Posted by Amir Lehrer on January 7, 2010
A little while ago Robert Tuchman reached out to me to see if I would write a review of his new book “Young Guns: The Fearless Entrepreneur’s Guide to Chasing Your Dreams and Breaking Out on Your Own
”. I gladly agreed since his book was right on topic with this blog as it discusses paving your own path to success. Although I haven’t finished reading the book yet and will write a review when I am done, I wanted to discuss an important step that Tuchman addresses in his book, the “I Hate Homework Test”.
Looking back to my days in school all the way from first grade until the end of college, there were certain courses that I enjoyed doing homework in while the majority of course work felt like a chore. The courses that I enjoyed doing homework for were the courses that I really enjoyed. The rest of the courses were basically, a means to an end.
Part of being an entrepreneur is seeing the world a little differently than everyone else and focusing on problems and how they can be solved. Being an entrepreneur myself, I find new problems and potential solutions on a daily basis. I get excited about these ideas and create plans to turn these solutions into businesses. I have files with hundreds of these ideas and plans of action but for most of them, the excitement fades away after a little while, as I get excited about the next idea. That is where the “I Hate Homework Test” comes in to play.
Tuchman writes that to find your passion and an idea that you can turn into a profitable business, you need to have a certain excitement for the topic that is unmatched by the excitement for the rest of your ideas. You need to be able to say “I love this” and “I can’t believe I actually get paid for this” about your idea. To find out if you have the right passion and excitement, just think about doing research on your market and finding out more about how you will move forward. Does any of this seem like homework or is this something you would do for hours on end in your spare time, even if it wasn’t your business? If any of it seems like homework, then this idea is not for you. Otherwise, you may have hit gold!
It is so simple and yet so accurate. Over the years, I have gained and lost excitement about so many ideas but the one that stuck is what I am passionate about, marketing and technology. I started Flid Media, a marketing agency specializing in digital media over a year ago and I am going strong. Even when I worked at a traditional marketing firm with almost no connection to social media or technology, I spent most of my free time reading about it and listening to related podcasts. Looking back, if I would have done the “I Hate Homework Test”, I would have started Flid Media even sooner.
Ideas are worth a dime a dozen so the next time you have a “brilliant” idea, do yourself a favour and take the “I Hate Homework Test”. It can save you hours of time and effort.
Does your job pass the “I Hate Homework Test?
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READ: Welcome to Luckortunity!
If you liked this article, you may like some of my past posts. I suggest reading 40 Ways to Increase Your Luck next to give you a better introduction.
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Posted by Amir Lehrer on December 1, 2009
My score dropped by 32 points because of a mistake last month but was corrected quickly because I monitored my score.
The average person never sees his credit score or finds out about his credit’s health until he is about to make a big purchase such as a car or house or needs to take out a loan. At that point, they are often shocked at what they find out. Any late or missed payments can kill your score but even worse, someone else can be using your information and killing your score for you.
I am proud to say that I have been keeping track of my credit score by monitoring it regularly through free annual credit reports and more recently through Credit Karma, a free online service for monitoring your credit score. About a month ago on Credit Karma, I noticed that my score dropped over 30 points. I always pay my bills on time and in full, so I figured it had to be some sort of mistake.
I immediately called the credit agencies and my credit card companies to figure out what happened and it turned out that I used a department store credit card (to save 5% off my purchase) a month before and haven’t paid my bill yet. I forgot about using the card and the credit card company didn’t put my apartment number on the bill it came back to them. When speaking to them, they realized it was their fault and said that they would correct it with the credit agencies. I was lucky that I caught it right away because if a few months went by, i’m not sure that the company would be so quick to make the changes.
Don’t wait until the last minute to check on your credit’s health. Just like your personal health, it needs regular checkups just to make sure everything is ok.
Have you had any similar problems?
