The Profit Prophet

We all talk about the value of having experience in our lives to be either more successful or happy. Throughout the ages, smart people have stated this fact in pithy quotes, and I have listed the top twenty here.   “When a man with money meets a man with experience, the man with the experience gets the money, and the man with the money gets the experience.” --William S. Knudsen “In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later.” --Harold Geneen “Learning is experience. Everything else is just information.” --Albert Einstein “Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.” --Oscar Wilde “Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment.” --Rita Mae Brown “You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.” --Albert Camus “Everyone in your life gives you something. The bad ones give you experience, the worst ones a lesson; the good ones give you memories, the best on...

During my years of working at startups and trying to get funding, I have developed a pretty accurate guide on what it takes to raise money. The main reason why some startups are not successful with certain funding entities or organizations is because there is not a "rightness of fit." What that means is unless you have some incredibly compelling reason for someone to invest with you, that they will look for an excuse not to. I can appreciate that one of your founders may be a friend of one of the potential funding organization’s partners, but unless you are talking directly to the guy or gal who makes the decision to fund or not, you are just wasting time with a gatekeeper, and gatekeepers do not go outside their comfort zone. In addition, too many companies shop their business plans around too much. Yes, maybe you will get lucky, but in between, you are going to get rejected by lots of VCs. The one major potential downside is that the word gets out that your company is ...

People are always complaining that they do not have enough time anymore.  Most of the cause of this is that there are more distractions and useless activities than ever before that suck time away from your productivity.  Here is a graphic designed by infographic author Ana Vital .  Follow these easy to follow "rules" and viola, more time.   TECHNOLOGY eMails – Limit your email replies to only 1 per minute eMails – If you cannot understand what the email asks of you, do not reply TV/Radio – Tune out the News. Nothing really happens most of the time Phone – Do NOT answer the phone unless it is a true emergency. (Emergencies are Rare) Computer – Use Computer Shortcuts and Macros CLOTHING Define your fashion uniform. Wear it Daily Wear Smart Fabrics (and natural ones if not) Be Prepared: Carry an all-occasion outfit with you Discard what you stop using (use a 3 year rule) WORK HACKS Visualize your end product Start BEFORE you feel ready. Avoid...

“To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring it was peace.” -Milan Mundera   “An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language.” ~ Martin Buber “No matter how little money and how few possessions you own, having a dog makes you rich.” -Louis Sabin “My goal in life is to be as good of a person my dog already thinks I am.”  - Unknown     “A dog wags its tail with its heart.” - Martin Buxbaum "We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." ~ Immanual Kant   "Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened." ~ Anatole France “He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart.”  - Unknown “My little dog, a heartbeat at my feet.” ~ Edith Wharton   I am not leaving ...

Ladies, every wonder why guys are so difficult? It is because of our Hardware, Firmware, and Software installation of Husband1.0. I hope you know understand why it is so difficult to do! Dear Tech Support, Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and I noticed a distinct slowdown in the overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0 . In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5 , and then installed undesirable programs such as NEWS 5.0 , MONEY 3.0 and SPORTS 4.1 . Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail. What can I do? Signed, Jane Frustrated Luddite _______________________________ Reply Dear Madam, First, keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Ent...

Incl uded is a short (3 min) film narrated by Alan Watts title d "What if Mon ey Were N o Object."   It talks about how to live a l ife worth living. As the Dali Lama says.. “Man sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future, that he does not enjoy the present moment. As a result, he does not live in the present or the future, he lives as if he is never going to die, and then he dies having never truly lived.”

This is a short and sweet story about an account and his tattoo. I personally do not like tats, but Larry, Larry is an exceptional case. His rationale for the tattoo is impeccable and I hope it make you understand why he should have forgone the tat. As you know, accountants do it by the numbers! Well Larry is the guy who gets home late one night and Linda, his wife, says "Where the hell have you been?" Larry replies "I was out getting a tattoo!" "A tattoo"? she frowned. "What kind of tattoo did you get?" "I got a hundred dollar bill on my privates" he said proudly. "What the hell were you thinking?” she said, shaking her head in disgust. "Why on earth would an accountant get a hundred dollar bill tattooed on his privates?" "Well, one, I like to watch my money grow. Two, once in a while I like to play with my money. Three, I like how money feels in my hand. And, lastly, instead of you going out shoppi...

Almost 9 months ago the government pumped in $757 Billion, that is right Billion, into the economy, but for some reason, they still do not realize that what they did, though noble, was not the most effect way of stimulating the economy. Why? It is because they do not understand the power of money’s momentum. Essentially, the faster money flows, the stronger you economy. Why? Well, as money moves through the system, its “effect” in multiplied by the number of times it exchanges hands. This velocity of money actually makes it seem like there is more money in the system than there actually is, or that the multiplicative effect of the existing money is greater as the velocity increases. Back in school, I learned a few interesting equations about how velocity effects things. These include momentum, kinetic energy, and finally Einstein’s equation of relativity. To review these equations are: Momentum momentum = mass * velocity Kinetic Energy (KE) KE = ½ mv 2 ...

"Financing is the art of passing currency from hand to hand until it finally disappears." --Robert Sarnoff