33 Ways To Fund Your Startup Business No matter what the economic situation, someone somewhere, eyes bright with potential, is looking to start a new business. Funds are often the biggest hurdle to what could otherwise be a lucrative opportunity. Here are some ways - traditional and/ or creative - to raise money for your startup business. 1. Risk : It's your money, and if you're not successful, the money is gone, and with it the opportunity to do anything else with it later. 2. Risk : A fed up partner who wants out; arguments; irresponsible partners who leave you with all the debt; broken friendships. 3. Risk : Regrets, or worse: going out and spending to replace the item(s) you sold. 4. Risk : Getting hooked on lotteries and gambling to "fund" your dream business. 5. Risk : One Red Paperclip is a novel approach, though unless you have something well-thought out and as interesting (and you let your personality through), it's hard to do a successful followup act. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.
How To Stop Worrying Undoing the Worrying Habit Once acquired, the habit of worrying seems hard to stop. We're raised to worry and aren't considered "grown up" until we perfect the art. Teenagers are told: "you'd better start worrying about your future". To the extent that worrying is learned/conditioned behaviour, it can be undone. Centuries-old cultural conditioning has given us a nasty neurosis: the belief that happiness must be "earned". Laid on top of the first neurosis is the idea that spending money will make you happy. So: we never stop working, we never stop spending money, we're never really happy – ideal conditions, coincidentally, for a certain type of slave economy. You won't stop worrying if you think it serves you. The fight-or-flight response (FOF) is useful on rare occasions of real danger. Worrying is never useful. Rearranging the mental furniture This deceptively simple technique is effective because it bypasses the psychological obstacles mentioned above. Accelerator-Brake analogy
Nine Things Successful People Do Differently HBR Learn more about the science of success with Heidi Grant Halvorson’s HBR Single, based on this blog post. Why have you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? If you aren’t sure, you are far from alone in your confusion. It turns out that even brilliant, highly accomplished people are pretty lousy when it comes to understanding why they succeed or fail. 1. To seize the moment, decide when and where you will take each action you want to take, in advance. 3. Fortunately, decades of research suggest that the belief in fixed ability is completely wrong — abilities of all kinds are profoundly malleable. The good news is, if you aren’t particularly gritty now, there is something you can do about it. 7. To build willpower, take on a challenge that requires you to do something you’d honestly rather not do. 8. 9. If you want to change your ways, ask yourself, What will I do instead?
30 Books I’m Glad I Read Before 30 In various ways, these 30 books convey some of the philosophy of how Angel and I live our lives. I honestly credit a fraction of who I am today to each title. Thus, they have indirectly influenced much of what I write about on this site. If you haven’t read these books yet, I highly recommend doing so. Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert – Gilbert, a Harvard professor of psychology has studied happiness for decades, and he shares scientific findings that just might change the way you look at the world. What are your favorite books? Photo by: Katie Harris
How to Deliver a Great Presentation Like Steve Jobs 19 Jul 2012 If you like to learn some of the techniques and styles that make Steve Jobs such a great presenter, watch these excellent videos and slides by Carmine Gallo, author of ‘The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs.’ couch mode print story Steve Jobs is among the most polished presenters in the world. He doesn’t use any bullet points in his presentations, his keynote addresses are free of any jargon, there are very few words in the slides but they have photographs and headlines that are hard to forget. If you like to learn some of the techniques and styles that make Steve Jobs such a great presenter, here’s some excellent advice from Businessweek columnist Carmine Gallo, who is also the author of the book – The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs. “Steve Jobs may be a hard act to follow.
