There has been a lot of banter since the government shutdown. The "furloughed" employees collected unemployment, protested and then get full back pay. How is that for paid time off? USA Today reported in the October 21st issue that some may get both full back pay and still get to keep their unemployment checks. So what exactly were they protesting?
One prominent Democrat told the tea party to go home and said "It is clear they didn't come here to build anything, only to tear it down." Well duh, the whole point of the tea party is to reduce taxes AND reduce the size and reach of the government.
Sadly the only losers in the deal were the tourists who couldn't visit some national parks and monuments and the taxpayers not employed by the government who are going to get the bill.
The Pentagon brought everyone back to work the minute the bill was passed to pay the furloughed employees. One of the best decisions of the entire debacle from my view. This way they cut their unemployment expenses that weren't budgeted for.
The one thing it did show us is what our politicos think are necessary services and which aren't. Do you think they did without for a minute on either side?
So is the Tea Party Dead or are they Enraged? Only time will tell. Are the republicans in trouble? Maybe. Some moderates may be in trouble as the divide widens.
In a time when we need to come together reasonably, we have two parties going to extremes and the main stream media playing it up to sell ad space. Was the republican acceptance poll rating of 24% because everyone was trusting the democrats, or because the disenchanted republicans are being driven further to the Tea Party/Libertarian cause?
Your thoughts?
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Does Your Volt Have Bugs? Mine Does...
Overall my Chevy Volt has been great for the last five and a half months, but is isn't perfect by any means. This week has been a challenge, in fact the last three weeks have really been odd.
In previous posts, I talked about the issues with valet parking and auto charging when the alarm is set and the auto lock feature is on. If you valet and autolock the car, they can't even get to the charger after the key is hung in the key rack.
That is just one annoyance. We also discovered that if you send an address to turn by turn, cancel before it loads and try and send it to the "in dash Nav" it locks up the whole system. I figured out how to fix it, but I am not giving that secret away. Chevrolet says this bug will be fixed next time it is at the dealer for a software update. Why can't the Volt by like my iPhone and update while I am asleep?
Speaking of the iPhone, upgrading to iOS 7 changed how the Volt and the iPhone get along. The feature that allowed me to play music over bluetooth no longer works. Pluggin in with a USB cable which didn't work before, now works brilliantly but my phone won't work on handsfree when the iPod mode is active via USB. What didn't work works and what did work doesn't.
Another interesting issue that has popped up is related to the clock. For whatever reason it can't keep time. Each week it is almost a full minute off. Why doesn't a GPS equipped car use satellite time?
This leads right to the next question. How come a GPS equipped car can't tell if I am plugged in at home on an electric schedule or away and commercial chargers? I shouldn't have to tell the car I am at home so it should charge between 12 and 6 or I am at a parking garage and paying to charge so it should charge now should I? I paid for 4 hours at a blink charger only to find out I left the car in delay mode and didn't charge it at all. $4.00 down the drain. I don't know who was being more stupid, me or the car.
The single most annoying system in the Volt so far is the "anti collision" system. There is a button on the steering wheel to turn it on or off. I think it is a placebo. With the system off, when you exit the freeway, it sees that you aren't following the lines and starts yelling at you. Once on the offramp and in between the lines again it is fine. Even with the system off, it will turn off the cruise control automatically. While this doesn't sound like much, I have learned that I can get three to five more miles out of the battery in "L" instead of "D". The problem is when the cruise control turns off and you are in "L" you are already in the first level of regenerative breaking.
On the highway, the guy behind catches up awfully quick for no reason.
Cruising on the freeway about once every 15 miles the car will "see" a potential collision and turn off the cruise control. Most of the time I have no idea what it "sees". Tonight I was in the second lane, with no cars on either side or in front of me for at least a quarter mile, and it beeped and flashed and turned off the cruise control as if I was about to hit another car. All I can figure was fog on the camera lens as I got closer to the beach?
I can't imagine what the "big brothers" at Progressive are seeing if they get the data from a car like mine. They must think Volt Drivers are high risk idiots trying to hit another car every 15 miles or so. Thankfully I have USAA, and they don't try to raise my rates based on phantoms that the car thinks I am going to hit.
The single most annoying system in the Volt so far is the "anti collision" system. There is a button on the steering wheel to turn it on or off. I think it is a placebo. With the system off, when you exit the freeway, it sees that you aren't following the lines and starts yelling at you. Once on the offramp and in between the lines again it is fine. Even with the system off, it will turn off the cruise control automatically. While this doesn't sound like much, I have learned that I can get three to five more miles out of the battery in "L" instead of "D". The problem is when the cruise control turns off and you are in "L" you are already in the first level of regenerative breaking.
On the highway, the guy behind catches up awfully quick for no reason.
Cruising on the freeway about once every 15 miles the car will "see" a potential collision and turn off the cruise control. Most of the time I have no idea what it "sees". Tonight I was in the second lane, with no cars on either side or in front of me for at least a quarter mile, and it beeped and flashed and turned off the cruise control as if I was about to hit another car. All I can figure was fog on the camera lens as I got closer to the beach?
I can't imagine what the "big brothers" at Progressive are seeing if they get the data from a car like mine. They must think Volt Drivers are high risk idiots trying to hit another car every 15 miles or so. Thankfully I have USAA, and they don't try to raise my rates based on phantoms that the car thinks I am going to hit.
The last funny bug this week has to do with the lights. The car has a new habit of going into night mode when I go through tunnels and not going back to day mode for well over a minute when we get back into the sunshine. More than once I couldn't see a turn on the NAV screen because it was still dimmed into the night mode. Sadly I am a GPS cripple, which means I can't find my way home from the corner without my magenta line and the checkered flag on the screen. I turned the voice off because it interrupted my music.
Another funny bug, the tire pressure monitor will come on with a different tire each time I add air. It will show that they all have 31 psi for example but one will be yellow. Even when they warm up and all show 33 or 35 PSI it stays Yellow. When I pump up to 36 they all turn green. Within a week, usually in the morning, one will be yellow. Over the last four weeks, each tire has turned yellow at least once.