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Posted by Amir Lehrer on October 7, 2009
I happened to be in a friend’s office yesterday when they were reading their email. One of the emails had MS Word document attached and they opened it. Looking at her, I noticed a slightly frustrated look on her face and asked what was wrong. She told me that she can’t stand how Word documents always open up in “reading layout” instead of “print layout”. I told her that she can just close it if she wanted to change the view but she already knew that.
She said that she’d been closing the “reading layout” every time she opened an attachment from an email which is about 5 times per day, for the past 5 years. Doing the math, considering that she probably works 5 days per week and 50 weeks per year, that is a total of 6250 times that she had to close the “reading layout”. It only takes about 2 seconds to click “close” and another 5 seconds for MS Word to process the command each time but if you add it all up, she wasted over 12 hours just trying to change a layout. That doesn’t include all of the frustration that could have led to other problems, slowdowns or wasted time.
I got so frustrated with Microsoft Office a couple of years ago and how slow it is that I started using Google documents and other tools to get my work done and open email attachments so I didn’t have the answer for my friend offhand but I did offer to help. I clicked on “Help” in the menu bar, and then typed in “change default view”. Within 30 seconds, I had the answer and changed her default settings.
From now on, my friend can save time and frustration on a daily basis, be more productive and all it took was about 30 seconds. Just think of all the things you can save time and frustration on if you are willing to invest 30 seconds or even a couple of minutes to solve. If you want to learn more about solving your little technical problems, read “The Wise Man Gets Lucky” or “Just F’N Google It”.
What should you learn in 2 minutes that can save you hours of your life?
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Posted by Amir Lehrer on September 24, 2009
Tim Ferriss VS. Gary Vaynerchuk
You may be a little confused. Yesterday I wrote an article about Gary Vaynerchuk and how his constant hard work is paying off as an incredible business strategy. He works non-stop and is reaping the rewards. In the past, I have also written about Tim Ferriss who I would say is almost the exact opposite of Gary Vaynerchuk. Tim looks for any way to minimize his actual work and automate processes so that he does not have to be involved. The only thing they have in common with each other is that they are both huge success stories.
Opposite Strategies But Both Successful
Both Gary and Tim are huge successes in their own right and I would say that the reason is that they are both consistent. They chose a strategy that worked for them and they stuck with it. I don’t think Gary would consider closing down his brick and mortar store, stopping to vlog and quit participating in social media to automate an online store. At the same time, I know that Tim Ferris is careful not to spend too much time on social media. When he started using Twitter, he followed 0 people and was heavily criticized since twitter is a new media communication tool meant for conversation. He finally caved and started following a limited amount of people but still believes that he shouldn’t be spending too much time in the social media space.
Dabble and You will Flop
Too many people dabble in so many things and become somewhat of a jack of all trades and a master of none. This brings me back to people striving to be average when the only way to get ahead is to be above average. It doesn’t make much sense but many people use messed up logic such as “John has an online store and is successful, therefore if I open an online store, I will be successful”. They go and open an online store, flop and then wonder why they failed, not even thinking about what John does that they didn’t do.
Seth Godin Likes to be the “Best in the World”
Seth Godin doesn’t have a Twitter account. Seth is one of the top marketing gurus out there and he does not participate on twitter because he will not participate in something that he cannot be the best in the world at. Seth has his own strategy and is successful as well.
Mixing Diets is a Recipe for Disaster
Imagine you are a few pound over your ideal weight and you want to start a diet. You look around for a diet and many times you start a diet because someone you know just lost a ton of weight on that particular diet. After suffering through a couple of months on the diet and not getting the results you’d hoped for you start to wonder “why didn’t it work?”. Chances are, you used some of the logic I spoke about earlier. “Well, the Atkins diet says I can have as much protein as I want but no carbs and the South Beach diet is very similar so it must be okay to have fries since they are ok on that diet”. People mix and match the parts they like and fail to stick to a single strategy.
