, right? Even logical. I learned this little trick at a free seminar I went to a few years ago here in Vegas. While it’s fun for me, and cool for them, it presents a big problem. The problem is that this type of “work” is not really doing anything for my bottom line. I don’t get paid for it, and its really time consuming. In reality, it’s actually taking me away from doing things that would otherwise contribute to my bottom line. And this is only one example of this type of non-productive "work" that I do.

In one of my favorite books, “The War Of Art,” Steven Pressfield defines RESISTANCE as anything that keeps one from achieving long-term growth, health or integrity. That’s a gross over simplification, but it serves my point. In my case, I’m trying to help LittleLDS, my small insignificant product brand become independent. I want it to take root in the market, and become self-sustaining, and profitable. I want it to eventually even actively and significantly participate in my retirement. I’m counting on it. I’m vested in it. The bottom line, then (i.e., the eventual success or failure of LittleLDS) really matters. Where LittleLDS in concerned, it’s ALL that matters. That having been said, I can’t really afford to be messing around with the cosmetics of my website during my few available working hours!

Although it generates income, designing logos and other graphic design has become a major obstacle in my path to success where LittleLDS is concerned. It’s a total catch 22 though. LittleLDS needs the capital for marketing, production costs, and further development, but monopolizing my time with logo work hinders my ability to dedicate time to work on furthering LittleLDS. In short, and to paraphrase Robert Kiyosaki’s description of guys like me, I’m so busy, that I don’t have any time to be productive! For a guy with as little time as I seem to have, this is a HUGE problem.

The solution, as my wise bride has reminded me, is to go into the office with a planned objective. “Don’t go in there just to work,” she advises, “…go in there knowing what you want to have accomplished by the time you come out tonight.” She couldn't be more right. Needless to say, I’m still working on it.

Where business ends, and I begin

2006-09-13T15:09:00.000-07:00

The other day a good friend that I’ve known for about 7 years contacted me. His approach to reconnecting with me was typical to many I get these days. He and some buddies have been tinkering with the idea of getting a band together and are looking for a logo design. As usual, I was immediately interested. That was my first reaction. Then, the internal battle began. I remembered then that I'm trying to wean off the "working for money thing." HHhhhh..... Unfortunately, I can't have my cake and eat it too. Alas, it’s true what they say, it does take money to make money and designing logos is my best method (for now) of raising capital to fund and support my LittleLDS brand. So, okay, I'll look into it. Of course, none of THAT is said out loud.

So my friend and I decided to meet for lunch last Monday. After eating lunch and chit chatting for a little while I reeled him in and reminded him that this was a lunch break and that our time was REALLY short (man, I really HATE working FOR someone). When he finally expounded on his idea, I just about pooped my pants! I was shocked that this idea was coming from THIS guy. Without getting too much into the specific details, it turns out that this friend of mine, who, I'll remind you, I've known for a very long time, and who is also an active member of the LDS Church, has decided to start a band and actually call it "Internet Porn - The Band". Before I go any further with this story, I have to say that at this point, I had already checked out mentally. He was obviously off his rocker (no pun intended to the music genre). However, for the sake of discovering where exactly my friend had gone so wrong, and to what extent he had actually thought this idea out - I just had to know - I decided to hear him out.

It turned out that his idea was to capitalize on the already HUGE porn industry. His logic was that he could put the word PORN into his band, thus making his band’s name come up more in Internet searches by buying a high prioritized position in search results made by the sickos that surf for it. He rationalized that he would be a “distraction for good” to the lost souls who were already searching for Internet smut. Translation; he’s placing himself in a gigantic sewer, full of crap and stink, in order to attract the cockroaches to his own talent by naming it “crap and stink”. Hmmm… He said that he doesn’t want to promote the porn industry but to use it. He said that he thinks his idea is funny and that his t-shirts will sell like hotcakes because it’s poking fun at the porn industry. Hmmm….

