“Linda Rottenberg: For Entrepreneurs, “Crazy” Is A Compliment”

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Via the 99% by behance

Instead of playing music in the background play this video, an inspiring speech, and a great reminder of why you chose to be an entrepreneur

A while back i was surfing the internet, and i came across these 7 lessons…reading them gave me idea’s, organized a lot of my thoughts anyway , i didn’t know who” Ralph Waldo Emerson ” was so I  wiki-ed him and as always  i found a great amount of information more than i needed

Here’s what Wiki said

“ Ralph Waldo Emerson’ (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American philosopher, lecturer, essayist, and poet, best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thought through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States “

and  most importantly the 7 lessons !

1. Thoughts Become Things

“A man is what he thinks about all day long.”

Anyone who has successfully changed a bad habit knows that right thinking is the foundation for change. This person knows that to the degree their thinking has changed is to the degree their desires have changed. Desires are birth from thoughts. What are you thinking about? Whatever it is, it is creating your life.

What you ponder you become! Thoughts of success will produce success, and thoughts of failure will perpetuate failure. To change your life you must change your thinking. Thoughts are the root of all change.

2. The Compensation Principle

“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.”

To help yourself you must help others. The quickest way to succeed is to genuinely help as many people as you can. Bill Gates has helped billions, which explains why he has billions.

How many people are you helping? You will only be compensated in this lifetime for helping others.

3. Action Trumps Theorizing

“An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.”
It’s easy to sit around and theorize, but the reward is in the action. It’s imperative that you’re in action! Don’t just discuss your theories, test them, and test them today.

Action always trumps inaction, get in motion, have some failures, and it time, success will be yours.

4. Build Something Better

“Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.”

To succeed you must build something better.

You must first use your difference to perceive something better, and then you must use your existing resources to build it. If you build well, you will be rewarded. Emerson said, “Doing well is the result of doing good. That’s what capitalism is all about.”

5. Keep Good Friends

“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.”
A large part of success is having good friends. A good friend is someone who you can be yourself with.

You don’t have to put on a show, and you don’t have to be smart for a good friend. In the words of Emerson, “you can afford to be stupid with them.” Recognize your good friends, mark them, they are a part of your success.

6. Raise the Bar

“Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.”
If you’ve ever done any serious weight training you know that your muscles won’t grow if you keep on doing the same thing. They will max out! As in the gym, so it is in life. If you don’t stretch yourself, if you don’t get out of your comfort zone and do what you haven’t done before, you will never grow. So commit to raise the bar today, stretch your horizons, and you will stretch your life.

7. Start Small

“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.”

It’s okay to start small. What’s small today will one day be enormous, if you stay consistent. Don’t be concerned with your current size; be concerned with the direction that you’re traveling in. If you’re going in the right direction, you will eventually get to your goal. You will eventually become, what you were destined to become. At last your greatness will be revealed.

copy paste from ( LINK )

Thank You for reading , are you going to do something about it?

Last week we have started our first of many (inshala ) projects. we had many promising idea’s to choose from . we started in day 1 by listing all possible ideas! and all possible projects. then we started studying them one by one and measure the possibilty to implement them. Similar to trial and error ! each time an idea fail ! immediately we go back to step 1 and look for the next idea in the list. Failure was not a word we mention, we were like (ok whats the next ?).

I remember the Friday before ramadan (forget the date) we were “Brain-typing” (a word described by Rawya for brainstorming via Blackberry) and we said  on that day  “that we had to cash-in before Eid“ our objective was clear actually it was in other terms  “SMART“ . Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and with a  Time frame.  we had a clear vision of what we wanted..
based on that we started fuguring out the “how”

Now we shelved  a couple of idea’s for further research… and we took Idea X : its a service based program,unique and its a new development to whats existing in the market today. we recognized the need for it… and we offered it.

now risks are there… and its one of our first projects to pass the “Research” phase… therefor we decided to go for a testing period. where we offer the service and test the response. evaluate the reactions , so when its time to launch… we will be well acquainted with the expectations, the does and the dont’s.

We set our requirement check-list. assigned tasks. and immediately RAN! the program  it took us 1 week to set everything up.

we used the most effective low-cost marketing method available. which is Broadcasting through BBM! and it worked well for the testing phase. we set a target # of client base. and worked on achieving that number. 1 day before lunching we reached that number.

personally am satisfied with the results. we acquired enough data to help us  develop to the next phase of the project.

we got positive feedback as well as required improvements in certain area’s
and we got what we asked for from the testing phase…

Key things to keep in mind when running a trial base project:

observing client reaction, moves , likes, dislikes, and evaluating your services is key!
Being flexible… with what your offering is a feature that is a MUST, in my point of view for
every entrepreneur and every business.

Now whether we achieved our Goal or not from this particular project ?  the answer is still yet to come

“Its not about knowing anymore, its about doing”

Well it always was…

Knowledge? What is it if its not moving?
Moving how? Put into action perhaps…Being developed or shared?!

We all know a lot of things, we study, we explore , we search,
we listen, watch, read, and learn…

We earn degrees, we frame them, save them , display them…
Some act on them, some don’t, some act on something totally different…
But they act, knowledge is nothing if its not accompanied by movement,
what’s the point of gathering all this knowledge and just storing it?