Stick to One Strategy
You can be successful at almost anything but you need to choose a single strategy and stick to it. Don’t get sidetracked by shiny objects. You can work 20 hours per day like Gary Vaynerchuck or you can work 4 hours per week like Tim Ferriss and be successful. Just don’t mix up your strategy and you’ll be fine.
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Posted by Amir Lehrer on September 23, 2009
The Disposable Age
We live in the disposable age. We eat take out, use disposable dishes, and look for a quick and easy fix for everything. The current bestselling books talk about doing less and enjoying more like “The Four Hour Work Week” by Tim Ferriss (which I am all for by the way). We are bombarded with mlm (multi-level marketing), network marketing, internet marketing and many other disguises for a way to make a quick buck. It seems like most people have forgotten that the most important ingredient in becoming successful is hard work.
Gary Vaynerchuck: The Hard Worker
Being involved in social media, I am very familiar with Gary Vaynerchuk, a wine expert/store owner who has used social media to grow his family business from $4 million per year to a $50 million business. I’m mentioning Gary Vaynerchuk because he is a modern example of a hard worker. He is passionate about what he does and he may be one of the hardest workers out there.
Scalable and not so Scalable Apps
Not long ago, platforms such as the Facebook and iPhone opened up to developers so that anyone can create an application for their platform. Most people saw this as an opportunity to create a scalable app that can continue to make them money while they slept. It was a dream come true for some people. Gary Vaynerchuk jumped on the bandwagon and created his own Facebook app but contrary to what everyone else was trying to do, he may have created the absolute least scalable app in Facebook history. His app “Ask Gary” was pretty much just a place for people to ask him questions about wine. Gary answered every single one of the questions himself.
Gary Vaynerchuk’s lack of scalability doesn’t end there. He also answers every single one of thousands of emails he gets every day. To top it off, he personally speaks to almost every customer that comes in to his store. Gary also manages to record Wine Library TV, a regular videocast on wine which happens to be very entertaining.
Gary on Social Media
Gary was recently asked how much time he spends on social media platforms such asFacebook and Twitter to which he responded “about 2.5 hours per day”. Shocked at the answer, Gary explained that it is a CEO’s job to make connections and get business and that he has found Social Media, the best place to make his connections.
Gary’s Research and Development
Looking at Gary and what he has done, you may think that Gary has it made and can start delegating now. He can let other people do his work for him and go relax on a beach, he can definitely afford it now. Gary feels otherwise and for a very good reason. By answering thousands of people’s questions, speaking to customers and doing research online, his mind and gut are a better R&D team than you can ever possibly hire. He can smell new trends and predict what people will want and like. The human mind can accurately crunch more information that any super computer in existence. Gary takes advantage of this and stays years ahead of his competition.
Hard work does pay off… Just “Ask Gary”.
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Posted by Amir Lehrer on August 20, 2009
Image from http://picasaweb.google.com/julyfourcasey
In general, people are very “happy go lucky”. They have their beliefs and values and everything in their life pretty much falls into place based on the systems they were brought up with, or have set for themselves. Cognitive dissonance comes into play when you have two beliefs or values that come up at once and contradict each other. People don’t know how to react so they are forced to alter their beliefs to accommodate the contradiction. For example, Michael likes to save money for his retirement and therefore never spends more than the absolute minimum on anything he buys. Then one day his computer breaks and he goes to the store to buy a new one but ends up buying the most expensive computer in the store with the most features, memory and storage. He then convinces himself that it was a “good buy” because it will last longer and after all, it’s a business expense. What Michael actually did was slightly modified his values so that he can be comfortable with his new purchase. Conflicts of these sorts are in most cases resolved by a change in values or beliefs that will do the least damage to the person’s ego.
Did you ever get an email from a millionaire in Nigeria who needs help getting his money out of the country? All he needs is your bank account and he will give you a cut of the money. It is common knowledge that giving away your bank information to a stranger is a bad idea. At the same time, just think of what you could do with 10 million dollars, especially since you just lost your job. The reason that this sort of scam is so popular is because it works. People are blinded by the thought of making so much money that they are willing to risk it. It’s sad that most people who lose money to these scams don’t report it to the police or anyone else because they are embarrassed. They knew that giving away their information was a bad idea and can’t believe they did it anyway.