Now, if I were a pure capitalist, motivated solely by my instinct to make money, I would jump all over this guy’s offer. Here’s a guys who is offering to pay me to create a logo for him, pay me to help him create a website, and pay me to modify the logo each time he has a new marketing spin to put out there. In all reality, we’re probably talking about $1000 or more. Good money for a bottom-feeder like me. I mean, to a PURE capitalist, it shouldn’t matter what content he’s offering the masses as long as I’m being compensated, right? Sure, I know this idea will go nowhere. I know that I will have collected my money and left a long time by then. But what is that $1000 really worth? Perhaps, in this world, it could buy me $1000 worth of stuff, but in the end, it would end up COSTING me my dignity. Even if I were to never post the finished version on my own website, like I usually do, it would COST me my moral conscience. Any other business probably wouldn’t think twice about taking this kind of job. For most of them, profit it profit. It’s the bottom line that counts. After all, it’s not like he’s actually promoting porn. Or is he? Unfortunately I’m not just a businessman. I’m an LDS businessman. I guess it’s instances like this that are thrown at you every once in a while that are supposed to be a test of what you’re willing to do to make a buck in this world. You couldn’t pay me enough to fail that test.

Needless to say, I’m not taking the job. How to convey this to my friend without offending him is what I’m still unsure about. In an attempt to guilt his conscience back in gear, I’ve already asked him all the deep questions. “With a name like ‘Internet Porn – The band’, aren’t you the least bit concerned about how you’ll affect your own children?” “What does you’re wife think about the idea?” “How would you feel if some 17 year-old teenager heard your music and liked it and, in an effort to find out more about your band, instead, found a porn site?” None of these questions have fazed him. He has clearly already misplaced his moral compass. I hope it isn’t permanent.

Working for money

2006-09-12T09:07:00.000-07:00

Last night Kim and I had an interesting discussion about the present and future of Tyed Art, Inc. and LittleLDS. I was expressing to her my great satisfaction at having just secured a new working relationship with PostNet last Saturday. I had walked into the store to find out what it would cost to ship 150 LittleLDS CDs to my new distributor in Salt Lake City, but ended up talking to the owner of the franchise about graphic design. I've been a client of hers for a while now, but after discovering what it is, exactly, that I do she told me that she frequently had little graphic design side jobs come in that she had to contract out and that it was cumbersome for her to do so because she didn't have one go-to guy. To make a long story short, we ended up shaking hands on a little deal that would enable her to pass the work along to me. She couldn't pay much, but didn't really have to as the work was pretty simple and would end up equating to good hourly money for me. A win/win relationship.

After telling Kim about this new source of income, we started talking about how stretched for time I already am these days. Between work in my yard (a HUGE undertaking), designing logos, working 12 hours per day at my full-time job, and trying to move forward with CD#4 of LittleLDS, I'm feeling a bit drawn and quartered. I have to fight to find time to eat, sleep, and play with my girls. It would seem, that in all the excitement of securing new business, I have neglected a very important rule of basic Kiyosaki 101... In fact, it's rule #1; "The rich don't work for money. Money works for them."

In other words, while securing work with PostNet might represent a good business relationship and good source of extra income, it really is only good if I want to keep depending on having to work.... and I don't. Not really. What I want is to eventually get to a stage when I can work - or NOT work - as I please without effecting my ability to sustain my standard of living.

It's time to get back to what I know. Time to get back to "minding my own business" and planting the seeds of my retirement. Time to stop working for money, and start making money work for me. The poem was written especially for this post.

TYED ART, INC - HISTORY VIII

2006-09-11T16:02:00.000-07:00

The Art of the Tradeshow:

In November of 2004, my family and I attended an event at the Orleans Hotel & Casino called the LDS Festival, here in Vegas. It was the first of it’s kind. It was an assembly of small and large LDS businesses in a miniature tradeshow, wrapped (literally and figuratively) around an LDS concert. The concert hall itself was in the center and the huge exterior hallways were full of LDS venders, and professionals. It was a really fun event. Seeing this from a businessman’s’ perspective, I naturally wanted to know more. How had the venders been notified about the event beforehand? How much did it cost to host a booth? I wondered what kind of money this type of event might generate, and even MORE importantly, what kinds of buzz it must start about each company. THIS would be a GREAT way to introduce LittleLDS!! I sought out to find those in charge and was very pleased to discover that I knew several of them! Adam Dawson, who was the guy in charge, was a member of my own ward!! Khoren Ouzounian, another member of my ward was also one of the guys in charge of this production. I was very excited and started asking questions. I got some GREAT feedback. They told me that this was, in fact, the first show of it’s kind and that they were hoping and planning on doing subsequent shows in future years. For the rest of that day, I watched the venders and the buyers very carefully. I studied the different booths, comparing what they had to what I might have at my own booth.