If you can’t act , simply share it.

When I see people all around Kuwait wasting time to having fun,
hanging out and being careless .it disappoints me.

It feels like most of us were born with golden spoon in our mouths,we didn’t experience the
TOUGH LIFE, or the TOUGH LOVE (not all of us) we have been raised with a style of living
that people around the world only dream of. Now, do I think we are lucky?
No , not at all , I think we are some what victims of this wealth.

I believe the story started when all our grand parents and great
grand parents used to dive for pearls, travel for months to bring goods, march for days to find water.
But when FRESH NEW MONEY came in, the government started to distribute this wealth to all citizens
(and I think it’s appropriate to do so , to enhance the economy in a way )
but what went wrong?! when our grand parents decided to give our parents generation a better life !

Less work more joy. I don’t blame them for doing so,
because given the amount of difficulties they faced in their life time, it’s only expected to do so.

Today, our generation, is growing while seeing all our parents having fancy offices, house and etc.
and building and image that “this is how life should be”it became the new reality!
That people should work in offices, keeping their images shinny and prestigious

These thoughts were really getting to me, until the day  I found Tariq , Rawya , and 23 proteges.
That… really changed the way I  look at our generation. Only then I realized that there is truly good and bad in everything.

I also connected it to a rule I always use it called  the “20/80 rule“ it means that 20% of people
are responsible for 80% of the events. Which in other words can tell you that we don’t need
to have a full generation of entrepreneurs or life-changers! We only need 20% …
and guess what! As the days pass that percent is actually increasing.

So it’s a matter of time that Kuwait will really get infected by the “Entre-Flu” entrepreneurship flu.

“My source of inspiration”

Ok first of all , I am a Prots “a Protégés member”and proud to be one.
For those who don’t know what Protégés Program is ,please visit www.theproteges.org

Why I am proud to be a Prots!?
For so many reasons! Let me list SOME!

1-      I found a new family:

I remember on day 1, my first question was (what time will this program end today?! assuming it’s a normal personal training course. But guess what?  I didn’t want Day 1 to end; unfortunately it has to end, in order for us to start again tomorrow!  It was that amazing.

I remember going there with average expectations, only to leave above what was expected its amazing that we all turned out to be close friends

2-      Inspiration:

To tell you the truth I was inspired! When all Mentors got 5-10 minutes to speak about their selves. Those people are normal people like us, but they were not normal in term of accepting life as it is. They do not “react “to life; they “act” so life can be to their favor.

3-      Re-Check:

Protégés Program , was the Bell that rang in my life , that kept me from going with flow , and to recheck my goals, values , principles , achievement and most importantly Myself. Am to ask important questions like, am I satisfied with where I am today? Should I change my life? Change my career? Change my goals? What’s the risk behind staying at a paying job? What are the benefits from getting your own firm and business?

And all that was in DAY 1.

if it were up to me ill list millions of reasons and eye openers but these three will serve for now, I am sure that protégés has impacted my life. Yes that’s the sentence am looking for “ Protégés Impacted my life positively ! “ actually now to me , “ Protégés “ is a way of  life , I made  the  decision to live like a Prots “

Now it’s up to you to just be ordinary or find your own source of inspiration and change.

Between my day job, My Family, and my personal hopes and aspiration, I made time once, and jumped into something, that something is now slowly growing into a business, slowly but growing.

A lot of people say its easy to start a business on your own or decide to start one, well its not easy… not because of what you have to do to legalize your business. Not because of all the running around in search for that perfect location that is convenient both strategically and financially, not because of the people you have to find, all that is the easy part of business, what’s difficult is what you have to be, or what you have to do everyday to stay positive, motivated, to work with integrity and honesty to be transparent with yourself and others” your clients”

Its not easy to maintain the same level of energy everyday, its not easy to stick to your program and schedules and bare the road of business, its not easy to work long hours for one small project, its not easy to stay focused and organized, you will always feel like you need a break, like time is slipping fast  and you don’t have the energy to finish what you started… But you know what it gets easier, once you complete that first project, once your first client comes back for more work, once you deliver another project on time whether it is perfect or not, once you start seeing little results emerge, every result pushes you to your next project with the same set of feelings every time, feelings of fear, and doubt shaky optimism and gratification a bundle of contradictory feelings. That’s your fuel, that’s your energy every time. When you acknowledge that, it gets easier.

What you need to have, to begin or maintain… is this:

o   Self-motivation you need to be able to motivate yourself at anytime
o   Knowledge you need to have the thirst for more knowledge read more, ask more, listen more
o   Integrity you need to be honest you need to be aware of your own capabilities and traits
o   Determination you need to be persistent and driven
o   And most importantly your imagination needs to be alive!

Click here to view the embedded video.

A couple of weeks after deciding to start my own business, I sat down and wrote a few goals that I thought I could (or more likely just wanted to) achieve within the first 6 months to a year. Then I saved the text file and tucked it away deep into an archives folder. That was seven months ago. Today I decided to spend the day completely alone in order to recharge myself and reflect. Part of that reflection was to open up the “my goals” file and see where I am today as to where I wanted to be 7 months ago.  Here’s whats in the file: