milliondare.com

Great quote from Seth Godin today that really hits home the reason why I think I enjoy doing what I do and the reason why I think people should be able to enjoy doing what they do for a living:

“Maybe you can’t make money doing what you love… But I bet you can figure out how to love what you do to make money…”

This is a great article everybody should read. It’s all about small improvements, every day, for long periods of time.

We can all be great.

Research now shows that the lack of natural talent is irrelevant to great success. The secret? Painful and demanding practice and hard work

By Geoffrey Colvin, senior editor-at-large
October 19 2006: 3:14 PM EDT

(Fortune Magazine) — What makes Tiger Woods great? What made Berkshire Hathaway (Charts) Chairman Warren Buffett the world’s premier investor? We think we know: Each was a natural who came into the world with a gift for doing exactly what he ended up doing. As Buffett told Fortune not long ago, he was “wired at birth to allocate capital.” It’s a one-in-a-million thing. You’ve got it - or you don’t.

Well, folks, it’s not so simple. For one thing, you do not possess a natural gift for a certain job, because targeted natural gifts don’t exist. (Sorry, Warren.) You are not a born CEO or investor or chess grandmaster. You will achieve greatness only through an enormous amount of hard work over many years. And not just any hard work, but work of a particular type that’s demanding and painful.

Buffett, for instance, is famed for his discipline and the hours he spends studying financial statements of potential investment targets. The good news is that your lack of a natural gift is irrelevant - talent has little or nothing to do with greatness. You can make yourself into any number of things, and you can even make yourself great.

Scientific experts are producing remarkably consistent findings across a wide array of fields. Understand that talent doesn’t mean intelligence, motivation or personality traits. It’s an innate ability to do some specific activity especially well. British-based researchers Michael J. Howe, Jane W. Davidson and John A. Sluboda conclude in an extensive study, “The evidence we have surveyed … does not support the [notion that] excelling is a consequence of possessing innate gifts.”

To see how the researchers could reach such a conclusion, consider the problem they were trying to solve. In virtually every field of endeavor, most people learn quickly at first, then more slowly and then stop developing completely. Yet a few do improve for years and even decades, and go on to greatness.
The irresistible question - the “fundamental challenge” for researchers in this field, says the most prominent of them, professor K. Anders Ericsson of Florida State University - is, Why? How are certain people able to go on improving? The answers begin with consistent observations about great performers in many fields.

Scientists worldwide have conducted scores of studies since the 1993 publication of a landmark paper by Ericsson and two colleagues, many focusing on sports, music and chess, in which performance is relatively easy to measure and plot over time. But plenty of additional studies have also examined other fields, including business.

No substitute for hard work

The first major conclusion is that nobody is great without work. It’s nice to believe that if you find the field where you’re naturally gifted, you’ll be great from day one, but it doesn’t happen. There’s no evidence of high-level performance without experience or practice.
Reinforcing that no-free-lunch finding is vast evidence that even the most accomplished people need around ten years of hard work before becoming world-class, a pattern so well established researchers call it the ten-year rule.

What about Bobby Fischer, who became a chess grandmaster at 16? Turns out the rule holds: He’d had nine years of intensive study. And as John Horn of the University of Southern California and Hiromi Masunaga of California State University observe, “The ten-year rule represents a very rough estimate, and most researchers regard it as a minimum, not an average.” In many fields (music, literature) elite performers need 20 or 30 years’ experience before hitting their zenith.
So greatness isn’t handed to anyone; it requires a lot of hard work. Yet that isn’t enough, since many people work hard for decades without approaching greatness or even getting significantly better. What’s missing?

Practice makes perfect

The best people in any field are those who devote the most hours to what the researchers call “deliberate practice.” It’s activity that’s explicitly intended to improve performance, that reaches for objectives just beyond one’s level of competence, provides feedback on results and involves high levels of repetition.

