Stuck in Oz

During the children’s story The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy formed a team out of herself, the Scarecrow, the Tinman and the cowardly Lion. She convinced them to have a shared objective and target goal. Their objective was to get to the emerald city and their target goal was to speak to the Wizard in order to make their wishes come true. But what would have happened in the story if Dorothy never formed the team that achieved their goal. Imagine if the Scarecrow decided to stay put and hang out with the Lollipop Kids. Imagine if the Tinman decided to just start an apple throwing fight with the moving and talking forest. Imagine if the cowardly Lion decided to go see the house that fell out of the sky to smell the wicked witch of the east’s decomposing feet. If each member of the team decided to just go their own way then they would have never achieved their objective and target goal because each member had unique abilities that helped the group out during their journey. The consequences of these imaginary events happening is that none of the team would fulfill their dreams and poor Dorothy would wind up being stuck in Oz.

The Right People

When forming a team of managing members the way to choose the cream of the crop would be to have them face adversity. That way you can start weeding out the weak minded co-owners from the strong minded ones. It is extremely easy for individuals to criticize, make suggestions from a distance and not do anything to push the company along. Whenever those individuals start complaining one of the things that should be done is immediately agree with that individual and then insist that person come into the office everyday to implement those suggestions he so graciously shared with the team. When members are subjected to going “through the fire” the ones who remain wind up as “strong as steel” because they have been tempered by tribulation. Remember that continuing to press forward through what is perceived as unrelenting pressure will generate the right people to manage the affairs of an organization because those individuals who persevere from pressure will emerge with a diamond like constitution.

Working Well

Well hello and happy Friday to you all out there in the market place/business world. I’m just going to go ahead and fill you in on what’s been going on at work. Recently I have been cross-training in sales, and been getting evaluations along with others in the office, to see where my week points are and my strong points. The evaluations haven’t been that bad at all, it’s not a pass/fail kind of evaluation so it makes it a lot less stressful. Although don’t get me wrong I do have to study, or else I would not be doing that well. I have actually been studying quite a bit lately. It’s all really interesting and I love to learn all of the information. I never really thought that business, or the business world for that matter was so interesting. To be honest all of the things I have learned, compared to what I already knew, is what really intrigues me. There are so many technicalities, and all of the specifics can actually be a little overwhelming, but all in all it’s really interesting to learn something new and fresh everyday, or hear a lot of different people’s perceptions, on so many different levels, of so many different situations. I love my job, it’s the best job I’ve ever had, and I can’t wait to see what I am fully capable of accomplishing in the future. Well I’ will be sure to fill you in on some other things later, but until the next time, have a safe and happy weekend.

Sacrifice

Sometimes during an entrepreneurs journey there are setbacks that seem as if it is the end of the world. To be a successful entrepreneur you have to be strong minded enough to work through those setbacks and continue to stay focused on your objective. Remember during the journey you can not expect everyone to like you, that is impossible. Whenever you hear about the success stories of famous entrepreneurs you only hear the positive side of their stories, you never hear the trials, tribulations and setbacks that they have had to endure in order to achieve the success they currently enjoy. Entrepreneurs achieve their successes by never quitting no matter what happens around them and have a “business as usual attitude” throughout their journey. Once an entrepreneur learns how to create money that lesson stays with him for the rest of his/her life. In other words an entrepreneur can create a fortune for him/herself, lose it and then create another fortune for him/herself because of that valuable lesson that he/she has previously learned. During those hard times an entrepreneur has to sacrifice some of the things that he was used to enjoying however, that does not affect his/her positive outlook on life.

Mistakes

As an entrepreneur, do not be afraid of making mistakes during your journey because that is the way entrepreneurs learn. Employees are the ones who are paid to not make mistakes and fit comfortably in the corporate environment they have been hired into. Entrepreneurs go out in the marketplace, become creative and make mistakes along the way, while learning from each mistake that was made. I make mistakes all of the time in the marketplace and continue to do so but that does not stop me from continuing to try. When people attack you out in the marketplace it’s a sign of their insecurities that they need to shore up and take care of not yours. It’s just another lesson that Life University has allowed you to experience and learn from.

Delusions

It is very sad to see grown individuals have temper tantrums when they can’t have their way. Whenever that happens you have to steer clear/avoid those individuals because they have what I call the chaos aura surrounding them. The chaos aura is similar to a black hole in regards to people and objects keeping their distance from them because they are fearful of getting too close to the aura, being sucked in and never coming out. The best course of action to be taken with these types of people would be to avoid them and not respond to their infantile emotional instabilities. Let the chaos aura individuals continue to stay within their delusions of grandeur and live your life in peace and tranquility.

Satisfying People

The hardest thing to do is satisfy people and it will consume all of an individuals time if he/she were to attempt to do this. Satisfying people is a lesson in futility because the human heart is never satisfied and will always crave something else when the current need is fulfilled. Let us take for example a recent development that happened to a person that is known to me, the person was briefed that his/her speaking voice was too monotone so the individual attempted to put a little more life into his/her voice. Consequently, someone else complained that she felt he/her was too condescending sounding which was not his/her intent whatsoever and she did not even know why he/her was talking that way because of the previous complaint. So because that person attempted to satisfy some people other people wound up being offended who were totally ignorant of the previous criticism. The moral of this story is that you cannot change to satisfy people you just have to go ahead with whatever gifts God has given to you and pray for the best.

Communication

Communication is extremely important in the running of a business and co-owners constantly have to keep one other abreast of each others schedules and what was accomplished during their individual meetings. If this is not done it places a business partner in the uncomfortable position of saying “I don’t know” in answer to the co-owners whereabouts. A business owner’s life is hectic and ever changing along with the corporate environment so miscommunication must be held to a minimum in order for the business to run smoothly. A co-owner not being informed as to what took place in previous client meetings when he/she is expected to head the next meeting can lead to the disruption of a cohesive business relationship which is important to avoid if at all possible. Another consequence of not being informed of decisions made in previous meetings can lead to that partner making decisions that contradicted the previous partners’ decisions. Keeping team owners on the same page is an extremely sound business practice that must be consistently adhered to.

Well hello all!!!

Well hello all!!! So nice to be back, by the way please excuse my absence in blog entries. I’ve been caught up in a couple of things for work. Speaking of work, a lot has been going on actually. We are currently preparing for our first evaluation which will take place on Friday, of this week. Hopefully that goes over well; also I am cross-training in a couple of things which I’m not really willing to discuss at this point in time. I’ll fill you in on those situations later when I find out more. For those of you who don’t know, and for those of you who already know from tuning into our broadcast, myself and Fred Szeto (my father), have been doing the radio show by ourselves lately. It’s been going very well considering it has been just the two of us, and we enjoy it very much. Our ratings have been showing good results, and our listening audience have been enjoying our discussions. I was so glad when I was updated on how we were doing on the show, and to know that we were doing well makes me feel so relieved. It is difficult coping with the fact that people do actually listen, and thinking over and over again about whether people really do enjoy listening or not. It’s nerve racking and it’s so difficult to deal with. To think that there are thousands of people out there throughout the world that listen to your show, and criticize you on everything that takes place, is a handful and a mindful. You get nervous, anxious, and frustrated about the whole situation. But in due time you learn to get used to the fact that people are going to state their opinion, and let you know in pure honesty, including co-workers, technicians, etc. It’s inevitable and you can’t escape it, the most you can do is accept all of what people say, eat it up like candy, and run with it. Anyway if your not listening to our show between 5:00 and 6:00, your missing out on some great information and advice ,when it comes to business. So if you ever have time, tune in and see what you think. Until next time be safe, peace lol.

Business As Usual

A true sign that a company has been created successfully is when there is no true focal point to the company. In other words when any one of the team of owners is away it is business as usual for the company. Meetings continue as scheduled, bills are paid, networking continues and deals are still being negotiated. If the things that I have listed are not being done in an owner’s absence then what has happened is the owner has created a job with himself at the top of the hierarchy. In order for a company to be successful for decades the responsibilities need to be spread out to the entire team of owners. Not one owner should be considered indispensable because if anything should happen to him/her then it would grievously affect company operations. Another reason why one owner should not “know everything” is because things will tend to fall on the wayside due to him/her being overwhelmed and/or overloaded with tasks that needed to be completed.