I wonder if the guys at GM are laughing their butts off, or think I don't care for my car and am trying to hit everything in site?
Another funny bug, the tire pressure monitor will come on with a different tire each time I add air. It will show that they all have 31 psi for example but one will be yellow. Even when they warm up and all show 33 or 35 PSI it stays Yellow. When I pump up to 36 they all turn green. Within a week, usually in the morning, one will be yellow. Over the last four weeks, each tire has turned yellow at least once.
I wonder if the guys at GM are laughing their butts off, or think I don't care for my car and am trying to hit everything in site?
So how is your Volt doing? Don't worry Chevrolet, we still want another one. Slate Grey if you have a spare sitting around.
Monday, October 14, 2013
Is Failure The Road To Success?
Several people throughout my life have said something like "Failure is the road to success". I even noticed a little ad in the Wall Street Journal this week that used that quote. So do we really need to lead a life of failure to succeed? Does that make any sense to you? How could you possibly want success if you knew that your life was going to be littered with failure.
Is this why so many people just accept where they are in life? Doesn't everyone want to know how to be successful? If not, why wouldn't they want to be successful? Don't you want to be more successful than you are now?
Since a big part of my work now is helping other people become more successful, I started thinking about failure and its role in life after reading an article in the recent issue of INC magazine. A few of you will know my success principle of "Be careful who you listen too". For those of you that don't know it, one of the principles I live by, one that I consider one of the keys to my success, is that I don't take advice from anyone who isn't doing better than I am at the thing they are advising me on.
Real Estate Agents are a great example. A big chunk of them don't own a home, and a larger percentage don't own investment property. So how can they give me advice on something I am pretty good at, and they aren't really doing? My opinion is simply they can't. I got my own license about two years ago to do better for myself and help anyone who is serious about buying or selling. Don't call me if you are a "looky lou".
The recent INC magazine article was focused on Jim Collins of Good to Great fame and his work at The United States Military Academy.
Most of you know the United States Military Academy as "Westpoint". Many who know about it consider Westpoint the college for the elite army officers. The list of high achieving alumni supports this view.
According to INC magazine, Jim Collins learned a little about leadership while working with the cadets. As the article points out, Jim Collins has spent his life researching organization success, not personal success. Westpoint should have realized, that Mr. Collins isn't an expert at Military Leadership either, and as he learned these are very different things.
Another question I had to ask about the articles perspective; Is there a difference between organizational success and individual success? Can you have highly effective organizations that we call successful without having highly effective or "successful" people running it? I believe that one is required to have the other. An organization can hold back great people, and a great organization can be destroyed by lesser people being at the top. What I have read in Mr. Collins books lead me to believe that he agrees with my premise even though he doesn't directly say it.
My thoughts are that at the core of all great companies is great people. Do you think you can build a great company with idiots? This should be common sense right?
Some companies are better at collecting a higher percentage of successful people to create a more successful company. Others do a great job creating successful people who in turn create successful businesses. This was really the legacy of Jack Welch during his reign at GE isn't it? He created a great management and leadership funnel, the people that made it through the funnel made great companies.
Tommy Caldwell, considered one of the worlds best rock climbers, is attempting to be the first person ever to climb the face of El Cap in Yosemite park un assisted. This means he is going to do it with no ropes, no nails in the rocks, no hexectric nuts or link cams, just a man climbing a rock. I am sure he gets to wear the shoes though.
So far he has "failed" four times, and according to INC, when Jim Collins asked him why he goes back after failing, Tommy Caldwell replied that he was getting better each time. Tommy Caldwell didn't fail, he tried and improved. Just as the Japanese use Kaizen in business, Tommy Caldwell uses it in rock climbing.
Right there was the secret to crossing a long section of the road to success. Failure is not the road to success. Failure is failure. Moving forward on the road is how you get you to success. There is no other way.
Some of this may appear to be semantics, some of this is in "The Mind", and the reality is still that failure is failure and progress is progress no matter how you define it. Success does not come from failure. Success comes from moving forward no matter how difficult.
This point of view was a frustration I have had with many business improvement and self help books. They would use the word failure when referencing attempts to move forward. I really didn't address this issue correctly in the book So Now What?
As a competitive marksman, there were two competitions at every event, a team competition and an individual competition. The best victories where when the team won, even though I wanted to win also. In 1989, both happened, and it is the best victory in my career. I won the overall event, and the team won the team event. When that happened our margin was so big, I could have been third on my team and we would have still won. Nobody carried the team and nobody held the team back, the entire team kept pushing that year. There was never a failure, only opportunities to improve.
Thomas Edison had it correct when he was asked how it felt to fail at creating the electric light bulb 10,000 times. He replied, "I didn't fail 10,000 times, the lightbulb was an invention with 10,000 steps." It was an invention worth the journey. The bigger the prize at the end, or the bigger the contribution, the more difficult the journey will be. There are no short cuts.
Those who don't really want success will see the steps as too difficult and therefore a failure. Failure becomes an excuse to quit rather than a step forward. When you say to yourself that you have failed, you give yourself permission to quit and seek a new road. You change your definition of success to fit your failures. Failure is failure only if you don't learn from it and let it choose your direction.
This may seem like a very subtle difference in language and it really is. How you view the steps will determine if you make it to your destination or not. When you look at high achievers, they are still real people just like you and me. The difference starts with how they view failure, and how big their goals are. When things don't work and people laugh and ridicule, high achievers keep moving. They don't quit.
So why do people accept failure as failure? Simply put it is comfortable. Since none of their peers have done it, they don't feel the need to do it, and not doing it keep them at a level they are comfortable with. This can happen to anyone at any level in life.
The times in my life I wanted to quit are few but they happened. I have lived through and proven both sides of this process of the mind as it relates to failure and success. The most memorable for me was in 1990. I was ready to quit Air Force Pilot training because of a letter stating that I did "not have the attitude conducive to fly a fighter". It didn't say I wasn't qualified or I had failed, but I read it that way and I accepted the letter as failure.