For example: Simply hitting a bucket of balls is not deliberate practice, which is why most golfers don’t get better. Hitting an eight-iron 300 times with a goal of leaving the ball within 20 feet of the pin 80 percent of the time, continually observing results and making appropriate adjustments, and doing that for hours every day - that’s deliberate practice.

Consistency is crucial. As Ericsson notes, “Elite performers in many diverse domains have been found to practice, on the average, roughly the same amount every day, including weekends.”
Evidence crosses a remarkable range of fields. In a study of 20-year-old violinists by Ericsson and colleagues, the best group (judged by conservatory teachers) averaged 10,000 hours of deliberate practice over their lives; the next-best averaged 7,500 hours; and the next, 5,000. It’s the same story in surgery, insurance sales, and virtually every sport. More deliberate practice equals better performance. Tons of it equals great performance.

The skeptics

Not all researchers are totally onboard with the myth-of-talent hypothesis, though their objections go to its edges rather than its center. For one thing, there are the intangibles. Two athletes might work equally hard, but what explains the ability of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady to perform at a higher level in the last two minutes of a game?

Researchers also note, for example, child prodigies who could speak, read or play music at an unusually early age. But on investigation those cases generally include highly involved parents. And many prodigies do not go on to greatness in their early field, while great performers include many who showed no special early aptitude.

Certainly some important traits are partly inherited, such as physical size and particular measures of intelligence, but those influence what a person doesn’t do more than what he does; a five-footer will never be an NFL lineman, and a seven-footer will never be an Olympic gymnast. Even those restrictions are less severe than you’d expect: Ericsson notes, “Some international chess masters have IQs in the 90s.” The more research that’s done, the more solid the deliberate-practice model becomes.

Real-world examples

All this scholarly research is simply evidence for what great performers have been showing us for years. To take a handful of examples: Winston Churchill, one of the 20th century’s greatest orators, practiced his speeches compulsively. Vladimir Horowitz supposedly said, “If I don’t practice for a day, I know it. If I don’t practice for two days, my wife knows it. If I don’t practice for three days, the world knows it.” He was certainly a demon practicer, but the same quote has been attributed to world-class musicians like Ignace Paderewski and Luciano Pavarotti.

Many great athletes are legendary for the brutal discipline of their practice routines. In basketball, Michael Jordan practiced intensely beyond the already punishing team practices. (Had Jordan possessed some mammoth natural gift specifically for basketball, it seems unlikely he’d have been cut from his high school team.)

In football, all-time-great receiver Jerry Rice - passed up by 15 teams because they considered him too slow - practiced so hard that other players would get sick trying to keep up.

Tiger Woods is a textbook example of what the research shows. Because his father introduced him to golf at an extremely early age - 18 months - and encouraged him to practice intensively, Woods had racked up at least 15 years of practice by the time he became the youngest-ever winner of the U.S. Amateur Championship, at age 18. Also in line with the findings, he has never stopped trying to improve, devoting many hours a day to conditioning and practice, even remaking his swing twice because that’s what it took to get even better.

The business side

The evidence, scientific as well as anecdotal, seems overwhelmingly in favor of deliberate practice as the source of great performance. Just one problem: How do you practice business? Many elements of business, in fact, are directly practicable. Presenting, negotiating, delivering evaluations, deciphering financial statements - you can practice them all.

Still, they aren’t the essence of great managerial performance. That requires making judgments and decisions with imperfect information in an uncertain environment, interacting with people, seeking information - can you practice those things too? You can, though not in the way you would practice a Chopin etude.

Instead, it’s all about how you do what you’re already doing - you create the practice in your work, which requires a few critical changes. The first is going at any task with a new goal: Instead of merely trying to get it done, you aim to get better at it.