Human Nature

There is a tendency for individuals to not take business seriously when there is an impression of stagnation. Human nature takes over and owners in the start up stage will deem personal gratification as a higher priority then the business that they are trying to push forward. Sure it’s nice to assuage your personal gratification every once in a while however, it cannot be done at the expense of a company’s growth. When the feelings of impatience and laziness come into play and you act out upon those feelings you are essentially playing Russian roulette with your money. The Social Security program is not going to help future baby boomers, generation X and Y during their retirement years so it is imperative for individuals to take business ownership seriously. Taking business ownership for granted is a very dangerous and foolish game that should never be played.

Entitled

I have observed people in the marketplace who feel they are entitled to things they have not earned. In business you will see people who will desperately hang on to someone’s coattail hoping to leach as much as they can from someone who has money. It is similar to the entourage that many professional athletes have when they are at the top of their game. The problem is when that athlete no longer has money the entourage disappears also. Please be mindful in business of the people who will latch on to you for money only and not because they are there to help you out in business.

Integrity

I have observed how many people in the marketplace don’t care about living up to their side of a business transaction. They are lackadaisical about keeping their word after they sign a binding agreement. Whenever you are conducting a business deal you have to make sure you understand all that is required of you on your end of the deal. Alas there are a lot more people out there than I thought would be who lack the integrity to uphold their side of an agreement and will change things to suit their needs (no matter how selfish it is on their part just to get their way). It is highly refreshing to see a business transaction that is followed to the letter from beginning to end without any deviance to the agreement by either side. Unfortunately these types of business deals are getting harder and harder to come by because of the selfishness prevalent in today’s marketplace.

Shocking News

Well hello all it is Monday, the official worst day of the week. It’s always the worst because the weekend goes by so fast, even when you have nothing to do, and then you have to get ready for Monday, the first business day of the week. So hopefully everyone’s weekend went smoothly and safely, and hopefully it was enjoyable. As for mine it was really aggravating, mellow, but shocking at the same time. On Friday I went to the movies with my parents and saw “El Cantante”, on Saturday I went to the Norfolk Zoo and visited all of the beautiful animals with my parents, and on Sunday I hung out with some of my closest friends. Ok well basically I would like to share the shocking part of my weekend with everyone, because I feel it is important for those of you out there who ever have car problems to always get your car checked and updated.
One of my close friends this weekend was driving around in his banged up SUV, running errands around the Poquoson area. Well when he was making a right turn one of the front tires popped, and mind you he most likely was driving a little fast, so when the tire popped his car went crazy, flipped about three times off the ground and ended up being wrapped around a telephone pole. When the car flipped he was not wearing his seat belt, so he got thrown into the back seat, and when the car hit the telephone pole, the front of his car got smashed in, and almost crushed him. It’s so crazy that these things actually can happen to someone you know, I was so shocked and upset when I had heard about my friends accident. But it turns out that he was fortunate enough to walk away from the accident with nothing other then some bruises and scratches on his face. I saw him this past weekend, and he showed me the pictures of his SUV on his phone, the car was totaled. It looked so horrible, it was all smashed and deformed, and I have never seen a car look like that before in my life. You know the craziest thing about the accident is, if my friend had been wearing his seat belt, he would not be here with us today. Also if someone would have been with him in the passenger seat of his vehicle, that person would have been crushed by the roof of the car and would have died on the spot.
I just feel like sharing with everyone that you should never take a loved one or life for that matter for granted. You never know when something horrible could happen to you, or to someone you love dearly. When you get the chance look around and realize your surroundings and what is going on around the world. If you haven’t told or done a certain something for a certain someone, do it. If you feel you want to take the chance to travel the world, then travel the world. If you want what you desire whether it comes to business or pleasure, anything at all then grasp it. Because you never know when you will see your last day on earth, or when you will have your last chance to show all of your loved ones how much you appreciate them. Just stop and think about it, and help yourself to realize that life is too short, and it’s never too late to make the best out of it.