Your Use of Pronouns Reveals Your Personality The finding: A person’s use of function words—the pronouns, articles, prepositions, conjunctions, and auxiliary verbs that are the connective tissue of language—offers deep insights into his or her honesty, stability, and sense of self. The research: In the 1990s, James Pennebaker helped develop a computer program that counted and categorized words in texts, differentiating content words, which convey meaning, from function words. After analyzing 400,000 texts—including essays by college students, instant messages between lovers, chat room discussions, and press conference transcripts—he concluded that function words are important keys to someone’s psychological state and reveal much more than content words do. The challenge: Can insignificant words really provide a “window to the soul”? Professor Pennebaker, defend your research. Pennebaker: When we began analyzing people’s writing and speech, we didn’t expect results like this. HBR: Why are function words so important? Ooh. Yes.
13 Business Books MUST READS Having never taken a business class in college I find that I read and listen to a lot of business books to round out my education. The books usually aren't "How to Manage Your Cash Flow" but rather get me to rethink the way I run my business, which--despite no business classes or diploma--continues to be in business 13 plus years after I started it. In that time, here are 13 of the books that had the biggest impact on how I run my business (in no particular order): Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink: If you supervise anyone in your business, this book is a must read. It shows that what science knows about motivation, business isn't putting into practice. The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up by Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham: I wanted to have at least one book that was dedicated to small business and the entrepreneurial spirit.
Seven Speaking Tips That Beat “Pretend Your Audience Is Naked" Aggh. Everyone showed up clothed! Once upon a time, I suffered from glossophobia. This affliction touches billions. It's the fear of public speaking , even to a tiny group. I conquered it by discovering what makes people smile, nod, and listen carefully, because nothing calms you down faster than an interested audience. This is what I've learned. Children plea for them at night, and adults crave them, too. They want to be respected. This principle also underlies another rule of effective speaking: Dress like your audience, but just a little bit better." {*style:<i>Don't try to impress them. </i>*} If you truly want to help your listeners--by informing or motivating them, or improving their lives--they will care and listen. This recalls a favorite tip: We mistrust people who won't look us in the eyes--even if our eyes are among over 200 sets in a room. If you look each person in the eye for a few seconds, you make each person feel important--a feeling that every person craves. . .
50 Things Everyone Should Know How To Do Self-reliance is a vital key to living a healthy, productive life. To be self-reliant one must master a basic set of skills, more or less making them a jack of all trades. Contrary to what you may have learned in school, a jack of all trades is far more equipped to deal with life than a specialized master of only one. While not totally comprehensive , here is a list of 50 things everyone should know how to do. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. Check out these books for more ideas on pertinent life skills:
7 Not So Obvious Habits To Maximize Your Productivity - StumbleUpon I was a big fan of productivity, and, in some respects, I still am. I’ve been a very early adopter of GTD, and, for years, I did my weekly reviews with the discipline of a zen monk. But, eventually, I hit a roadblock. GTD is about getting things “done”, but in life we have much more to experience than “doing”. So, I confess I fell out from the GTD wagon. But enough with all this shameless self-promotion intro. So, instead of doing a presentation of the Assess – Decide – Do framework, I chose to isolate only 7 simple tips for today’s post. As a matter of fact, they’re even organized as such. 1. I firmly believe that the art of ignorance should be taught in schools. Especially on Mondays, when all the previous week unprocessed stuff seems to crash on us, try to apply this. Slash out Twitter, Facebook, email. 2. Each tiny task that you finish is an achievement. Tuesdays are great for this habit, because they’re the first link after the week hast started. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Transformational Entrepreneurship: Where Technology Meets Societal Impact - Startup Genome The concept of transformational entrepreneurship describes one of the guiding philosophies of the Startup Genome The last five years the global economy has been rife with turmoil. Discussion of bankruptcy, bailouts and unemployment have dominated the headlines. On the surface many of our problems stem from giving the financial sector de facto leadership over the global economy, and enabling them to exploit the system to the brink of societal collapse. There are early signs however, that the two movements of Technology Entrepreneurship and Social Entrepreneurship are beginning to converge into a promising solution. Now all around the country, citizens who are mad as hell and not going to take it any more are storming the streets and camping out in public parks, demanding justice from the economic destroyers on Wall Street and the complicit federal government. The Y Axis: Economic ImpactThe Y axis is relatively straightforward.