Report writing involves finding information, analyzing it and presenting it - each an improvable skill. Chairing a board meeting requires understanding the company’s strategy in the deepest way, forming a coherent view of coming market changes and setting a tone for the discussion. Anything that anyone does at work, from the most basic task to the most exalted, is an improvable skill.
Adopting a new mindset

Armed with that mindset, people go at a job in a new way. Research shows they process information more deeply and retain it longer. They want more information on what they’re doing and seek other perspectives. They adopt a longer-term point of view. In the activity itself, the mindset persists. You aren’t just doing the job, you’re explicitly trying to get better at it in the larger sense.
Again, research shows that this difference in mental approach is vital. For example, when amateur singers take a singing lesson, they experience it as fun, a release of tension. But for professional singers, it’s the opposite: They increase their concentration and focus on improving their performance during the lesson. Same activity, different mindset.

Feedback is crucial, and getting it should be no problem in business. Yet most people don’t seek it; they just wait for it, half hoping it won’t come. Without it, as Goldman Sachs leadership-development chief Steve Kerr says, “it’s as if you’re bowling through a curtain that comes down to knee level. If you don’t know how successful you are, two things happen: One, you don’t get any better, and two, you stop caring.” In some companies, like General Electric, frequent feedback is part of the culture. If you aren’t lucky enough to get that, seek it out.

Be the ball

Through the whole process, one of your goals is to build what the researchers call “mental models of your business” - pictures of how the elements fit together and influence one another. The more you work on it, the larger your mental models will become and the better your performance will grow.
Andy Grove could keep a model of a whole world-changing technology industry in his head and adapt Intel (Charts) as needed. Bill Gates, Microsoft’s (Charts) founder, had the same knack: He could see at the dawn of the PC that his goal of a computer on every desk was realistic and would create an unimaginably large market. John D. Rockefeller, too, saw ahead when the world-changing new industry was oil. Napoleon was perhaps the greatest ever. He could not only hold all the elements of a vast battle in his mind but, more important, could also respond quickly when they shifted in unexpected ways.

That’s a lot to focus on for the benefits of deliberate practice - and worthless without one more requirement: Do it regularly, not sporadically.

Why?

For most people, work is hard enough without pushing even harder. Those extra steps are so difficult and painful they almost never get done. That’s the way it must be. If great performance were easy, it wouldn’t be rare. Which leads to possibly the deepest question about greatness. While experts understand an enormous amount about the behavior that produces great performance, they understand very little about where that behavior comes from.

The authors of one study conclude, “We still do not know which factors encourage individuals to engage in deliberate practice.” Or as University of Michigan business school professor Noel Tichy puts it after 30 years of working with managers, “Some people are much more motivated than others, and that’s the existential question I cannot answer - why.”

The critical reality is that we are not hostage to some naturally granted level of talent. We can make ourselves what we will. Strangely, that idea is not popular. People hate abandoning the notion that they would coast to fame and riches if they found their talent. But that view is tragically constraining, because when they hit life’s inevitable bumps in the road, they conclude that they just aren’t gifted and give up.

Maybe we can’t expect most people to achieve greatness. It’s just too demanding. But the striking, liberating news is that greatness isn’t reserved for a preordained few. It is available to you and to everyone.

From the WSJ today:

“If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China’s oppression in China and Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world,” Ms. Pelosi said before a crowd of thousands of cheering Tibetans, including monks and schoolchildren. “The situation in Tibet is a challenge to the conscience of the world,” she said.

I figured having a post up in my blog to object about how things are being done in China would add my grain of sand to a rapidly eroding beach.

From an Economist’s point of view:

“…It is well known that smokers tend to subsidize non-smokers because the former pay so much in taxes and die before they can collect their due in social security and Medicare benefits….”

Interesting and valid point.

Every wondered how many calories different beers have?

Well, here’s a chart that summarizes it so you can pick what to drink tonight. Happy Friday!

We’ve been interviewing a few people to fill out an opening in my company and I’ve been thinking of a few things I would change from the way the candidates interacted with me to give them a better chance of getting the job.

Here are a few tips that might come handy if you’re new to the whole interviewing process:

Do:
• Research where you’ll be working. You should know this one from Interviewing 101, but please, research thoroughly.

