Making money is exactly like war. 

It is a very competitive environment. The winner of a war is the side with the best information, knowledge and understanding of the terrain they’re on and the opposition they’re facing. 

Just as in a war, your business needs “intel” in order to succeed and make money. You need to know everything you can about: 

The Buyers 
The Sellers 
The Products 
The Services 
The Competition 
The Supply Chain 
The Distribution Channel 
The Methods others used to win 
The Methods others used that failed 
The financial methods used as leverage to grow faster 
The most efficient ways to buy, sell, create, outsource and network

We will all have failures along the way. It’s failing fast, learning from that failure, and getting back in the game that makes the difference between winners and losers.

Get Rich Click! by Marc Ostrofsky

People have commented on some of my posts, and they asking me about whether I really do what I write about (I do). I thought I would write down what I did today as an example, and this is a pretty normal day, nothing special;

Woke up and made some Bulletproof Coffee which is coffee with grass fed butter and MCT Coconut oil. (more on that later, but check out The Bulletproof Exec.) I have been studying various health supplements, and this popped up on my radar a couple of months ago. I am a believer. 

I then sat in the sun and read a couple of chapters of the biography on William Sherman, then one chapter on Lean Supply Chain, and then a couple of chapters on  using bodyweight for physical conditioning. I am becoming obsessed with being able to do a one arm push up and one arm chin up. Seriously obsessed.

Made my group some Cinnamon Pecan Pancakes, which were pretty good.

Made a plan for what I will cook this week, six meals, including carnitas, Korean Chicken, and Homemade Pizzas, made a quick grocery list, and then went out and got the goods.

Made sure I got my Brazilian nuts and almonds. My favorite snack food.

While I was out, I stopped by a bookstore, because I am looking for a book by James Altucher on Hedge Fund trading (still haven't ound a copy), and then got a Taro Boba, which breaks the meal plan, but I love. I always believe on having a heavy hand with the good things in life. I get obsessed with ideas, and I am now diving deep into stock trading concepts. (I think when everyone gets out is exactly when you should get in.)

Bought the new Wired magazine, so I could read the article on Startup Weekend, and also read the article on the pharmacology of a memory pill. I am interested in smart supplements.

Got back and wrote a four page report for work outside and then emailed it out. I then set up my plan for the week on what I want to get done. I am digging into Microsoft AX, and I am reading some white papers, particularly on the sales and production side. I am working on what measurements, and how to get them that I will need to execute what I think needs to happen.

I worked on my online bookstore, I have decided to ramp it up, and then take it in a new direction. Need to get it running better first. Sold a couple of books through it today. Listed some items.

Came up with an idea for my website network. Discovered someone already had the URL Ramenprofitable.com. 

Watched Amazing Race, because I love Amazing Race.

Worked out. Still on the perfect push up. (No where near.) Set up my chin up bar.

Wrote this post.

Will write some other items later, I have many in motion, and then I will work on the web site. I have some ideas I need to get down.

That about sums it up, tht is my day, and does not count the time I spent with the family, for example, watching them play Arkham City, or the talks (trying to convince my nephew to do the Amazing Race with me), but it shows the time I spent trying to make all the parts of my life better, a little bit each day.

I will have some coconut ice cream. I have to. Its good.

I always try to make sure that each time I leave a room, I leave it better than it was when I came in. I treat my days the same way. Make them better for you walking through it.

What did you do today?

D

“Everything tells me that I am about to make a wrong decision, but making mistakes is just part of life. What does the world want of me? Does it want me to take no risks, to go back to where I came from because I didn't have the courage to say "yes" to life?”
 
“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”

 “When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.”

 “There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” 

― Paulo Coelho

The thing you do need to do is learn. Learn accounting. Learn finance. Learn statistics. Learn as much as you can about business. Read biographies about businesspeople. You don’t have to focus on one thing, but you have to create a base of knowledge so you are ready when it’s time. - Mark Cuban

This is what life is all about,Superfly, it is about making the choices in your life, and doing the work, and learning the way. I have absolutely no patience with people who aren't learning, who are not changing who they are daily. They are asleep while others are busy creating themselves and the world they walk through.

Education is not a place, it is a way of being, and anyone not interested in learning is going to learn the hard way that Darwin was right, and they will find themselves culled from the herd. Ignorance is not a viable survival skill.

When I say Universities are on their way out, that doesn't mean education is out, because education has never been more critical to your life and to your success than it is today. Learning  has never been more possible, it has never been easier, and you can have access to almost any data, any information, from anywhere, in the world, and it has never been easier to be better tomorrow than your are today.

You have the tools of giants. Your IPhone has more computing power than the computers used to get to the moon. You have access today to tools giant companies and countries couldn't get twenty years ago. You got the stuff,  now use it. 

Listen. 

Any time your life settles into a routine, you are stagnating. 

Any animal doing the same thing every day, take the same path to the water hole, is in the end, a dead animal.

Look around you, the world changes constantly, and anyone not changing and adapting is simply done and not worth know. I want people in my network who seriously know their stuff.

What did you learn today? Seriously. What?

Today I learned how to cook Banana Pancakes from scratch.

I studied SEO for about an hour trying to understand how internet businesses function.

I read some Hemingway, two short stories, trying to learn how he manages to make the entire story about what isn't said. the empty spaces in the dialogue.

I started to learn how to use body weight as a workout process (fascinating).

That isn't all I did today, but it shows the point.

In my humble opinion, once you have learned how to learn, then you can try as many different things as you can, recognizing that you don’t have to find your destiny at any given age—you just have to be prepared to run with it when you do. - Mark Cuban


Hey You. Get away from the TV, get off the couch, and go create something. 