Ready to walk away and return to my "comfortable" life, a friend, classmate and Air Force Academy Graduate, Mike Leonas, convinced me it was simply an opportunity to improve. Thanks to Mike I ended up having a great time flying in the military for the next 14 years.
If you really want to get where you are going, get better with each attempt. Get stronger at the core skill so you can push a little harder each time until you get "there" and can come up with a new place to go. More importantly, as Mike Leonas showed me, surround yourself with friends who don't understand failure, and truly understand opportunities to improve.
The journey really is the thing. Why do you think Richard Branson keeps building companies? When he gets to one destination, he keeps moving to another one. When Steve Jobs was fired from Apple, he continued to move towards his destination. When he came back, he brought Apple with him. Life is about the opportunities to improve.
Think about Elon Musk starting a new technically advanced car company that only offers 100% electric cars. He already had a successful business and was a billionaire, why risk it all to get into the car business and build a car that no one else builds? Didn't anyone tell him about the Tucker Car Company? Clearly at that level, Constant Improvement works.
Failure is not the road to success, failure isn't even on the road to success. The road to success is paved with little cobblestones of success and then taking one step to place the next stone. Always pushing a little more each time than you did the time before and getting closer to the goal each time is the key. Failure is when you quit, nothing more. This is why a coach can be such a big help.
Making each step better than the last is the key to success. Failure is how some people will define a step that doesn't end at success. The problem, like Edison found, is that you don't know how many steps that will be.
As the proverb goes, You are closest to success, just before you quit.
Get better at what ever you do every day and you will be called a success before you know it.
Is this why so many people just accept where they are in life? Doesn't everyone want to know how to be successful? If not, why wouldn't they want to be successful? Don't you want to be more successful than you are now?
Since a big part of my work now is helping other people become more successful, I started thinking about failure and its role in life after reading an article in the recent issue of INC magazine. A few of you will know my success principle of "Be careful who you listen too". For those of you that don't know it, one of the principles I live by, one that I consider one of the keys to my success, is that I don't take advice from anyone who isn't doing better than I am at the thing they are advising me on.
Real Estate Agents are a great example. A big chunk of them don't own a home, and a larger percentage don't own investment property. So how can they give me advice on something I am pretty good at, and they aren't really doing? My opinion is simply they can't. I got my own license about two years ago to do better for myself and help anyone who is serious about buying or selling. Don't call me if you are a "looky lou".
The recent INC magazine article was focused on Jim Collins of Good to Great fame and his work at The United States Military Academy.
Most of you know the United States Military Academy as "Westpoint". Many who know about it consider Westpoint the college for the elite army officers. The list of high achieving alumni supports this view.
According to INC magazine, Jim Collins learned a little about leadership while working with the cadets. As the article points out, Jim Collins has spent his life researching organization success, not personal success. Westpoint should have realized, that Mr. Collins isn't an expert at Military Leadership either, and as he learned these are very different things.
Another question I had to ask about the articles perspective; Is there a difference between organizational success and individual success? Can you have highly effective organizations that we call successful without having highly effective or "successful" people running it? I believe that one is required to have the other. An organization can hold back great people, and a great organization can be destroyed by lesser people being at the top. What I have read in Mr. Collins books lead me to believe that he agrees with my premise even though he doesn't directly say it.
My thoughts are that at the core of all great companies is great people. Do you think you can build a great company with idiots? This should be common sense right?
Some companies are better at collecting a higher percentage of successful people to create a more successful company. Others do a great job creating successful people who in turn create successful businesses. This was really the legacy of Jack Welch during his reign at GE isn't it? He created a great management and leadership funnel, the people that made it through the funnel made great companies.
Tommy Caldwell, considered one of the worlds best rock climbers, is attempting to be the first person ever to climb the face of El Cap in Yosemite park un assisted. This means he is going to do it with no ropes, no nails in the rocks, no hexectric nuts or link cams, just a man climbing a rock. I am sure he gets to wear the shoes though.
So far he has "failed" four times, and according to INC, when Jim Collins asked him why he goes back after failing, Tommy Caldwell replied that he was getting better each time. Tommy Caldwell didn't fail, he tried and improved. Just as the Japanese use Kaizen in business, Tommy Caldwell uses it in rock climbing.
Right there was the secret to crossing a long section of the road to success. Failure is not the road to success. Failure is failure. Moving forward on the road is how you get you to success. There is no other way.
Some of this may appear to be semantics, some of this is in "The Mind", and the reality is still that failure is failure and progress is progress no matter how you define it. Success does not come from failure. Success comes from moving forward no matter how difficult.
This point of view was a frustration I have had with many business improvement and self help books. They would use the word failure when referencing attempts to move forward. I really didn't address this issue correctly in the book So Now What?
As a competitive marksman, there were two competitions at every event, a team competition and an individual competition. The best victories where when the team won, even though I wanted to win also. In 1989, both happened, and it is the best victory in my career. I won the overall event, and the team won the team event. When that happened our margin was so big, I could have been third on my team and we would have still won. Nobody carried the team and nobody held the team back, the entire team kept pushing that year. There was never a failure, only opportunities to improve.
Thomas Edison had it correct when he was asked how it felt to fail at creating the electric light bulb 10,000 times. He replied, "I didn't fail 10,000 times, the lightbulb was an invention with 10,000 steps." It was an invention worth the journey. The bigger the prize at the end, or the bigger the contribution, the more difficult the journey will be. There are no short cuts.
Those who don't really want success will see the steps as too difficult and therefore a failure. Failure becomes an excuse to quit rather than a step forward. When you say to yourself that you have failed, you give yourself permission to quit and seek a new road. You change your definition of success to fit your failures. Failure is failure only if you don't learn from it and let it choose your direction.