Don’t:
• If you research thoroughly you’re bound to have questions – legitimate questions. Don’t ask generic questions to inflate my ego. Questions like “what is the most challenging thing you’ve ever done at your company” are a tad annoying, generic, and give me a sense that you don’t have a deeply rooted interest in the job or company.

Do:
• Ask questions. Smart questions (see above). Remember this: He/She who asks the questions controls the conversation. It’s not the person speaking (like we typically think it is) but the one asking the questions.

Don’t:
• Be afraid of talking about yourself. If you are a bad cultural fit you’re probably better off somewhere else.

Do:
• Send a “Thank you” e-mail

Don’t:
• Wait 24 hours. Discussions about you might take place right after you interview, so you want to be top of mind for the people you interviewed with.

Do:
• Bring you’re A-game on your salesmanship. Be passionate, project yourself, project your energy and enthusiasm. Drink a few Red Bulls if you need a boost, but please, show me that you’re interested.

Don’t:
• Be passive. Don’t just “sit” there. Don’t just go through the motions – you need to show that you care.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it should allow you to focus on a key few differentiators that can tip the scale in your direction.

My company is not giving bonuses to employees this year.

Why not?

Well, primarily due to bad planning rather than poor performance - we didn’t hit our targets despite growing most metrics (top and bottom line).

Here are a few lessons learned from this experience:

1. No matter how good you are, you always depend on somebody else. Think about it - Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Warren Buffet, even Paris Hilton… They all depend on somebody else who is not of their ’status’ (education, affluence, etc). There is always an unknown variable in everything we do day to day and we simply can’t influence them all the time, no matter how good (or bad) we are.

2. Big company, small company, same impact? My company is relatively small so I believe I have a much larger impact on what we do. However, since I can’t directly contribute to sales, I’m stuck in point #1 above.

3. No mullah, no luva. How can you stay motivated when you know your salary is significantly lower due to the lack of bonuses? That’s a tough cookie to swallow for senior management.

What do you think about the issue?

With oil almost steady at triple digits, inflation looming ahead on the eve of more interest rate cut from the Fed, and a lot more sub-prime mortgages to go delinquent this year, 2008 should be full of opportunities for those of us going through a recession for the first time as part of the work force (anybody in their mid 20’s should relate)

Yes our parents have gone through this a couple of times but we haven’t experienced it first hand as active members of the working force. Different approaches will be needed for all kinds of businesses – some will strive, some will struggle but survive, and some will sink – and those who can adapt or be ahead of the curve will come out on top.

It will be an exciting year with the potential to teach us a lot of lessons that will undoubtedly be helpful at some point or another during our lifetimes.

This is the first time that I’d ever written any resolutions for any given year. Thought it would be a good idea not only to write them down (i.e., loose weight) but also set out a goal (i.e., XX amount of kg) so that I can keep track of things throughout the year.

Here is what’s top of mind (not in order of importance):

1. Blog more than in 2007
Metric: 57 posts in 2007, so I’m aiming for 100 in 2008.

2. Run more.
Metric: Will fill out this shortly, but probably to run >300 miles this year.

3. Go Skiing.
Metric: Haven’t been in a while so I’m aiming for at least 2 skiing trips this year.

4. Be more spontaneous.
Metric: Thinking I didn’t go to that many new restaurants in Boston last year so 2008 should be a good year. I’ll consider 6 new restaurants (1 every 2 months) a success.

5. Gym it up.
Metric: I typically go on a roll for a few weeks but then stop going to the gym. This year I’m shooting for not missing a workout for more than 2 weeks straight (either running or lifting)

6. Red Sox!
Metric: Went to 1 game last year, so aiming for at least 1 game this year.

7. Take the GMAT
Metric: Well, self explanatory.

8. Fix pending paperwork
Metric: More qualitative than quantitative in nature, but to be more proactive about administrative work.

9. Be a better person.
Metric: This is kind of a soft resolution, but I’ll include being a better boyfriend to my amazing girlfriend, a better family member, and last but not least to continue to try hard at excelling at my work.

10. Achieve all of the above!

What are your resolutions for this year?

