DAY 92

Update: Monday, 13-Jun-2005 1:05 PM

13. Is my life easier? Am I doing what I need to do?

As I look around my desk, my work areas and what I do on a daily basis, my thoughts were to the people who had to endure their daily life in some of the places that I have visited.

I have said to people who I have met in such places that you life is actually EASIER than my life.

On my last trip I met one person on a train who I stuck a short conversation with after asking about directions. During the conversation I could smell alcohol, AT 10:30 AM in the morning.

He said that he would like to supply computers to our team. I said that's not a good idea because I knew he was late to work and I smell alcohol.

To my comment he replied that BECAUSE life is difficult, he takes a drink.

I said I smell more than one drink. And I followed up by saying, I think MY life is MUCH harder than your life.

What I meant by that was in my household my wife and I run the entire "show" --we have to manage the entire house, our kids and daily life -with two careers.

Not an easy task. Apart from about 8 hours of cleaning help on a weekly basis we do all the rest.

On the other hand in many of the third world countries that I have visited, there are extended families to help with everything.

In our case, we don't. We have to do everything.

So, I commented to the Gentlemen that "Your life is hard because you drink liquor."

To that he replied back "My life is hard, so I drink liquor."

Once again, I corrected him and said "Your life is hard because you drink liquor."

To which he smiled as he knew I was not backing down. Anyway, my station came up and I got off the train.

I kept thinking about this guy several times during my trip. And the question I kept asking is that "ARE there other types of DEFITEST BEHAVIORS that, for example, I participate in daily, like an alcoholic?"

Are there for example behaviors like procrastination and laziness that I am participating in?

Once again, the answer is NO.

So, here is another item that I have to watch for but thankfully over many years of hard work, I can say that I am not a participant in most defeatist behaviors.

14. Am I planning and executing in a correct manner?

This question is not an easy one to answer because not all the time can you say this is the correct path or decision.

What I have to do is trust my instincts and go with what I felt was the best decision for that period of time in my life.

However, there is a behavior that you should not nor do I do: that is to punish oneself after a poor decision has been made.

What I do is to learn from every decision and go forward.

Don't get into the habit of following up with a mistake by punishing or blaming yourself for what happened or for a lost opportunity.

Just make sure NOT to repeat the same problem, issue or event again.

Then go forward. Learn. Never repeat it.

15. Am I paying attention? Am I handling distractions?

One key observation I have made about people and success is that successful people are very focused about what they are doing.

Often I have spoken to people and in the middle of the conversation they pull out a cell phone and then participate in another conversation and then come back to me and say "Where were we?"

Then I have to "reset" the entire conversation and start my point again.

However, with very focused and successful entrepreneurs I have noticed that they do simple behaviors that I find refreshing. For example, just the eye contact and focusing on what is being said as oppose to wondering with their eyes and dreaming away.

Or with the cell phone --it's simply turned off.

These small steps go a long way to paying attention, listening and focusing on a conversation.

It hard to believe this but I have found out that in many countries that I have visited people simply don't pay attention to what is being said.

I can say that listening is perhaps one of the most important characteristics of an Entrepreneur regardless of where you are.

16. Do I analyze my mistakes and take concrete steps to make sure that I don't repeat them?

The question above I have asked several times and I ask it once again just to make sure that I don't make the mistakes that often keep people stuck in a failure vortex. I would define a 'failure vortex' as a vicious circle that one keeps walking along while trying to succeed in life. Doing so will just keep one going in the same steps as a parent OR decades without making concrete steps in elevating oneself, as I have been working at this site.

When I got started with this project I had no plan setup, I had no idea about what I was going to do and all I did have setup was an idea.

And that I what was important to get started --just and idea and all other steps would be thought of and analyzed while I was making progress.

That I have done.

However, the question is that are there other aspects of my life that I cam doing without a concrete plan, where I have written down what I plan to do and then analyze the mistakes as I go along?

I ask the question as I have above because it is important to write down just about everything that you do, so that you can go back and see what you had in mind to do and what you end up doing.

This is very important as at that stage you can see how you go about doing things and how you handle mistakes.

The "TO DO LIST" that I have maintained plays a key role in doing just this.

Not only does the 'TO DO LIST' maintain what I need to do, but it also gives me a good insight into what I had intended on doing and did not do or make an error doing.

Then I can spend a bit of time analyzing what I have done and move forward from there.

So, I have to conclude that having a list of things that you do and being able to go back and look at what you have done really helps beat the common mistakes and betters overall decision making.

That is very important as in many cases you will not get a second chance or third to get something done right.

Having said that I too need to move over to my "day job" of setting up tasks and test aspects of www.maxsimo.com which is up and going very nicely.

I'll go now, with a side note. For the past 4 days I have had PC problems and basically have a band new system that I setup over the weekend.

I'll take a break from the discussion in the next "day" and talk about what happened and what I did to resolve it when I continue. Sam out.

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