This may seem like a very subtle difference in language and it really is. How you view the steps will determine if you make it to your destination or not. When you look at high achievers, they are still real people just like you and me. The difference starts with how they view failure, and how big their goals are. When things don't work and people laugh and ridicule, high achievers keep moving. They don't quit.
So why do people accept failure as failure? Simply put it is comfortable. Since none of their peers have done it, they don't feel the need to do it, and not doing it keep them at a level they are comfortable with. This can happen to anyone at any level in life.
The times in my life I wanted to quit are few but they happened. I have lived through and proven both sides of this process of the mind as it relates to failure and success. The most memorable for me was in 1990. I was ready to quit Air Force Pilot training because of a letter stating that I did "not have the attitude conducive to fly a fighter". It didn't say I wasn't qualified or I had failed, but I read it that way and I accepted the letter as failure.
Ready to walk away and return to my "comfortable" life, a friend, classmate and Air Force Academy Graduate, Mike Leonas, convinced me it was simply an opportunity to improve. Thanks to Mike I ended up having a great time flying in the military for the next 14 years.
If you really want to get where you are going, get better with each attempt. Get stronger at the core skill so you can push a little harder each time until you get "there" and can come up with a new place to go. More importantly, as Mike Leonas showed me, surround yourself with friends who don't understand failure, and truly understand opportunities to improve.
The journey really is the thing. Why do you think Richard Branson keeps building companies? When he gets to one destination, he keeps moving to another one. When Steve Jobs was fired from Apple, he continued to move towards his destination. When he came back, he brought Apple with him. Life is about the opportunities to improve.
Think about Elon Musk starting a new technically advanced car company that only offers 100% electric cars. He already had a successful business and was a billionaire, why risk it all to get into the car business and build a car that no one else builds? Didn't anyone tell him about the Tucker Car Company? Clearly at that level, Constant Improvement works.
Failure is not the road to success, failure isn't even on the road to success. The road to success is paved with little cobblestones of success and then taking one step to place the next stone. Always pushing a little more each time than you did the time before and getting closer to the goal each time is the key. Failure is when you quit, nothing more. This is why a coach can be such a big help.
Making each step better than the last is the key to success. Failure is how some people will define a step that doesn't end at success. The problem, like Edison found, is that you don't know how many steps that will be.
As the proverb goes, You are closest to success, just before you quit.
Get better at what ever you do every day and you will be called a success before you know it.
IS Charging The Problem With Electric Cars?
One of the largest private companies that provided and managed chargers for electric cars went bankrupt. This follows a string of smaller bankruptcies in the electric charging business. So the question is simply; "Is charging the problem with electric cars?".
If the answer were simple, we would either stop buying electric cars realizing they are silly or we would all buy electric cars because they are a good deal. Clearly the answer isn't easy, at least not for the Average Joe car buyer out there. If you are rich, live in California and have $80,000 or so laying around, then the Tesla is a great looking viable alternative car.
If the Tesla is so great why doesn't everyone have one? Well in simple economics, like buying a house, $80,000 isn't just lying around everyones house. Also Tesla took a page from the Apple playbook and is controlling it's own charging network. My Chevy Volt can't charge at any of the Tesla Supercharger stations throughout California. Instead I add gas at the Chevron across the street and run my generator.
As far as other pure electrics such as the Nissan Leaf, they are utility limited by their range. If you can't find a changer or don't have the time, charging isn't practical. Networks like Blink set up chargers all over the country making it a bit easier to find a charger. The problem was the economics. Blink charged by the hour and rounded up. They also kept charging after your car was topped off just because you were still plugged in.
Economically, Blink made it less expensive for me to run my generator on Gasoline. As far as other electric cars, running around at an equivalent of 22 mpg makes no sense in a world of 40+ and now 50 MPG hybrids does it? When an electric car commands a premium of $3,000 to $10,000 over simlarly equipped gas and diesel cars, it really doesn't make economic sence.
The Car Charger Group that bought the assets of Blink has a long way to go to profitablity. For now I would say that charging is the problem for electric cars. When you make charging economically viable, then the range becomes less of a problem and the cars sell better.
The big question is, can they do it?
If the answer were simple, we would either stop buying electric cars realizing they are silly or we would all buy electric cars because they are a good deal. Clearly the answer isn't easy, at least not for the Average Joe car buyer out there. If you are rich, live in California and have $80,000 or so laying around, then the Tesla is a great looking viable alternative car.
If the Tesla is so great why doesn't everyone have one? Well in simple economics, like buying a house, $80,000 isn't just lying around everyones house. Also Tesla took a page from the Apple playbook and is controlling it's own charging network. My Chevy Volt can't charge at any of the Tesla Supercharger stations throughout California. Instead I add gas at the Chevron across the street and run my generator.
As far as other pure electrics such as the Nissan Leaf, they are utility limited by their range. If you can't find a changer or don't have the time, charging isn't practical. Networks like Blink set up chargers all over the country making it a bit easier to find a charger. The problem was the economics. Blink charged by the hour and rounded up. They also kept charging after your car was topped off just because you were still plugged in.
Economically, Blink made it less expensive for me to run my generator on Gasoline. As far as other electric cars, running around at an equivalent of 22 mpg makes no sense in a world of 40+ and now 50 MPG hybrids does it? When an electric car commands a premium of $3,000 to $10,000 over simlarly equipped gas and diesel cars, it really doesn't make economic sence.
The Car Charger Group that bought the assets of Blink has a long way to go to profitablity. For now I would say that charging is the problem for electric cars. When you make charging economically viable, then the range becomes less of a problem and the cars sell better.
The big question is, can they do it?
Monday, October 7, 2013
So After 5000 Miles Is The Chevy Volt Still Cool?
Today I cross the 5 month mark living with my Chevy Volt. It also crossed the 5000 Mile mark, so how is it doing?
My wife and I don't argue about it quite as much. She could have driven it today and didn't, but that was more of a logistics problem. I made the mistake of putting the big Bosch Wall Charger on the same wall where she parks her car. I effectively made our garage and drive way only one car wide.