I was prepared and informed for the next show. On November 12th, 2005, LittleLDS officially debuted at the 2nd-Annual LDS Music Festival and Expo. The cost to enter was quite large for a beginning sole proprietor like me. I invited Oak, my best friend, to come down from Salt Lake City and help me man the booth. Having done tradeshows before with previous companies, his input was very much appreciated. I had new t-shirts printed for Oak and me so that we looked like a team. I had business/pass-along cards made just for this event. I had a tri-fold display with my CDs and coloring pages on it. I had a large 6’x 3’ vinyl banner made for the booth too. I even ordered three hundred copies of the LittleLDS CDs for my inventory!!! One hundred of each title!! It represented a fairly large investment, but I was READY for business. I was able rationalized all the purchases because I knew this would definitely NOT be the last tradeshow I would ever do.

Call it inexperience, call it ignorance, call it whatever you like…. but when I closed the booth down at the end of the event, I was elated with the overwhelming success of my little company! We hadn’t sold out, by any means. As a matter of fact, we hadn’t even recouped our cost of entering the tradeshow, but we had a lot of GREAT exposure. After all, this was our debut. This event was merely our foot in the door, our introduction. That was the ultimate goal I was shooting for from the beginning. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t shooting for more, but certainly didn’t expect anything more. By the time the show was over I was totally sick with stomach pains and a migraine, but I wouldn’t have traded it for anything! Even better than the outcome of the sales and exposure, was the experience I gained. I learned a LOT about different types of displays, giveaways, raffles, booth set-up, and salesmanship techniques.

Through another friend of mine, I was introduced to a group of LDS businesses who subscribed to a particular website organization. Building the Kingdom was the name of it. They offered a network of LDS business that you could work with. They even had a bartering service set up so that you could exchange professional business services and products. I signed up, paid my dues, but didn’t see much come from it at first. In the first year, I only had one logo design contract come from it, which was nice. Through a mutual contact, I also met a local non-LDS couple that had started their own t-shirt printing business here in Vegas. They were a funny couple from England who I enjoyed working with very much. They were VERY hospitable, and had wonderful intentions and aspirations. I had them do a couple of Tyed Art and LittleLDS t-shirts for me, but in the end I had to cease my business with them because their prices were too high for the quality they offered. They were just starting out and didn’t have the capability to do muti-colored gradient designs.

About a year and a half after originally signing up with BuildingTheKindom.com, and having not been involved with it for over 6 months, I received an email that interested me VERY much. The email had a subject line that said, “Your listing on Building The Kingdom.” Normally an email with a subject like that would have gone directly into my spam bin, but because I knew that BTK didn’t sell their members’ email addresses to third-parties, I decided to open it and check it out. I’m REALLY glad I did! It turned out to be from a man named Coz Green of USA Expos, who was inviting companies and individuals to participate in the first annual LDS Family Expo held in the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City. I was really excited about this tradeshow because, not only was it going to be IN Salt Lake City, but also it was going to be over conference weekend! This would mean it would be a great place for people to go between sessions of conference while already in the downtown area! Not to mention the fact that I would have national exposure with all the different travelers coming to be a part of the overall conference experience! The event was being sponsored by some of the biggest names in that Salt Lake area, namely Channel 5 KSL TV, FM 100 Radio, KSL Newsradio 102,7FM & 1160AM, RootsMagic (a software company), and Liken The Scriptures.

Once again the cost to enter was a heavy burden for me, but totally worth it. I already had an inventory from the last show and booth display equipment in which I had previously invested. The LDS Music Festival and Expo that I did a few months earlier was nothing in comparison to this one. The last show was anticipated to have a turn out of about 2,000 to 3,000 visitors…this one was touting between 10,000 and 15,000 visitors! Excited, I ordered the necessary new equipment (floor covering, electricity, curtains, etc…) and was, once again, on my way!