Some funny Yogi Berra(isms). I couldn’t stop laughing for a good 15 seconds!

“This is like deja vu all over again.”
“If you don’t know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.”
“Ninety percent of the game is half mental.”
“You can’t think and hit at the same time.”
“I wish I had an answer to that because I’m tired of answering that question.”
“If you can’t imitate him, don’t copy him.”
“A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.”
“You can observe a lot by watching.”
“We’re lost but we’re making good time.”

A really funny post found somewhere on Craigslist:

Advice for woman seeking $500k+ earning man

What am I doing wrong?

Okay, I’m tired of beating around the bush. I’m a beautiful (spectacularly beautiful) 25 year old girl. I’m articulate and classy. I’m not from New York. I’m looking to get married to a guy who makes at least half a million a year. I know how that sounds, but keep in mind that a million a year is middle class in New York City, so I don’t think I’m overreaching at all.

Are there any guys who make 500K or more on this board? Any wives? Could you send me some tips? I dated a business man who makes average around 200 - 250. But that’s where I seem to hit a roadblock. 250,000 won’t get me to central park west. I know a woman in my yoga class who was married to an investment banker and lives in Tribeca, and she’s not as pretty as I am, nor is she a great genius. So what is she doing right? How do I get to her level?

Here are my questions specifically:

- Where do you single rich men hang out? Give me specifics- bars, restaurants, gyms
-What are you looking for in a mate? Be honest guys, you won’t hurt my feelings
-Is there an age range I should be targeting (I’m 25)?
- Why are some of the women living lavish lifestyles on the upper east side so plain? I’ve seen really ‘plain jane’ boring types who have nothing to offer married to incredibly wealthy guys. I’ve seen drop dead gorgeous girls in singles bars in the east village. What’s the story there?
- Jobs I should look out for? Everyone knows - lawyer, investment banker, doctor. How much do those guys really make? And where do they hang out? Where do the hedge fund guys hang out?
- How you decide marriage vs. just a girlfriend? I am looking for MARRIAGE ONLY
Please hold your insults - I’m putting myself out there in an honest way. Most beautiful women are superficial; at least I’m being up front about it. I wouldn’t be searching for these kind of guys if I wasn’t able to match them - in looks, culture, sophistication, and keeping a nice home and hearth.

The reply:

I read your posting with great interest and have thought meaningfully about your dilemma. I offer the following analysis of your predicament. Firstly, I’m not wasting your time, I qualify as a guy who fits your bill; that is I make more than $500K per year. That said here’s how I see it.

Your offer, from the prospective of a guy like me, is plain and simple a crappy business deal. Here’s why. Cutting through all the B.S., what you suggest is a simple trade: you bring your looks to the party and I bring my money. Fine, simple. But here’s the rub, your looks will fade and my money will likely continue into perpetuity…in fact, it is very likely that my income increases but it is an absolute certainty that you won’t be getting any more beautiful!

So, in economic terms you are a depreciating asset and I am an earning asset. Not only are you a depreciating asset, your depreciation accelerates! Let me explain, you’re 25 now and will likely stay pretty hot for the next 5 years, but less so each year. Then the fade begins in earnest. By 35 stick a fork in you!

So in Wall Street terms, we would call you a trading position, not a buy and hold…hence the rub…marriage. It doesn’t make good business sense to “buy you” (which is what you’re asking) so I’d rather lease. In case you think I’m being cruel, I would say the following. If my money were to go away, so would you, so when your beauty fades I need an out. It’s as simple as that. So a deal that makes sense is dating, not marriage.

Separately, I was taught early in my career about efficient markets. So, I wonder why a girl as “articulate, classy and spectacularly beautiful” as you has been unable to find your sugar daddy. I find it hard to believe that if you are as gorgeous as you say you are that the $500K hasn’t found you, if not only for a tryout.

By the way, you could always find a way to make your own money and then we wouldn’t need to have this difficult conversation.