Make Yourself.

D

Being sick for the last couple of weeks, I was fascinated to find how much being sick changes how you are. The way you view things. It gave me a kind of distance to the things around me. Objectivity.

It is also amazing how being sick makes you more aware of what energy you have, you triage quickly, to do what matters.

Energy is key.

Almost back............... almost.


Reading right now;

A biography of Civil War General William T. Sherman,it is an old style biography,and the prose is kind of stilted, but the subject is fascinating. 

137 - the story of the friendship between Jung and Pauli. This is an amazing book about the relationship between Jung the psychoanalyst and Wolfgang Pauli, and their fascination with  the unusual in the world.

The Nick Adams Stories by Hemingway - it isn't about his style, Hemingway is the master of what isn't said, but implied.

Convict Conditioning - a book on using your body weight to get stronger. I like the idea of using all your muscles to insure ypu stay strong and healthy.

D

Imagine a giant college campus filled with dodo birds and woolly mammoths. All carrying backpacks, textbooks, and a cup of Starbucks. And all extinct.

It is inevitable that Colleges and Universities will collapse under their own weight. Entities like that have a tendency to resist technological change, and to resist changes in technology is always fatal. Efficiency always wins. Inefficiency  always loses. Always.

And that is good.

Learning isn't going away, it is growing, and what is slowing it down is the old educational system. The old system needs to get out of the way, because if the world needs anything, it needs more knowledgeable people walking its surface.

“You at least are willing to work hard,” Komatsu said cautiously. “As far as I can tell, you don’t cut corners. You’re very modest when it comes to the act of writing. And why? Because you like to write. I value that in you. It’s the single most important quality for somebody who wants to be a writer.” “But not, in itself, enough.” “No, of course, not in itself enough. There also has to be that ‘special something,’ an indefinable quality, something I can’t quite put my finger on. That’s the part of fiction I value more highly than anything else. Stuff I understand perfectly doesn’t interest me. Obviously. It’s very simple.” 

Those people have it pounded into them to carry out whatever needs to be done to accomplish the mission, and to do it instantly, without the slightest hesitation. The important thing is not to hesitate, no matter who the opponent might be. Amateurs hesitate,

There is some risk, of course. But risk is the spice of life. 
Good style happens in one of two ways: the writer either has an inborn talent or is willing to work herself to death to get it. 

You couldn’t begin to imagine who I am, where I’m going, or what I’m about to do, Aomame said to her audience without moving her lips. All of you are trapped here. You can’t go anywhere, forward or back. But I’m not like you. I have work to do. I have a mission to accomplish. And so, with your permission, I shall move ahead. 


Haruki Murakami

Love this quote from the Mark Cuban book;

I had to kick myself in the ass and recommit to getting up early, staying up late and consuming everything I possibly could to get an edge. I had to commit to making the effort to be as productive as I possibly could. It meant making sure that every hour of the day that I could contact a customer was selling time, and when customers were sleeping, 

I was doing things that prepared me to make more sales and to make my company better. And finally, I had to make sure I wasn’t lying to myself about how hard I was working. It would have been easy to judge effort by how many hours a day passed while I was at work. That’s the worst way to measure effort. Effort is measured by setting goals and getting results. What did I need to do to close this account? What did I need to do to win this segment of business? What did I need to do to understand this technology or that business better than anyone? What did I need to do to find an edge? Where does that edge come from, and how was I going to get there? The one requirement for success in our business lives is effort. Either you make the commitment to get results or you don’t.
How to Win at the Sport of Business: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It by Mark Cuban 

Instead of flinching back, they flinch forward—toward their opponent, and toward the threat. When you flinch forward, you’re using the speed of your instincts, but you don’t back off. Instead, you move forward so fast—without thinking—that your opponent can’t react. You use your upraised hands as weapons instead of shields. You use your fear to gain an advantage.

Train yourself to flinch forward, and your world changes radically.

The lessons you learn best are those you get burned by. Without the scar, there’s no evidence or strong memory.

Firsthand knowledge, however, is visceral, painful, and necessary. It uses the conscious and the unconscious to process the lesson, and it uses all your senses. When you fall down, your whole motor system is involved. You can’t learn this from books. It just doesn’t work, because you didn’t really fall. You need to feel it in your gut—and on your scraped hands and shins—for the lesson to take effect.
The Flinch by Julien Smith

It is going to be a new year and it is time to shake off the dust and debrisThe new year is here and I have decided to focus in on six things in 2012.

I call them a plan, as I think it gives a more definite feel to them than resolutions, and I plan on tracking as I go.

The six are;

1. Learn to type fast. I can type, but it isn't pretty, and it is one of the three things everyone should know. ( The three things are typing, at least two languages, and entrepreneur/ accounting.) I really need to improve. I have much to do with little time and typing like a caveman is nether very skilled or helpful.

2. Learn a language. I have dabbled, but this year I go and do it. I want to read some authors in their native language, I just have a feeling I am missing a lot in the translation. The two languages I want to learn is Japanese (Haruki Murakami) and French (Albert Camus). French is the one in 2012. I want to read Camus' essays in French this year.

3. Fitness - fell out of shape in the last 6 months with the chaos around me. Need to get the discipline back. I will start training and watching what I eat. Thinking of learning Krav Maga. 

4.I want to learn a new cooking skill. I can do Italian, Mexican, and a little Asian, but need to widen it out. 

5. Write 50,000 words. I want a book. It is in me, I know what it is, and needs to get out.

6. Start a business on the side that will teach me some more online techniques and make at least a $1,000 in 2012. No more studying, now you do.

Each of these will make me better at what I do, and we all want to be better.

I feel you need to put it down, make yourself accountable.

D