This event was WAY better than the first! For starters, my genius brother, “Snott”, helped to simplify my buyer’s purchasing experience by helping me to create some spreadsheet automations in Excel. Now, when a customer wanted to purchase with a credit card, all I had to do was enter their information and a receipt was generated automatically WHILE creating an order that I could refer to and process after the show was over. Brilliant! He even helped me set up my booth the day before the show. It was fun working with him. My display was MUCH more approachable this time. Because the booth locations were first come first served, I jumped early to get a good spot. I got the very location I wanted! I was near a stage where artists would be performing, and where I knew there would be a lot of traffic. Not only did we choose a better location this time, but, instead of sitting behind a table, Oak and I had out tables lining the walls, while we stood out in the walkways and front of our booth actively meeting people. Shaking hands, passing out the pass-along cards I had prepared in GREAT number, and approaching young families that make up our main demographic. Kim even came for a few hours on one of the three days to help me man the booth. She was a natural, and even got a taste of the excitement by selling several of the CDs! Working with her was the best. Side by side…my real partner and me.

That show, was better in every sense. We sold more CDs, met more people, generated more leads, gained more experience and had much more exposure. We met folks from across the country and even some from other countries. All had the same reaction to our products, “Where have you been?” and, “This would be so great for my nursery classes!” We had a lot of Primary presidencies praising the idea, and many people interested in the up-coming CDs that we have planned. Since then, I’ve sold LittleLDS CDs in several different states here in the United States, as well as in England and Australia as a direct result of the tradeshow. The very best payoff, however, I have to say is when I’ve had sales for which I cannot find a link. In other words, they’re sales that seem to be generated from a referral or some other method of word-of-mouth advertising! Those sales are the best, because they tell me that the word is spreading! It means that talk of my product is being passed along and that there is real genuine interested in LittleLDS independent of my own personal salesmanship! It’s like planting a tree, watering it for a while, and then realizing that you don’t HAVE to keep watering it in order for it to keep growing! What a rush!

For the past few months now, good, bad, or indifferent, I’ve been inundated by logo design work. 2006 had proven to be the most productive for logo designs, by far. I’ve averaged about 4 logos per month for nearly 3 months now. Things are just now starting to settle down in that department, and I’m actually really relieved because I can turn my attention back to LittleLDS once again. I’ve been eager to get back to work on CD#4…. which pretty much brings this history to the present…

…Whew!

TYED ART, INC - HISTORY VII

2006-09-11T15:58:00.000-07:00

Transitioning from Hobby to Business:

During the course of working on the project, it became obvious to me that I was approaching an important benchmark in the life of Tyed Art. I was going to HAVE to legalize the company. Because I was going to be selling this product to stores and in tradeshows, I was going to need bar codes, licenses, and a Tax ID number. This would also be necessary in order to open a business account at any bank so that I could deposit checks written out to “Tyed Art, Inc.” For this, I went to Todd McMillan of Nevada Registrations, Inc. Yes, the guy from the radio program. I was glad I did it. I finally FELT official. Along with a real product and real plans, I now had a real corporate identity. Tyed Art, Incorporated was official!

Once I had finished creating the software in which my coloring pages were embedded, I sought out to find ways to produce my CDs. I found one company called Mixonic online pretty easily. They were inexpensive. It was easy to navigate through their design process and so I made a few prototypes. A good friend of mine, after seeing my CDs, told me about his uncle who was a part owner in an LDS distribution company up in Utah. On his recommendation, I called to set up a meeting with him regarding my CDs. He was happy to set an appointment with me, and I couldn’t have been more excited!

The meeting with Granite Distribution was a tremendous success. I think it became a much better educational opportunity, however, than a business negotiation. Interest in the product was obvious, and its novelty appeal was acknowledged. He told me that my retail price seemed a bit high, but that he wanted to run this product by his committee for further consideration. The only real commitment I got was a promise to be contacted after the committee’s review. I came out of that meeting beaming, having learned what types of marketing strategies might help, what kinds of profit margin to expect, what the price threshold was for my market, who my main buyer demographics were, and what types of things might be expected of a distribution contract.