If it wasn't so hard to move the wire to the other side, I would move the charger. Live and learn.
So how much gas have I used? 22 Gallons total, and I stopped paying for the crazy expensive Blink chargers too. The best part was changing my home electric plan and programming the car to self charge when power is really really cheap.
So what other bugs and tricks have I learned? To begin with I figured out that when I can't make it round trip on electricity alone to use the generator only at highway speeds. This has kept my gasoline mileage at 50.2 MPG according to the trip computer. This is way better than the 38 MPG on the sticker, and I am not hypermileing or putting along at 50 on the freeway either. This is 50 MPG at California Highway speeds.
The other two bugs are the "auto lock", which I like but when I valet the car they can't charge it because it locks and the keys are put away. So I guess this isn't a bug, just something to get used too. The other thing is the "auto charge time". Somehow the GPS should tell the car it is home.
When I valet the car and press "charge now", it only works until the valet moves the car and then it goes into delay charge mode again. I have to reprogram the car every time I go to the airport.
So far those are the only bugs, the Chevy Volt is still fun to drive, and I really like the money in my wallet that isn't going for gas. I know the state is going to find a way to get it someday, but for now. I'll take it.
My wife and I don't argue about it quite as much. She could have driven it today and didn't, but that was more of a logistics problem. I made the mistake of putting the big Bosch Wall Charger on the same wall where she parks her car. I effectively made our garage and drive way only one car wide.
If it wasn't so hard to move the wire to the other side, I would move the charger. Live and learn.
So how much gas have I used? 22 Gallons total, and I stopped paying for the crazy expensive Blink chargers too. The best part was changing my home electric plan and programming the car to self charge when power is really really cheap.
So what other bugs and tricks have I learned? To begin with I figured out that when I can't make it round trip on electricity alone to use the generator only at highway speeds. This has kept my gasoline mileage at 50.2 MPG according to the trip computer. This is way better than the 38 MPG on the sticker, and I am not hypermileing or putting along at 50 on the freeway either. This is 50 MPG at California Highway speeds.
The other two bugs are the "auto lock", which I like but when I valet the car they can't charge it because it locks and the keys are put away. So I guess this isn't a bug, just something to get used too. The other thing is the "auto charge time". Somehow the GPS should tell the car it is home.
When I valet the car and press "charge now", it only works until the valet moves the car and then it goes into delay charge mode again. I have to reprogram the car every time I go to the airport.
So far those are the only bugs, the Chevy Volt is still fun to drive, and I really like the money in my wallet that isn't going for gas. I know the state is going to find a way to get it someday, but for now. I'll take it.
Is The Government Shutdown Fooling Anyone?
The Government is "Shutdown" and yet everyone is getting paid? Wait a minute here, as a taxpayer if I am paying my taxes and the taxes are going to eventually pay the government employees, why aren't they at work?
I guess it makes sense that neither side is in a hurry to settle this, everyone is getting paid and a bunch of people are getting a paid vacation. If I were one that had to come to work I would be pretty steamed. So what is this all about? At the end of the day it is about raising taxes. My healthcare plan provided through my work doesn't meet the little window so I will have to pay more taxes. Call it a healthcare fee, it is taxes.
I won't hide the fact that I am against "Obamacare". As a military veteran, this is a socialist policy no matter what you call it. Stalin would be proud of us. At the same time people who are going to be "forced" to buy healthcare will quickly figure out the "tax" is cheaper and they won't pay either.
So is the "shutdown" fooling anyone? This almost appears to be an exercise to test the apathy of the voters, taxpayers and residents of the United States. The whole thing is just bazaar to me. I have written my congressman and my senators, and I hope you have too.
I don't care if you are for or against "Obamacare", you should write to end the stupidity of paying people to not work and saying they have "jobs". Instead at least furlough them and let them collect unemployment like regular people.
Of course you should read all about the healthcare bill and decide if you agree with it or not, and then write your letters. Is the debt ceiling important? Of course. When the president was a Senator, he voted against raising the debt ceiling and called those who want to raise it "irresponsible". Today he has flipped to the other view. I expect this though, he is a politician after all.
For me, the debt ceiling is plenty high, and we don't need the health care bill to make it higher. No business can survive this way, and so far in history, no government has made it either. Someday this house of cards will crash. The question is when. Not likely in the next three years, so President Obama, knows he is safe.
This is the land of freedom and opportunity. Do you want to keep paying for the rest of your life, and do you want your grandkids to keep paying?
The government shutdown is nothing more than political grandstanding on both sides. Yes we need to address the debt ceiling, but paying people not to work isn't fixing anything.
So do you believe the hype?
Saturday, October 5, 2013
What Is The Value Of An Idea? How Do You Sell It?
Just about every conference I go to where there are serial entrepreneurs and business owner the question about the "Value of an Idea" pops up in one form or another. It usually isn't that direct.
Normally it starts out with someone approaching me and telling me their great idea. They will spend several minutes elaborating on how this idea can be monetized and how they are going to get rich. At some point the conversation turns and they say something like this, "So what do you think? Do you want to take this and run with it?"
To begin with my answer is always a resounding "No". The funny ones are the people who come back year after year. Sometimes they are worried I will "steal" their idea. One guy wanted me to sign an NDA before telling me anything. Obviously I have no idea what his great idea was.
When this happened last week it occurred to me that all these people are really asking is "What is the value of my idea?" They are also indirectly asking if it is good enough for me.
I have a couple of simple rules that I live by, mostly because I figured out doing otherwise meant I ended up working for free for someone else. The first rule of course is "follow the money". Anytime I see something crazy on the news or in politics, it is easy to follow the money to find the real issue. Most people won't do the homework though.
The second rule is that I don't take financial or business advice from anyone making less than I do. In fact, I use 5x as a rule. All of my coaches make at least five times the money I make. Yes the coach has a coach. In one area the coach makes less than I do overall, but makes several times what I make in that specific area, which passes the litmus test.