Salesmen often use cognitive dissonance to make a sale. When I was looking to buy my first car, I was brought in to the dealership by an advertisement I saw for the car that I wanted at an incredible price. When I got to the dealership, they told me that it must have been a mistake because the price is much higher but they will show me the lot and help me pick out a similar car at my price point. Once I was already there, I figured I may as well look around.
As I looked around, I started to get excited and as the salesman saw it, he began a few other little tricks up his sleeve. He lowered the price on the cars that I wanted, he spoke to his manager so that he can give me an even better deal, he even told me he liked me so much that he would give up his commission to give me a better rate. As we were talking, he asked for my licence so that he could start the paperwork “just in case”. I should have seen him playing around the whole time but I wanted the car and I had already invested an entire day over there. I convinced myself to keep going. After many more of the salesman’s little tricks, like making me wait for hours to speak to the financing guy, I was finally exhausted and wanted to drive off the lot and go home. I was given a pile of papers to sign and told, “as soon as you sign these papers, you’ll be the new owner of your car and can go home”. I asked what percentage of financing they were giving me and they told me not to worry about it. I insisted and finally they said 12%. I have excellent credit and told them I wouldn’t go for it. They pretended to look at their computer and said “oh yeah, ok I can give you 10.4%”. At that point, I told them to jump in a lake and I walked out to everyone’s surprise. A couple weeks later, I bought a newer version of the same car from another dealership for less money than I would have spent with their financing.
Wikipedia has a great example of cognitive dissonance on smoking:
Smoking is often postulated as an example of cognitive dissonance because it is widely accepted that cigarettes cause lung cancer, yet virtually everyone wants to live a long and healthy life. In terms of the theory, the desire to live a long life is dissonant with the activity of doing something that will most likely shorten one’s life. The tension produced by these contradictory ideas can be reduced by quitting smoking, denying the evidence of lung cancer, or justifying one’s smoking.[3] For example, smokers could rationalize their behavior by concluding that only a few smokers become ill, that it only happens to very heavy smokers, or that if smoking does not kill them, something else will.[4] This and other forms of chemical addiction are not so clear-cut, but this analysis may be valid for those wanting to start smoking.
This case of dissonance could also be interpreted in terms of a threat to the self-concept.[5] The thought, “I am increasing my risk of lung cancer” is dissonant with the self-related belief, “I am a smart, reasonable person who makes good decisions.” Because it is often easier to make excuses than it is to change behavior, dissonance theory leads to the conclusion that humans are rationalizing and not always rational beings.
As you can see, people play games with themselves to make themselves feel that they are doing the right thing and to rationalize their behaviour. Nobody should even open up an email from a stranger in Nigeria. I should have left the car dealership at the first bait and switch they pulled. Smokers should admit to themselves that smoking is bad for their health and contradicts their want to live. To get lucky, you need to be true to yourself and take a slap to your ego. Otherwise, you will just continue to fool yourself and open yourself up to being scammed even more and putting yourself in positions that you don’t want to be in. Cognitive dissonance prevents us from getting lucky and moving forward in our lives by making us protect our egos over doing what is best for ourselves and our future. Once again, slap that ego into place and do what’s right and you’ll start to get lucky.
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Posted by Amir Lehrer on August 19, 2009
I was just thinking about Nickelback’s song “If Today Was Your Last Day” and it really struck a chord. He talks about the best advice that his friend gave him to live each day like it’s his last since “each day’s a gift and not a given right”. I agree that living on the edge is the only way to live and get lucky but you have to take that advice with a grain of salt.
You need to think about what if today is not my last day. How am I going to eat, pay rent or plan for the future? After all, most of us are optimists when it comes to staying alive. We would prefer not to think about our final day so we convince ourselves that it’s far away and we have plenty of time. Once we convince ourselves that we have all the time in the world, we get lazy and “push off today what can be done tomorrow”.