I began modifying some things that I felt would make future such meetings a little better. I purchased bar codes for each of the CDs so that they would be “store ready” at a moments notice. I found a new printing and duplication company too. I was very lucky to find Conduit. Peter Jensen, the sales manager, worked really diligently to help me discover ways to package my CDs more securely and more cost-effectively. This ended up saving me several dollars per unit – a very big deal when large quantity orders are filled. I was also more comfortable working with Conduit after learning that Peter was LDS. This is, after all, an LDS product.

TYED ART, INC - HISTORY VI

2006-09-11T15:52:00.000-07:00

Desperate times, Desperate measures:

While still employed with that same company, I had another idea. The idea was to create cartoon images of children doing religious things, like taking the sacrament, or reading the scriptures, and then making packets out of them for kids to color while in church. My boss thought this was a very good idea and, as usual, offered all kinds of encouragement. I didn’t really do much about it then, but the idea was good enough that it was placed in the back burners of my mind to simmer.

In 2002, now, with a child, a non-working wife, and a mortgage, the real pressure was on. The wheels in my head shifted into overdrive. The logo income was steady. Of course it was never enough to replace my regular income provided by a full-time job, but it was steady nonetheless.

In June of that year my boss “let me go”. I’m still not sure what happened. One day I was in his good graces, a project manager, and friend. The next day…I was unemployed. I have to say, the wind was truly knocked out of me that day. Although I honestly harbor no hard feelings now, it's taken me a while to get to that point. As with many unexpected blows, I was in denial for the first couple of days. Shock and confusion followed, and anger after that. Eventually I accepted the fact that I would probably never know what happened, but began to intentionally remember the good experiences I had as his employee, student, and friend. Now, though I still don't know what happened the day I left, I recognize the fact that I am better for having known him. I guess sometimes you just don't get the luxury of a tidy closure. Instead, sometimes you need to fabricate a synthetic one made from fond memories and valuable lessons learned.

In a rush for some security, I ended up getting a temporary position with Nevada Power about 2 months later designing power distribution plans. In so doing, I took a substantial pay cut. Although never really considered EXTRA money, “Tyed” Art income would never be more useful that during that time period. As we all do, we made it work. The ideas never stopped flowing throughout all of this. My idea to create coloring pages for kids had, of course, resurfaced as I scrambled for income and for the first time it was an idea that didn’t seem unattainable. THIS was an idea that I could work with. Because the pages were all LDS-themed, I needed to come up with a name that fit the product, but also the genre. “LittleLDS”, it was decided, would be the name for my coloring page creations. This would be a brand name under the umbrella of the “Tyed” Art Company. Although I new what I wanted the kids to color, I hadn’t worked out, yet, HOW I wanted to present them.

Little by little, Tyed Art was progressing. I had spreadsheets designed that organized and tracked all my Tyed Art spending and income. I found a website called “VistaPrint.com” that allowed me to design my own business cards for dirt cheap, so I created and ordered new cards. I had also been looking into website design for a while, and spoken to a friend who mentioned that she had created her own website. Knowing that I would eventually go through with it (whether that meant designing it myself or hiring someone else to do it), I purchased the URL “www.tyedart.com” and parked it for later use. One of my clients told me that her husband was looking for a logo for his website design business. I jumped on the opportunity to barter services with him. Not only did he custom build my website for me (with all the design specifications and graphics that I had design myself), but he also maintained it for me. The only problem with this arrangement was that the web designer didn’t always get to my updates within the timeframe I needed. He was running his own business, after all, and couldn’t always get to my work right away. I was sure this couldn’t be a long-term working relationship. I saw this as a potential problem.

Sure enough, about 8 months or so into our agreement he dropped off the face of the Earth. He was unreachable. As far as I was concerned, he was just AWOL. Baffled and paralyzed, my website quickly became outdated and embarrassing. Finally, I contacted the hosting company to see if they could shed some light on things. They explained that he had turned all his business clientele over to them. All in all, I decided to be thankful for a good lesson in bad business. It worked out for the best though. I had TechPro give me access to the FTP server where my website was hosted, I downloaded the website and all it’s files to my hard drive, and I taught myself how to manage it. It was a bit of a set back and took some time to get over the learning curve, but I know I’m better off for having gained the autonomy. Now I can change my website however AND whenever it suites me.

