This image came up in a conversation this week between me and a colleague of mine that is on a similar journey with his business. After I posted it to him, he said, “talk about losing all of your serious street cred” to which I replied “hey, street cred vs. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$”. Then I started thinking about how much we value our “street cred” in this industry. We spend so much time establishing ourselves among our peers as “thought leaders” and “influencers” and not enough time building our businesses.
My first car was a 1987 Hyundai Excel. My dad and brother bought two of these cars back in 1987 when they were being marketed as “buy one get one free”, meaning that for the price of one normal car, you could get two of these monstrosities. It was honestly a little embarrassing driving this car at first but I decided to roll with it and make it “cool”. I tinted the windows as dark as I legally could and put a fake cell phone antenna on there (hey, it was 1991!). For added flavor I put in some synthetic sheepskin seat covers and slapped a big Stussy sticker on the back window. Some of my friends were into car stereos but, of course, I couldn’t afford anything really nice so I ended up putting a home entertainment speaker in the hatchback and a ridiculous looking Radio Shack equalizer mounted in the glove box. I topped all of this off with a license plate cover that said, “Happiness is being a grandparent”.
Though it wasn’t my dream car, people to this day still remember that car and laugh about the “Happiness is being a grandparent” license plate cover. It reminds me of a quote I read recently that said something like, “Life isn’t about how many days you live, it is about how many you remember”. I certainly will never forget that car.
2012
My goals for 2012 are simple:
Read Less, Do More
Somehow over the last year I’ve become addicted to reading blogs. I read HN probably 3-4 times a day and just recently I’ve realized how obsessive I’ve become about it. I suppose my hope is that one day I will come across the article that will tell me the meaning of life, the universe and everything. It hasn’t happened and it won’t. The general gist of 99% of what I read on HN and other blogs similar is “do it”. Stop mucking around and just work on something, finish it, ship it and write a blog about it and suddenly you are on the other side of the curtain. There is no magic to it, just stop screwing around and do something.
Eat Healthier
Generally, my wife and I eat pretty healthy and our son does as well. I want to really focus on eating more whole foods, find a diet that will work for me for the long haul, not just the time being. Admittedly I like to eat ice cream and what not more often than I should and my excuse before was that I was training for Ironman so it was easy for me to burn up to 10,000 calories a week. Since Ironman (Nov 20th), I haven’t done shit but…. eat junk. Time to cut it out.
Walk More
After working at home for over 15 years, I finally decided to get an office near my house. It is 2 miles away and though I love to run, I really hate walking. I figure the 30 minute walk to and from the office will give me a chance to clear my head and get my out of this feeling that I’m always in a rush for no reason. When it gets too hot I will ride my bike. Either way, I want to walk/jog/ride more and drive less.
Drive Less
I’m going to make a solid attempt at driving less. Anything less than 5 miles away I will either walk or ride my bike or ride with my wife (hey, we have 2 kids, I can’t drag them around because I feel like walking).
Disconnect
I’ll admit it… I hate Facebook and for some reason I am on there all the time. It is like HN, I keep looking hoping to see something inspiring but it rarely happens. Someone did post this article today which was an awesome read. Either way, I want to make a concentrated effort to stop checking my email 500 times a day, looking at blogs, trying to find a bit of inspiration here and there and just focus on doing things. I have considered shutting down my Facebook account but with family and what not it’s hard. Perhaps I will just unfriend everyone aside from my family and then I most certainly will never log on again.
Aside from that, I have the goals everyone else does… do great work, be happy, spend a lot of time with my wife and kids. Here is to 2012, let’s do this.
Forget “inbox zero”
What is the correlation between inbox zero and productivity? To me, constantly striving for inbox zero is a never ending exercise in inefficiency. I’m tired of seeing people on Twitter and Facebook tout their “inbox zero!!!” status as if it proves anything outside of the fact that you’d make a good receptionist.
If you want to get real, go for task list zero. Knock out every task you have for the day before you want to quit working and THEN worry about your inbox.
What he said...
I sat down last night to write a blog similar to this but couldn’t muster the right words. Thanks to him for doing the work for me!