Creativity

There are a lot of nervous people currently out there in the marketplace looking at how the public stock exchange is doing. What a lot of people are unaware of is that no matter what the market looks like there are entrepreneurs that are actively involved who will creatively make a deal out of nothing regardless of the outcome. There’s a saying that holds true for entrepreneurs and that is paraphrasing “What is one mans garbage is another mans fortune.” A prime example of what I’m talking about is Mr. Carlos Slim Helu of Mexico who is currently the richest man in the world. It was the early 1980s and Mexico was in the depths of a massive financial crisis. Mexico defaulted on foreign-debt payments, investors fled Mexico, and companies traded for centavos on the peso. Slim was able to scoop up assets on the cheap. All the while, he was schooling his heirs on his investments, occasionally even seeking their counsel to test their business savvy-such as the time he asked 12-year-old Patrick if he should acquire cigarette maker Cigatam (he did). “You make it fun,” Slim says. “It is one thing to listen to a father lecture. It is better to learn from experience.” Another example of Slim’s business acumen is when he took advantage of the dot-com crash in 2000 to scoop up phone assets that had gone belly-up, including AT&T Latin America, which provided him with a backbone in the telecommunications field for moving traffic throughout the region. This fits hand-in-glove with Mr. Helu’s overall plans of expansion for his telecommunications company into the rest of Latin America. Carlos is just one example of how creativity and the ability to see deals where others see failure can make millions out of less than a dollar.

Investment Ignorance

There are a lot of individuals in the world today who tend to be highly ignorant when it comes to investing. At the first hint of bad news they want to quit and pull their money out of an investment instead of waiting to see how everything comes out. The Stock Market crash of 1929 was caused by panic that was widespread throughout the United States when people chose to pull their money out of banks because of a sharp decline in stock prices. This public panic caused The U.S. Congress to pass the Glass-Steagall Act in 1933, which mandated a separation between commercial banks, which take deposits and extend loans, and investment banks, which underwrite, issue, and distribute stocks, bonds and other securities. If you are not fully cognizant of value investing than you should not be playing with the “big boys” of the corporate environment. There is no room for panic behavior when owning a business and gossip about companies is best left behind in High School. As a business owner you have the right to see everything about the business but the information to review remains in the corporate office for security reasons. Proprietary information has to be heavily guarded in corporate America due to the thievery prevalent in business. Investment ignorance is alive and well in the corporate business world, please do not let yourself be caught up in an emotional turmoil and wind up making hasty decisions that will affect your financial well being for the rest of your life.

Why Businesses Fail

According to one of my colleagues over at Dunn and Bradstreet, the single, most important reason for the failure of businesses in America is lack of sales. And, of course, this refers to resale’s as well as initial sales. So your company’s job is to create and keep a customer, and your job is exactly the same. Remember, no matter what your official title is, you are a salesperson for yourself and your company. And the best way to increase your value as a salesperson is to build your customer base. I have also shared advice with my clients to focus on their company's goals instead of their individual pride.

New week, Different situations

Good afternoon, wow its Monday already. The weekend just seems to creep up on you so slowly, but leave so quickly. Anyway getting straight to the point, I’m looking forward to seeing what this week will bring my way. Everyday is such a brand new day that I never really know what to expect, yet alone foretell what the week may be like. This week I’m hoping to maybe work out a couple of personal situations going on in my life. Maybe straighten some things out that should have been taken care of a long time ago. Also I’m currently working on developing my speaking skills when it comes to our radio show. I got the privilege of experiencing this last week, considering my boss and co-host was out of town, and he was also extremely busy last week. My father and I took the challenge given to us head on, and had the greatest time doing so. Oh by the way special thanks to our technician Ms. Worthy, she is so great and helps us out with not just our show, but so many other things. I can’t even begin to explain how great she is….THANK YOU SO MUCH MS.WORTHY YOU’RE A TRUE BLESSING. Now if you haven’t been tuning into our show, too bad because we have been discussing great topics, which would be so helpful for everyone out there in the business world. We try our best to keep our show alive and interesting with any kind of topic we can get our hands on, and also in doing so we have been getting great call-ins, with people who really seem to enjoy the recent structures of our dialogue.
Moving on to something personal that I need to get taken care of. Now I am a little bit hesitant to be sharing this bit of information, but I’m pretty sure there are other people out there that have the same issue. I have a fear of driving, the thing about it is, I love driving but it scares me in so many ways. I went to get my permit once and failed the test, and haven’t been back since to try again. I’m currently looking for a private seller so that I can purchase a used car, to be able to practice driving in when the time comes. Considering that I am 19 years of age, I will only have to hold my permit for 30 days until I am eligible took take the driving test. See I don’t really have a specific reason why I have a fear of driving, but from what others have told me I supposedly will get over this fear once I start physically doing so. I’ve been told many a times from family and friends how they were once scared also, but the only way to get past this, is to actually suck it up and do it myself. I plan on doing this, and to get over this fear. My only motivation would be that if I were to get this taken care of, it would give me a chance to get out of the office and gain experience on the outside, instead of staying safe on the inside. I want to be able to get out there by myself, or on the side of my boss, and meet so many more new people. By doing networking and going to meetings, etc. So I’m trying to work on this problem as best I can, we’ll see what happens, and I will keep you updated. Until next time have a blessed day.