Another benefit to having learned how to manage websites was that I also learned how to create new ones. I started to create a template for a brand new website for LittleLDS. Although it wouldn’t be published for some time, I purchased the URL “www.LittleLDS.com” early so that I wouldn’t have any competition for it later.

I started drawing the individual coloring pages for the coloring books and digitized them by scanning them into my computer. These images grew in number to become a database of images. Eventually, I had three distinct LittleLDS titles finished. “In Church I can…” was the first to be completed. “What do missionaries do?” and “I’ll keep the Sabbath Day holy by…” followed. At one point, I had considered taking on a partner. For some reason, having a business partner appealed to me. I needed a partner who was willing and able to work on this idea with me at a faster pace. Or did I? After some consideration, I decided that taking on a partner might not be in my best interest. It was my brainchild, after all. Having a partner, although fun would have meant less profit for me in the end.

The idea to put my LittleLDS coloring pages onto CDs really was a great one, and I was all over it. I started looking around for methods of achieving this end. I contacted a friend of mine from the old days. He was a software engineer and computer guru. I figured he might be able to, if nothing else, point me in the right direction. Although not a member of the Church, he was able to see past the religious application of this idea and thought it had a LOT of potential. As it turned out, he himself, would take on the project…. for free! He was more than willing to help me as I had done some logo work for him a few years earlier while he was trying to get his own software products off the ground. I couldn’t have been luckier!

So, we got started. All in all, it took us just over 2 years to completely finish the first CD exactly the way I wanted it. With many iterations and reiteration, we finally had a product we were both VERY pleased with. Once the first CD programming was done, the 2nd and 3rd were virtual turnkey processes. He was very innovative in the way he built the software. He actually had built, first, a program that would automate the process that married my images with his background software, so that when the artwork was finished for the subsequent CDs, he would be able to just take my images and run them through the program that built the entire interface. It was really well thought out. The idea to create digital coloring books (i.e. virtually never-ending coloring books), it turns out, was so unique of a concept that he suggested that I apply for a patent. To see if it was even patentable, he referred me to his patent attorney who performed a search. Charles footed the bill of several hundred dollars, reasoning that I would be helping him in the future with more logos and graphic artwork. The patent search came back a few months later with shocking results. My idea WAS patentable!

TYED ART, INC - HISTORY V

2006-09-11T15:51:00.000-07:00

A New Perspective:

September 11th, 2001 changed the entire world. For me, among other things, it was the reason I started listening to talk radio. it was the best way to stay connected to the world on a minute-to-minute basis. I listened to a lot of informative shows ranging in topics such as finance, diet & health, business strategy, real estate, law practices and illegal immigration (the hot topic these days).

I started exploring different business options (other than Tyed Art and drafting). One particular business really caught my eye. Self-Storage. Americans are becoming ever greedier. We are so caught up in the rush of buying cool toys that we don’t stop to think about where we are going to PUT them all once we have them. What’s more, we never throw anything away! America is full of pack rats! Knowing this about people, it became clear to me that this trend was not likely to change, and that it presented an opportunity. I could capitalize on this American trait. I’ve been looking into it ever since then, and, having seen many of these self-storage units go up all over the Las Vegas valley, have been kicking myself relentlessly for not having jumped on the opportunity when I FIRST thought about it back in 2001. Plagued by other ideas, alas, I’m still just “looking into it.”

One show that caught my ear and earned my devoted interest was a 30-minute program hosted by D.J. Truman “Tru” Hawkins and his featured guest Todd McMillan of Nevada Registrations, Inc. I tuned into KDWN (720AM) every Friday at 11:30am to listen to Tru ask Todd about incorporating in Nevada. They discussed things like tax benefits, litigation protection, asset protection, business clout, and many other things that I had never heard of. I was fascinated. I began wondering if I would benefit from incorporating “Tyed” Art. Just the thought of it was exciting, but again, very intimidating. I created excuses for not incorporating at that time by reasoning that I didn’t make enough to warrant having a corporation.