So how does this relate to the value of an idea? Basically if your track record is that of Sam Ginn, then I'll listen, and maybe want to get involved. The first time I met Mr. Ginn, I wasn't following that rule and it cost me. Instead I listened to me. The same was true when I met Sandy Lerner. Two strikes is all I needed.
For everyone else, until you have proven that YOU can add value to an idea, it is just that, an idea. Nothing more than electrons in your brain moving around in a way that only you can truly understand it. Even if you have a working product, it may not have any more value yet.
The value of an idea has two main variables. First is the number of people it solves a problem for. The bigger that number, the bigger the potential value. Second is a factor on which you are able to execute. If your ability to execute on your idea is zero, and you know how to deliver clean water to everyone, guess what? The value of your idea is zero.
Last year a friend of mine presented a nice little office product. It was something he wanted and felt the world needed. I looked at it for several days, talked about it with other potential users and asked if they would buy it. The answer was no across the board. The problem it solved wasn't a pain point with any of us, so the idea, while nice, needed to compete on price alone with existing products. How fun is that?
Occasionally someone gets lucky and sees the value of an idea and buys it or rents it from the person who had the idea. Bill Gates saw the value of PC-DOS and bought it, making himself among the richest in the world. Ever hear of Seattle Computer Products? Didn't think so, they created QDOS and later PC-DOS which is what Bill Gates bought to create MS-DOS.
To Seattle Computer Products, PC-DOS was a necessity for them. They didn't see the real value. What they did though was have a working product that someone could buy, and Bill Gates did. Even PC-DOS was more than an idea when Microsoft took it over.
The genius of Microsoft was asking IBM for a very small cut of the PC sales at IBM in exchange for MS-DOS. I am amazed at how many times people ask me to take over their idea and give them 50%. 50% of an idea that has no value is still $0. The value isn't the idea, it is the execution. The idea is simply the starting point.
That is why Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Sam Ginn and Sandy Lerner can all give me advice anytime. They know how to execute. The value is 99.995% in the execution.
So what is the value of an idea? Nothing. Absolutely nothing until you build it to prove it works to solve a problem or convince someone else of its ability to solve a problem. Even then the value is still very close to .005% until you execute.
While it is true you can't execute without an idea, the idea doesn't solve a problem for one person without exection. Solving problems is where the money is hiding.
Normally it starts out with someone approaching me and telling me their great idea. They will spend several minutes elaborating on how this idea can be monetized and how they are going to get rich. At some point the conversation turns and they say something like this, "So what do you think? Do you want to take this and run with it?"
To begin with my answer is always a resounding "No". The funny ones are the people who come back year after year. Sometimes they are worried I will "steal" their idea. One guy wanted me to sign an NDA before telling me anything. Obviously I have no idea what his great idea was.
When this happened last week it occurred to me that all these people are really asking is "What is the value of my idea?" They are also indirectly asking if it is good enough for me.
I have a couple of simple rules that I live by, mostly because I figured out doing otherwise meant I ended up working for free for someone else. The first rule of course is "follow the money". Anytime I see something crazy on the news or in politics, it is easy to follow the money to find the real issue. Most people won't do the homework though.
The second rule is that I don't take financial or business advice from anyone making less than I do. In fact, I use 5x as a rule. All of my coaches make at least five times the money I make. Yes the coach has a coach. In one area the coach makes less than I do overall, but makes several times what I make in that specific area, which passes the litmus test.
So how does this relate to the value of an idea? Basically if your track record is that of Sam Ginn, then I'll listen, and maybe want to get involved. The first time I met Mr. Ginn, I wasn't following that rule and it cost me. Instead I listened to me. The same was true when I met Sandy Lerner. Two strikes is all I needed.
For everyone else, until you have proven that YOU can add value to an idea, it is just that, an idea. Nothing more than electrons in your brain moving around in a way that only you can truly understand it. Even if you have a working product, it may not have any more value yet.
The value of an idea has two main variables. First is the number of people it solves a problem for. The bigger that number, the bigger the potential value. Second is a factor on which you are able to execute. If your ability to execute on your idea is zero, and you know how to deliver clean water to everyone, guess what? The value of your idea is zero.
Last year a friend of mine presented a nice little office product. It was something he wanted and felt the world needed. I looked at it for several days, talked about it with other potential users and asked if they would buy it. The answer was no across the board. The problem it solved wasn't a pain point with any of us, so the idea, while nice, needed to compete on price alone with existing products. How fun is that?
Occasionally someone gets lucky and sees the value of an idea and buys it or rents it from the person who had the idea. Bill Gates saw the value of PC-DOS and bought it, making himself among the richest in the world. Ever hear of Seattle Computer Products? Didn't think so, they created QDOS and later PC-DOS which is what Bill Gates bought to create MS-DOS.
To Seattle Computer Products, PC-DOS was a necessity for them. They didn't see the real value. What they did though was have a working product that someone could buy, and Bill Gates did. Even PC-DOS was more than an idea when Microsoft took it over.
The genius of Microsoft was asking IBM for a very small cut of the PC sales at IBM in exchange for MS-DOS. I am amazed at how many times people ask me to take over their idea and give them 50%. 50% of an idea that has no value is still $0. The value isn't the idea, it is the execution. The idea is simply the starting point.
That is why Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Sam Ginn and Sandy Lerner can all give me advice anytime. They know how to execute. The value is 99.995% in the execution.
So what is the value of an idea? Nothing. Absolutely nothing until you build it to prove it works to solve a problem or convince someone else of its ability to solve a problem. Even then the value is still very close to .005% until you execute.
While it is true you can't execute without an idea, the idea doesn't solve a problem for one person without exection. Solving problems is where the money is hiding.
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Would You Like To Know Something I Wish I Knew Then?
This has been an interesting year for some people, me included. The company that was my primary income declared bankruptcy, and became my secondary job in the same 12 month period. How you do you stay on the road to success when this happens?