Emotions

When conducting a potential business deal you should look and treat it dispassionately. Business deals should be handled the same way that you see people playing card games with stoic, poker faces. When deals are conducted with emotions running high the message that is being sent out is that the emotional party wants the deal to be completed no matter what! This gives the other party an edge to demand more from the emotional party and in effect does away with the win-win business scenario because the deal winds up being one sided. The dispassionate party receives the best part of the deal and the emotional party receives hardly anything. Never get excited in doing business because emotions are a liability in the corporate environment.

Paying the Bills!

In the beginning stages or start up phase of a business a good habit to get into is paying the monthly bills prior to using the money for anything else. Of course I would also advise owners to not spend their operational money frivolously but it just makes good business sense to assign the first priority on money coming in to paying those monthly bills. Now you might say that doing that is a no-brainer however, there are many owners out there who have not disciplined themselves to paying the bills first! By instilling that behavior owners will be able to see just how much money they have to work with for the month and it also makes it easier to stay within budgetary constraints. If owners choose not to pay the bills first than they are playing Russian roulette with their company and they face the greater possibility of watching the business fail because the profit/loss statements are consistently in the red. Who would have thought that the simple behavioral discipline of paying the bills first could give the company a greater chance of survival in the marketplace.

Friday once again!

Friday Friday Friday…what am I going to do with you? Well of course all of you already know that it’s Friday. Which is the best day of the weekend not of the week itself; see because the week and the weekend are two different times for me. The week of course is for work, and the weekend is for relaxation. Now for those of you who read our blogs on a constant basis I do apologize for the absence of my blogs. It’s been a busy couple of weeks and the office has been really hectic, along with my home life. Anyways getting back to it… see Friday is the best day of the weekend, but as for the week days, I’d say that Wednesday is the best day off the week. I guess it has a lot to do with the fact that Wednesday is the halfway mark or the midpoint in the week. Which would mean to me that Monday which is the beginning of the week is over with, and Friday is close to making its appearance. Even though I don’t really do much on the weekend because most of the time I’m really tired, it still leaves me room to sleep in as much as I possibly can. Although most of the time I never really get that chance, either because I get woken up by someone in my house, or I wake up automatically due to me being used to waking up early for work.
Ok so about this past week. It’s been very hectic, with every one of us in the office running around doing different things. As everyone already knows I am currently the news broadcaster on our show the Buckstopsherelive, and now I am currently cross-training with my boss Jonathan on consulting. This is a brand spanking new experience for me, a definite challenge I would say, and it requires a lot of hard work, energy, and most definitely patience. You have to learn how to be assertive in every aspect; you need to make your voice be known among the people that you are meeting with. You have to learn how to trust more in people, and more importantly trust more in yourself. You have to train yourself how to not be scared of big numbers “money wise”, and to help others not to be scared also. This is my second newest challenge and I am so excited about the experience I am about to endure. It’s a topic that I am not familiar with, but one that I soon will be quite involved in. Keep me in your prayers, as I will keep you in mine.