TYED ART, INC - HISTORY IV

2006-09-11T15:49:00.001-07:00

The Gift Basket Era:

I’m still not sure how, but by some miracle, I received an email one day from a lady in Wasola Montana, who had actually been to my “website”, seen my photo album…ahem, I mean, online portfolio, and wanted to know how much I would charge her to design a “Tyed” art Name Design for her. I was in shock! Not because she wanted me to do a name design for her, but that my plan to generate clientele through an online presence had actually worked!!! Stunned, I replied to her inquiry and ended up not only designing a Name Design for her family, but also securing a contract with her for a logo design for her new gift basket company. After creating the logo for her in only 2 days, I had a check in hand and my first satisfied logo customer. I was ecstatic!

In our final exchange of emails, Liz told me about an online forum that she belonged to It exclusively consisted of gift basket makers and companies who posted ideas to exchange with each other. She said the one of the most commonly asked questions was if anyone could recommend a good, affordable logo designer. Liz told me that she had written all about her experience with “Tyed Art” and even posted a picture of her new logo there. In the next few years, gift “basketeers”, as they call themselves, would become a staple of “Tyed” Art income. I’m still amazed at how BIG the gift basket industry really is!

To date, as I write this (August of 2006) I’ve designed over 40 different gift basket logos! To my utter surprise, I’ve still not totally run out of ideas for these companies. Word of mouth, along with a growing portfolio has led to other industries contacting me to design logo as well. I started designing logos for start-up companies of all kinds, all over the country. I’ve even done a few over seas. To date I’ve designed 84 logos.

TYED ART, INC - HISTORY III

2006-09-11T15:49:00.000-07:00

A Seed In Fertile Soil:

Moving to Las Vegas turned out to be one of the best decisions we would ever make. It was here that my infant entrepreneurial seed took root in fertile ground. After being in Vegas for a few months I found a job working for a drafting company as a project manager and lead drafter. My employer quickly became a very influential teacher and dear friend. He was the first real entrepreneur I had ever met.

A small business owner, it was he who converted my raw, unfocused energy into precise determination. He never tried to teach me anything directly. It was all through osmosis. Watching him work inspired and even enabled me to envision how I could turn my artistic talent into motivation for financial freedom. More importantly, it was my boss who got me excited about business in general. Everything about him got me excited about business. He didn't just own the drafting company, but was ALWAYS out there looking for the next big thing, the next contract, or good idea.

He and I discussed our passions and our ambitions in the world of business. I watched my boss as he negotiated with larger companies to secure, renew or augment business contracts for the company. He was always priming the pump. He always had his eyes open for the next opportunity. It was exciting just to observe the way he worked. My boss was the one who introduced me to Robert Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," my entrepreneurial bible and motivational battery to this day. Even now, anytime I feel deflated, or unmotivated, I pop in that book on CD and recharge. It works EVERY time! He didn't just employ me. He empowered me. During my 2 years at that company, every day seemed like a crash course in business education. Whether by design or unintentionally, he was mentoring me, grooming me. He taught me about leadership, budgeting, marketing, inter-office politics & policies, and about seeking out opportunity.

Our move to Las Vegas marked the beginning of a phenomenon in my life that I don't like to talk about it much. A fastination with invention. I don't consider myself an inventor, but I've had so many ideas that I started, a long time ago, to record them in an idea log book called "Brain Vomit". I call it that because it is, in fact, a jumbled mess of free flowing, disorganized ideas that have been mentally regurgitate with little regard for pragmatic application. I created a free "website" which became my first real introduction to having an "online presence." My page was crude, simplistic and extremely amateuristic and FREE. Although it's almost embarrassing now, I was pretty darned proud of myself for having done something to move forward with my business ideas.

My site was only able to hold one free image before charging me for additional images. It allowed me to set up to 5 free hyperlinks before charging me for any extras, and one of the links HAD to be a Webspawner link. Lame, I know, but I had a plan. I ended up creating several Yahoo online photo albums (also for free) and posted a bunch of my artwork there. I then used my free links on my Webspawner site to hyperlink to my free hotmail business address, and my free Yahoo photo albums. in other words my online portfolio. I used my one free image on the Webspawner site to post my Tyed Art logo to give my page a more professional feel, and wrote a short little synopsis about my business. Again, its pretty dumb now as I look back, but at the time I was pretty proud of myself for having been so resourceful while maintaining unwavering frugality.