Some of my friends have pinned their lives on various other events this year over which they have no control. Overall, my closest group of friends are all doing quite well when compared to last year and the year before. Sadly a few have become emotionally invested in events that they have no way to control or benefit from.
Why is that? The economic data says that people aren't doing better. They might be back at work but relative to inflation, average incomes are down, the cost of housing is on the rise and most people are struggling to make ends meet. So what is the difference between my friends who are doing better and everyone else? Do you want to know? I mean, do you REALLY want to know what success keys they have?
My question is for those of us that are a little farther along in life, what would you have liked to have really known 20 years ago? What knowledge would have changed your life? What would you do differently? I will tell you there are two main things that I would have done differently had I been given the right information. I have enough that I wish I knew to write a book. If I do, will you want to read it?
My next question for the younger people. Do you want to know? I am not sure that I would have at the time. My niece is more worried about her friends. My nephew though, his is paying attention.
In my 20's, I was on a mission to do something, the problem was that I didn't know what that something was. Even if I was given the right information, would I have done anything different? I almost think I was given the information, and ignored it because it didn't fit my world. What I needed was a real mentor, and I didn't have one. I had some great coaches though.
This week I took a class with Marki Costello. The Costello name comes directly from the "Abbot and Costello" comedy franchise. In the world of Hollywood, she is part of the royal circle. During the class I talked to a woman for two and a half minutes.
Marki said to "interview" this woman and only listen to what she was saying. All of my questions were supposed to be related to what she said. Sadly, I couldn't. The coach in me was fighting to get out, and yet while I did what I was supposed to do, she just said the same thing over and over. I listened and she never asked me for advice. She just told me how she was doing it. It was like looking in a time warped mirror. I could hear myself 20 years ago and wanted to reach over and tell her to shut up and listen. I wanted to set her straight, and show her why her life wasn't going where she wanted it too. I didn't.
This leads to the first lesson and the first thing I wish I had known. I don't mean known like I could tell my friends, but known like truly understood. There are some people who really know what they want early on in life. Jon Bon Jovi nailed it early on in life. Me? I was just goofing off with no direction. This woman had four jobs, and hasn't made real success at any of them. I have had four jobs and by most accounts I am now "successful" at all of them. She hasn't truly hit success in any of them and can't focus on any one of them. Sadly she is the only one in the way of her success.
It is funny that it worked out for me the way it did. As a kid I used to watch Family Ties with Michael J. Fox because I was the entrepreneur in the household of "safe" people. I used to read about interest rates, and how to make money in real estate all the way back to the 5th grade. Before that I was on TV as a kid on "Romper Room" and early reality TV on ABC's Junior All Star program.
Safe people can be like my in-laws and work for the government and get a check on the 1st and 15th, or like my parents and become doctors. My mom got a Ph.D. from Stanford and my Father was a Dentist who graduated from USC. It is just a different version of "safe" income. Their degrees were as reliable at getting jobs as the government was for my in-laws. So what did I do? I left home without finishing High School.
So would I listen? I don't know. Do you want to listen? I hope so.
The one thing I would change is the four job thing. While I am having a good time now, the individual struggles with each job delayed growth in others. Being in the top 10% of four jobs isn't nearly as rewarding as being in the top 1% of just one job.
My hindsight tells me that I focused on the wrong job first. John Travolta became an actor first, pilot second. I did it the other way around. I spent many more years to become a professional pilot before I could start in real estate as an investor and Realtor while working to build my knowledge of business and marketing. Finally I returned to acting part time a year ago. So who makes more money? John Travolta without a doubt. Who works less? I am guessing John Travolta.
I am not complaining about my life, rather I am pointing out that if I had known then what I know now, I would hope that I would approach things differently. I could do all of the same things and by simply changing the order, I could have been more successful at any one of them or all of them. If I knew then what I know now.
So my question to you is this. If I sat down with my high roller friends who are pilots, actors, real estate investors and business owners, living in million dollar homes, would you be interested in knowing what they wished they had known then? Would you change what you are doing now if they shared that knowledge?
That is what I want to know.
Some of my friends have pinned their lives on various other events this year over which they have no control. Overall, my closest group of friends are all doing quite well when compared to last year and the year before. Sadly a few have become emotionally invested in events that they have no way to control or benefit from.
Why is that? The economic data says that people aren't doing better. They might be back at work but relative to inflation, average incomes are down, the cost of housing is on the rise and most people are struggling to make ends meet. So what is the difference between my friends who are doing better and everyone else? Do you want to know? I mean, do you REALLY want to know what success keys they have?
My question is for those of us that are a little farther along in life, what would you have liked to have really known 20 years ago? What knowledge would have changed your life? What would you do differently? I will tell you there are two main things that I would have done differently had I been given the right information. I have enough that I wish I knew to write a book. If I do, will you want to read it?
My next question for the younger people. Do you want to know? I am not sure that I would have at the time. My niece is more worried about her friends. My nephew though, his is paying attention.
In my 20's, I was on a mission to do something, the problem was that I didn't know what that something was. Even if I was given the right information, would I have done anything different? I almost think I was given the information, and ignored it because it didn't fit my world. What I needed was a real mentor, and I didn't have one. I had some great coaches though.
This week I took a class with Marki Costello. The Costello name comes directly from the "Abbot and Costello" comedy franchise. In the world of Hollywood, she is part of the royal circle. During the class I talked to a woman for two and a half minutes.
Marki said to "interview" this woman and only listen to what she was saying. All of my questions were supposed to be related to what she said. Sadly, I couldn't. The coach in me was fighting to get out, and yet while I did what I was supposed to do, she just said the same thing over and over. I listened and she never asked me for advice. She just told me how she was doing it. It was like looking in a time warped mirror. I could hear myself 20 years ago and wanted to reach over and tell her to shut up and listen. I wanted to set her straight, and show her why her life wasn't going where she wanted it too. I didn't.