With all that said, I must say you’re going about it the right way. Classic “pump and dump.” I hope this is helpful, and if you want to enter into some sort of lease, let me know.

You spot something is completely wrong in the product that your company creates.

You email two people who you think might be able to solve the problem. One of them tells you it’s not their responsibility – follow up with subject number two.

You follow up with subject number two. Several emails and 3 weeks later – no answer.

You email the person who will ultimately have to solve the problem (i.e., the guy in the trenches, not the general). The guy in the trenches tells you he needs to get the order from the general (a.k.a., subject number two) So, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re back to where we started.

Companies that have this kind of mentality embedded in their operational DNA are not leaders. They are followers.

What type of company do you work for?

I’ll let you decide:

Many a-word of wise advice. It’s no fun to be out until 4AM and be the host of a conference the next morning at 8AM. Trust me on that one.

• Lay out your speaking attire the night before going out to a fun PubCon bash. Put your PowerPoint on a USB stick and put it in the pants pocket. Make sure you have cab fare and directions prepared if you are staying away from the conference hotel.
• Pack some eye drops in your overnight bag for every conference. Use ‘em for the redness.
• Light colored or clear alcohols are better. They have fewer byproducts. Milder hangovers.
• Less than one drink an hour and skip the beer bongs, jello shots, and tequila twisters.
• Fill up on as much food as possible while drinking. Multivitamins and especially Vitamin C are said to help some people.
• Pain killers (aspirin tends to work better with hangovers).
• Eat as soon as you think it will stay down.
• Bland liquids - lots of water - caffeinate liberally - Gatorade if available.
• Take a long hot - then cold shower.
• Go last on your panel.
• Warm climates like Vegas, make partying much easier than cold climates like - oh say - cold and windy Chicago.
• Turn down the brightness on the presentation laptop then request the lights be lowered so people can see the screen better.
• Buy a pair of lightly tinted sunglasses that look like real glasses.
• Women - avoid high heels the day of your presentation. Men - clip on ties only.
• If you expect a hangover, then bribe your chairman to put you last in the day very early on in the speaking selection process.

Source: http://www.pubcon.com/blog/index.cgi?mode=viewone&blog=1187123220

Summer time in Boston: Hot and disgustingly humid. Everybody complains from time to time, but I think my whining is slightly more legit and grounded given that I spent about 18 years of my life south of the border in a place where 110 degree days are not uncommon and that seemed like a piece of cake compared to this.

Regardless of the weather, I like to drink hot coffee in the mornings, and I get my fix at Dunkin Donuts here , since it’s right by my work.

The thing that really bothers me though is that they give you these crappy plastic cups with a flat lid. Other DD’s you get the typical styrofoam with the tall cap.

Are they not getting the styrofoam because they are more expensive? And if that’s the case, is it really worth saving a few cents at the expense of ultimately giving your customers a better product?

Not sure that it is or that it is not - that’s not my call to make. What I do know is that we are on a new business era where given the vast amount of choices that consumers have retailers can’t really afford to lose individual customers by saving a few cents on a plastic cup.

At $1.80 for a cup of Joe Dunkin Donuts has lost today a potential $432 dollars in future sales from this (ex)loyal customer unless I can get a styrofoam cup with a tall cap.

If not, give it a try. It’s fun (well, as fun as writing your own biography can be). It’s probably more fun if you include personal things, though, which I haven’t.

Aaron is an analyst on the _____________ of ____________ with a focus on the grocery channel. He conducts research and analysis on _____, ______, _______ and _________. Aaron is a trainer for _______ events and has presented on several occasions to Fortune 500 consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers. In addition, he contributes insight and analysis to ______ quarterly publication, ____________. He previously worked as a Research Associate at _________ where his primary focus was calculating sales and stores trends for hundreds of retailers using ________ forecasting models.
Aaron is fluent in Spanish and graduated in Economics from Boston University.

An interesting tidbit I ran into today that puts into perspective the fact that Apple just sold their 3,000,000,000th song on iTunes today (you’re welcome, Apple) and how much money that really means for everybody but Apple themselves.