In previous articles, I mentioned that the way to success and luck is baby steps. It takes many small goals and could take six years to become an overnight success. That said, you can’t follow both sets of advice without going insane. Andy Dufresne summed up my advice in my favourite movie of all time, Shawshank Redemption. You should “hope for the best but prepare for the worst”.
By hoping for the best, you have plenty of time to live. When preparing for the worst, you might as well live each day like it’s your last. Use each day to the fullest to prepare to get lucky in the future but make sure to do something each day as if it was your last. The song gives several examples such as “call those friends you never see”, “reminisce old memories”, “forgive old enemies” and “find that one you’re dreaming of”. Go ahead and do something crazy each day to get your blood pumping. Take 30 minutes out of your TV watching schedule (all the good shows were cancelled anyway), get off the couch and live. “It’s never too late to shoot for the stars, regardless of who you are”.
Here’s a video of the song to enjoy.
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Posted by Amir Lehrer on June 30, 2009
I was listening to a recent Media Hacks podcast (episode 10) where C.C. Chapman, Hugh McGuire, Julien Smith and host Mitch Joel discussed piracy of books online and music. Music piracy has been a hot topic for a while now and the music industry just does not get it.
Recently, there was a case where a woman was fined $1.9 million for illegally downloading 24 songs. That’s $80,000 per song. Not sure where they got those numbers but if you ask me, she didn’t do even close to that amount of damage because chances are that she wouldn’t have bought those songs in the first place. I can almost guarantee though that she in one way or another influenced others to buy those same songs and thereby promoted the songs for free. Either through recommendation, discussing or singing the songs or even playing them in her car while giving someone a lift.
The music industry has the same opportunity now to offer their music for free with ads or branding in between songs and let the advertisers pay the difference. Just as Hulu is doing for TV shows, if they make it easy to watch legally, even with a commercial or two, people are willing to sit through the commercials. These people then go on to discuss the latest shows at the water cooler the next day.
The benefit to the music industry is that these same people that are not paying for their listening rights are the ones that are promoting the music to their friends.
C.C. brought up a very good point that if a child wants to download a song and doesn’t have a credit card, there is no chance for him to legally acquire the song. People will be less likely to pirate music if it was easier to download it legally in the first place.
Remember when we used to tape songs right off the radio and they had little bits of the radio announcer at the beginning and end of each song? Even when it was a top 10 at 10 songs marathon, there was still a little bit of speaking as the songs faded into each other. Fans shared their music with their friends and true fans went out and bought the tape (or CD) so they could own a good quality version of their own.
We are now in the information age where information and products are very often free. You can find almost anything online and companies are giving away advice and industry secrets for free, hoping that if you need specialized help, you will be back as a paying customer. The music industry needs to figure out a way to do the same. They can make their money off merchandising, concerts, ads and I’m sure thousands of other ways. The main thing is, they’re not doing themselves a favor by suing their fans.
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Posted by Amir Lehrer on May 18, 2009
If you’ve been following this blog, you will know that to get lucky, you must open yourself up to as many new opportunities as possible. Keeping your eyes open to see any changes that can lead to new opportunities and listening to as many people as possible to hear new points of view that can lead to new opportunity. It seems pretty obvious that if things aren’t going as well as you would have hoped, you would open yourself up to new ideas and new points of view. If that’s the case, why are so many businesses and organizations banging their heads into the same wall over and over again?
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“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
– Albert Einstein
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Being new in town, my wife decided to help out some local organization by joining committees for their fundraisers. She was full of excitement knowing that she was not only going to be helping out her community but also, she will be able to share some of her ideas to make the events even more successful. They welcomed her onto the committees with open arms but to her surprise, they were unwilling to listen to any of her ideas. Even though they complained that they lost money of some events and would love to raise more money on others, they were determined to not only redo each of last year’s events but duplicate them completely and have the same people run each part.