This leads to the first lesson and the first thing I wish I had known. I don't mean known like I could tell my friends, but known like truly understood. There are some people who really know what they want early on in life. Jon Bon Jovi nailed it early on in life. Me? I was just goofing off with no direction. This woman had four jobs, and hasn't made real success at any of them. I have had four jobs and by most accounts I am now "successful" at all of them. She hasn't truly hit success in any of them and can't focus on any one of them. Sadly she is the only one in the way of her success.
It is funny that it worked out for me the way it did. As a kid I used to watch Family Ties with Michael J. Fox because I was the entrepreneur in the household of "safe" people. I used to read about interest rates, and how to make money in real estate all the way back to the 5th grade. Before that I was on TV as a kid on "Romper Room" and early reality TV on ABC's Junior All Star program.
Safe people can be like my in-laws and work for the government and get a check on the 1st and 15th, or like my parents and become doctors. My mom got a Ph.D. from Stanford and my Father was a Dentist who graduated from USC. It is just a different version of "safe" income. Their degrees were as reliable at getting jobs as the government was for my in-laws. So what did I do? I left home without finishing High School.
So would I listen? I don't know. Do you want to listen? I hope so.
The one thing I would change is the four job thing. While I am having a good time now, the individual struggles with each job delayed growth in others. Being in the top 10% of four jobs isn't nearly as rewarding as being in the top 1% of just one job.
My hindsight tells me that I focused on the wrong job first. John Travolta became an actor first, pilot second. I did it the other way around. I spent many more years to become a professional pilot before I could start in real estate as an investor and Realtor while working to build my knowledge of business and marketing. Finally I returned to acting part time a year ago. So who makes more money? John Travolta without a doubt. Who works less? I am guessing John Travolta.
I am not complaining about my life, rather I am pointing out that if I had known then what I know now, I would hope that I would approach things differently. I could do all of the same things and by simply changing the order, I could have been more successful at any one of them or all of them. If I knew then what I know now.
So my question to you is this. If I sat down with my high roller friends who are pilots, actors, real estate investors and business owners, living in million dollar homes, would you be interested in knowing what they wished they had known then? Would you change what you are doing now if they shared that knowledge?
That is what I want to know.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Is iOS 7 A Trick To Force You To Upgrade Your iPhone?
Ever since I switched to the iPhone, I have been a raving lunatic fan, laughing at all who go with anything else. Once in my life I worked for Apple as a contract employee so maybe this is expected. I did try an Android phone, a Windows Phone, and even a Blackberry first.
The android phone didn't last a month. I couldn't use it and didn't have the time to learn it or figure it out. The Blackberry worked great, so when my wife got an iPhone 3G, I simply upgraded my Blackberry. At the time, no self respecting business owner would own an iPhone. They were still "toys".
Today I took a class from Marki Costello, and noticed that she still had a Blackberry. It made me realize how much more of my online life I was attending too because of my iPhone. She didn't care about Twitter, Facebook or social media in general. Like me she feels it is a necessary evil of her business. In fact a good part of my business exists simply because social media has become a necessary evil to almost all businesses.
Leaving the class I had 25 emails, 10 messages and a couple of voicemails. One of them was from an attorney asking for some technical assistance on a texting while driving case. After this call, all I can say is don't do it. It isn't worth it.
We walked over to Johnny Rockets for lunch and I started answering all of these messages. Half of me was thinking how cool it was that I could do this and not be in the office, while the other half realized only two emails, one message and one of the two voicemails really needed my attention. The rest would have never known if I looked at them or not.
Trying to respond to the only email that mattered just about gave me an aneurism. I am sure that my thumbs were hitting ten or more letters and nothing would appear on the screen. Then everything would appear all jumbled up. This didn't happen with iOS 6.x
When I tried to change apps from the main screen, the swipe motion opened an app just as often as it actually swiped the screen. More annoying.
Then I attempted to get my voicemails, and the phone couldn't do it. Five bars, er dots, and I can't get Voicemail? 45 seconds later, the screen changed so I could hit the play icon. 63 seconds later noise be can to emanate from the speaker. I now believe that iOS 7 is a trick to get me to spend $500 each on two phones.
In the past every upgrade to an OS from Apple gave you more and went faster. iOS 7 is the first time I have regretted making a software upgrade. It worked fine on my iPad2, and I needed to upgrade that for a software package I use regularly for work. Thinking it would be easier to just have everything be the same I upgraded my iPhone. Bad Dog.
Thankfully, my brilliant wife stayed on iOS 6 reminding me "It works, why change?" The problem is her phone is now out of apple care and the home button doesn't always work when you leave the Apple Store. Of course it works fine in there. So it looks like two new phones need to get worked into the budget quick. Ouch
I was excited to go buy my iPhone 4 and put my Blackberry to rest in a box in the garage. Getting the iPhone 5, not so. I feel like I was forced to choose between an upgrade of my phone, or changing to another phone that will take up all my time to learn how to use it again.
The new windows phone looks great, but it doesn't work right out of the box, get all of my contacts, email accounts and set it self up just by plugging into my MacBook Air and connecting with iTunes does it? Besides with two Mac Mini's, three iPads, two iPhones, an iPod touch and a Request Server with iTunes in the house, a PC phone just isn't going to cut it.
Never mind my Insteon Lighting Control is run by a little magic box with software running on the iPads and my iPhones.
Apple has broken the code. Like any great drug dealer. The first iPhone was "free", and then for years they made it better, faster and cheaper. The iPhone 4 was so far ahead of the iPhone 3 that the day after I came home with my iPhone 4 my wife ran out and got on the list. I got an early release thanks to a good friend at AT&T. Now that I am hooked, they know it and are selling me More More and More. And yes I am still buying so don't be surprised to find me with a 5s which also means new chargers, new accessories, new cables, new docs. This bill isn't going to be pretty.
They couldn't just keep one silly little connector now could they. I bet they are going to try and get me to by a iPad mini next, after all, with the iPhone 5, I'll already have all the accessories.
It's a trick (that worked) and that is my verdict. What's yours?
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