Typically, Apple collects 99 cents each time an iPod owner downloads a song, with the company paying 70 cents of that amount to the recording label. The recording label, in turn, then typically pays 9.1 cents to the music publisher.

So, to make $1 million if you were an artist selling your music on iTunes exclusively (and assuming you get the same deal A list musicians get), you would have to sell 10,989,011 songs.

Good thing I never quit my day job.

Has it ever happened to you that you’re just walking down the street, riding the bus, or just having some coffee, and all of the sudden you start thinking of how X or Y idea would make for a good posting on your blog?

It happens to me often to the point where I picture what I would write about and whether it would be a good read or not.

As you can probably see not a lot of those thoughts make it here, as I’m not very good at being a consistent writer, but thoughts are always there.

Does that happen to you to or am I just taking crazy pills?

Is luck an element for/of success?

I certainly think so.

At the same time, luck cannot be thought of as completely unpredictable, and there’s an element that we can control to help us tilt the scale in our favor.

If you’re sitting under a tree when there’s a thunderstorm and you’re hit by a lightning, is that luck? To some extent yes, but you increased your odds of getting hit by being at the wrong place at the right time.

Same goes for good luck, except that there’s a third element to the equation: Being ready.

In that case, I would say:

Luck = Right Time + Right Place * Being Ready

You might be there, but if you aren’t right for the job, you won’t be lucky.

Haven’t had a lot of energy to write lately as work is keeping me busy.

For those of you interested, I basically have to prepare 3 presentations (about 350 slides - insert big PowerPoint/Microsoft joke here) to speak in-front of a lot of manufacturers from a several Fortune 100 companies.

The audience varies from entry-level analysts to sales executives, brand managers, marketers, and from time to time senior-level executives. Might not sound like much, but when you’ve never done this before, it can be kind of stressful.

So for the next two weeks I’ll be a little disconnected from the blog as I try to wrap my head around work.

How do you prepare for presentations? Do you rely on a tight script or loosely improvise based on your ideas?

Do you ever get really high on an idea?  I constantly do.  I’ll get really excited for a few days.  Restless to the point where I can’t stop thinking about it.

But then a few days will go by and I’ll get a low on my idea. Things like “it’s not possible” or “it’s too much work” comes to mind.

I’ve found out that the best way to deal with this is to really curb my enthusiasm (no pun intended)  Don’t go too high, but don’t go too low: right in the middle is about right.

This actually ties back to some of my earlier posts on execution… It’s a lot better to do get  something done than nothing because you’re overwhelmed.

I know I’m not alone on this one and that particularly creative people tend to feel the same way.  I do wonder, though, how highly creative and successful people that have built a career over years of hard work manage these highs and lows.

Anyone out there can connect to what I’m trying to convey?  What are your experiences in dealing with this creative highs and lows?

I found Conan O’Brien’s commencement speech for the Harvard Class of 2000 today (He’s an alumni) It’s a bit long, but it’s worth reading it. Lots of good (and funny) advice.

Enjoy!

” I’d like to thank the Class Marshals for inviting me here today. The last time I was invited to Harvard it cost me $110,000, so you’ll forgive me if I’m a bit suspicious. I’d like to announce up front that I have one goal this afternoon: to be half as funny as tomorrow’s Commencement Speaker, Moral Philosopher and Economist, Amartya Sen. Must get more laughs than seminal wage/price theoretician.

Students of the Harvard Class of 2000, fifteen years ago I sat where you sit now and I thought exactly what you are now thinking: What’s going to happen to me? Will I find my place in the world? Am I really graduating a virgin? I still have 24 hours and my roommate’s Mom is hot. I swear she was checking me out. Being here today is very special for me. I miss this place. I especially miss Harvard Square - it’s so unique. No where else in the world will you find a man with a turban wearing a Red Sox jacket and working in a lesbian bookstore. Hey, I’m just glad my dad’s working.