My wife sent them an email saying that she was disappointed that she wasn’t involved more than just running errands that nobody else wanted to do. Here is the response that the committee leader sent to my wife:
Hi,
First of all, i apologize for not including you more in this. Most of the year to year things, carry on from year to year, so the ones who have dealt with these things in the past continue to do them year to year. Most of the committee does nothing more than helping to set up, dealing with the night of…I think because the core committee can do this with our eyes closed already, we didn’t bother to set up any “real meetings” with the rest of the committee.
“Who is wise: He who learns from all men.”
– Ethics of Our Fathers
When will people learn that if they want change, they will have to open their eyes and start doing things differently and most of all, listening to other ideas and points of view. If you never want to get lucky, go ahead and continue doing what you’ve always done with your eyes closed.
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Posted by Amir Lehrer on March 9, 2009
picture taken from news video at http://www.khon2.com/news/local/40518362.html
Last week during my stay in Hawaii, I was interviewed by Brianne Randle of KHON2, an affiliate of Fox News about homelessness in Hawaii and how it affects tourism. Apparently, there have been streams of discussions on expedia.com and tripadvisor.com about the homeless problem in Waikiki, which is discouraging tourism. Brianne pointed to a group of camping tents in an open field along the beach and asked if it bothered me at all and if it affected me as a tourist. I told her that before she told me that it was illegal and that these people were homeless, I was considering camping out for a night myself.
Media Spins the News, “you see it everywhere you go”
I spoke to Brianne on camera for at least five minutes discussing my thoughts on the situation. I explained that the homeless people on Waikiki Beach did not affect me but the only statement that they took out of the discussion was an out of context “you see it everywhere you go”. It made me seem like I was disgusted by the problem, which is very far from the truth. When I made the comment I was not talking about Hawaii, I was talking about the unfortunate reality that there are homeless people everywhere in the world. I also told Brianne that the problem in Hawaii was made worse than it actually was because of the direction of the discussions on the travel site forums which gives the Waikiki Government a tremendous opportunity to join the forums and show all the positives about Waikiki so that it will retain it’s appeal to tourists.
The Media Spins Me Right Round, Like a Record
The reason I bring this up is to show how the media spins their stories to get whatever outcome they want. When Brianne asked me if the homeless problem affects me one way or the other, she may as well have asked “why does the homeless problem affect you as a tourist?” with the note that if it doesn’t bother you, she is not interested.
It’s Easy to Find a Source to Support your Story
For any story, you can always find sources to support any side of an argument. Even if 99% of the world feels one way, you can take the 1% who feels the other way and use them as your sources. You can also take the first 99% of people, cut and paste little pieces of what they say out of context and presto! You have your story supporting your original hypothesis. Every book in Barnes and Noble has a quote from some publication on it making it seem like it is the greatest read since War and Peace. There can’t be that many “best reads of the year”.
Mark Twain was quoted as saying “if you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.” He could not be more on the money.
Social Media is Taking us Back in Time
I love to tell the story of how social media is bringing us back to the days before mass media took over as our primary source of information. In the olden days, if someone wanted to get their story out, they would put together a pamphlet with their story on it and pass it around in the marketplace. Then someone else would come along and give out a pamphlet with their version of the story and maybe even a third or fourth person or more would do the same. People in the marketplace would be able to read multiple sides of the story and come to their own conclusions of what really took place. Along came mass media and started to deliver the “news” but it was from their perspective with their own biases and twists.
Blogs are the New Pamphlets
Today, we have access to thousands of blogs on any subject and no longer have to rely on mass media to “misinform” us. We can now read a few blog posts on any given subject and come to our own conclusions just as people did with pamphlets many years ago. By building up our own personal social networks and filling up our rss readers with what we consider reliable sources, we will become the most informed generation ever.
How do you feel about using mass media vs. social media to get informed? Please leave a comment.
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