TYED ART, INC - HISTORY II

2006-09-11T15:46:00.000-07:00

From Product to Identity:

In 2000 I had been creating customized artwork using creatively arranged names of family members as a side hobby since my Portugal days. I did them as favors and gifts for family and friends, but was eventually commissioned to do them for a profit. Eventually I was doing them semi-regularly and my style of customized artwork needed an official name. “Tyed” artwork was made up of inter-woven or “tied” words & names. Of course, this name wouldn’t have worked had my name been anything but Ty. I thought it was clever, and it stuck. I think it was at this point that the seed was planted. I had gotten a little taste of what it felt like to produce, sell and be satisfied. It was business in its adolescence.

“Tyed” artwork evolved into “Tyed” Art, my unofficial company’s name, rather than just the name of an artistic style. My company, at this point, was still unofficial because I wasn’t registered or licensed to do business (let alone pay taxes), but was collecting small tax-free paychecks just the same. I really wasn’t making enough to make it worth it anyway. As an artist, I had friends referring me for different art projects all the time. One of these friend's projects was to design a logo for a company called InterSolutions, Inc., in Washington DC. They were an interim staffing agency. They were revamping their overall image, and needed a new look for their company logo. Although I had done some graphic design work for I-Sim Corporation back in 1997, this was my first real experience in designing a logo for a company as a self-proclaimed “Professional Logo Designer.” It was official enough that I decided to work on my own “company’s” image. Heck, I really wasn’t a company at all, but playing one was a lot of fun. I designed my own logo and specifically designated an email address for my “Tyed” Art business dealings... “tyedart@hotmail.com”. Needless to say, at this point, I didn’t use it a whole lot, but it FELT good to have it. I made business cards, too, just in case.

TYED ART, INC - HISTORY I

2006-09-11T15:45:00.000-07:00

An introduction:

I’ve decided that’s it is very important, as an aspiring entrepreneur, to keep a regular record of my thoughts, fears, epiphanies, struggles, triumphs, and aspirations. From the mundane days when nothing really seems to happen at all, to the monumental lunges forward, I'm hoping my entries prove at least interesting. My entries will likely be less focused on my social and familiar experiences, and more so on my strategies, methods and trials in moving Tyed Art, Inc. forward.

The Beginning:

For about 6 or 7 years now, I’ve been trudging along the gradual upward path towards ownership of a successful business. By ownership, I don’t mean a simple purchase of a turnkey or out-of-the-box operation, but actually conceiving, initiating, nurturing and fortifying my very own homegrown company.

As a kid, long before the Internet, I remember fantasizing about becoming a famous artist and selling my artwork in some way, shape or form. I never aspired to being an actual “business owner”, per se. Just the sound of that was too intimidating. As a kid, owning my OWN business, at least the way I imagined it, always just seemed so time-consuming, cumbersome, overwhelming, and unrealistic. As an adult however, my perspective has changed. Now I happen to know how time-consuming, cumbersome, overwhelming…yet genuinely realistic it actually is.

Technically and simply stated, a business is really just an income-producing entity that has an owner (or owners) and customer(s). Economically speaking, it’s a contributor to the on-going balance of supply and demand.

I’ve been drawing all my life. I never really set out to consciously make any money at it until after I had graduated form High School. Until then, it was only a gratifying and crowd-drawing hobby that earned me a lot of compliments. Flattering, but rather un-profitable. I graduated in 1998 with my Associates of Applied Science Degree in Computer-Aided Drafting and Design, and merged onto the working middle-class super highway. I’ve been searching for my exit’s off-ramp ever since.

A NEW BEGINNING:

2006-09-11T15:41:00.000-07:00

After reading a few of my last blog entries, compiled over the past couple of weeks, I've realized that to me, my entries make perfect sense because I've been living my own experience. However, to someone who might be reading this blog for the first time, it might seem really scattered and random. It has occurred to me that it might make a lot more sense to my few readers (if there are any - I don't exactly advertise my blog) if I were to start out my whole blogging experience with a bit of history. A little glimpse into who I am as an aspiring entrepreneur, and why I'm subjecting myself to this test of ingenuity, strategy, and capitalism. Therefore, I have removed the past 23 blog entries, edited them, and have turned them into a more complete and comprehensive history. One that might make it easier to understand how I got to where I am, and why I'm doing some of the things that I now find myself doing.

Enjoy: