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Do Something!

The standard advice I used to get from my creative writing professors was to write SOMETHING. I’m a firm believer in this, but not often a practitioner. I’m also a firm believer in doing some sort of exercise regularly…but, again, I don’t follow through most of the time. Although…look: I’m writing something now, and I just started swimming again, which just goes to show that people can change (at least when the weather is right and things aren’t too busy at work).

The reason I bring this up now is because I often get asked for advice about starting a business or some such similar activity. I don’t consider myself a business guru, but I have built something that’s allowed me to be self-employed for almost 10 years, so I guess I know a thing or two.

My advice to anyone who wants to start a business is this:

Do Something!

Talking and planning and dreaming are ok. But, why not put your ideas on paper? It won’t cost you anything and it’ll get you one step closer. Already have it on paper? Do the research and write a business plan…and DON’T spend more than a couple minutes researching the format of a business plan. AND YOU BETTER NOT GO BUYING A BOOK ABOUT WRITING A BUSINESS PLAN OR TAKING ONE OF THOSE CLASSES. I’m serious. I’ll kick your ass if you do. Formatting and style should be the least of your concerns at this point…why not start with answering these questions (off the top of my head):

Who will pay me money?
What will they pay me money for?
How much will they give me?
How will I do or make what they’ll give me money for?
Where will I do whatever it is?
When will this happen (make a schedule…who cares if you might miss a deadline?)

The one question you shouldn’t specifically answer just yet is “how much money do I need before I can do it?”. Save that for your second draft. Almost everyone I know who wants to start a business but hasn’t done it thinks that money is the problem that’s keeping them from their dream. I almost guarantee that it ain’t.

new servers

steps yesterday: 16000

finished John Adams book yesterday and started on Out of Africa.

work stuff is good. We have new servers. Today, fastmetrics’ network went down for a half hour, which makes me that much more eager to get our websites out of there.

interviewing, walkin’

steps yesterday: 10781 (gotta get back on track!)

Made quite a bit of progress in listening to A Walk in the Woods while recovering from the party. Unfortunately, I was asleep for much of it. So, this morning I rewound and relistened to a bunch. Bill goes off on how the Park Service doesn’t do anything, then talks about how americans don’t do anything. He says that the average american walks 1.4 miles per WEEK! WTF? I walk twice that distance before breakfast every day. How can you even go to the bathroom a normal number of times and only walk a few hundred yards a day?

We’re interviewing people this week, so I need to go and get ready!

doing ok

The business now has two employees! Things are pretty good. My big complaint right now is that any sort of financial freedom is constantly elusive. oh well. Also, I’m feeling like everyone is conspiring to make me old before I’m ready. Also, I’m just in a funk because I still don’t know anything about anything. whatever. I don’t even know why I have this site. I’m afraid that people are reading it, but I write in it as if people are reading it. It’s interesting for me to go back and read old messages and I wish that I were posting to it more frequently, but at the same time, I don’t really want to post to it and when I do, it’s pretty much the same ol’ crap.

Here are my things to be happy about:
Margaret got her eyes fixed!
I’m still not smoking
I weigh less than I did when I was smoking (although I’m still not happy with that)
The business is growing

That’s about all I can think of right now. Not bad. I’ve got some work to do.

hiring and writing

Business is doing crazy things. We’re hiring our first employee Monday and we have an office now. We also seem to have a lot of work all of a sudden. So, things might be going well. I’ve started getting up at 6 in the morning and doing a little writing every morning. That feels good, although I’m certain that everything I’m writing sucks. I’ll just stick to it.

servers, music, money

I’m still here…the last entry was me rearranging and consolidating servers. That project is done now, and we’re saving $50/month as a result! Pretty exciting. Combine that with the $20/month we’re saving by using Netzero.com rather than paying for a dialup account when we travel…and we’re saving $70/month on internet access and hosting.

Um. We’re making some moves with the business. It’s about time. Right now, we’re in Oakland at the Homewood suites because we have meetings with clients tomorrow about us doing more work (I hope). Wish us luck.

I’m working on a cd of songs about Texas/Truckin. The cd will be called “Songs I Learned in Texas”. It’s gonna be hot.

Still practicing piano lots and loving it. I’ve also started saving for a sax. I figure if I had started putting away the money I was spending on cigs back when I quit, I’d have a sax now. But I didn’t and I don’t. I will, though.

Anyway, this entry seems to be all about money. That’s too bad. I’ll try to be more interesting to myself next time I write here.

New York mistakes

New York was good. Today, though, I’ll catalog the mistakes we made.
1. We flew into Islip (on Long Island) because Southwest flies there, and we got the $99 fare. This wouldn’t have been a big mistake if we had gotten in a little sooner, so we didn’t feel like we were in a rush, and so we could have taken the train into Manhattan. Unfortunately, we were in a hurry and we paid $150 for a two hour cab ride during rush hour. We later found out that the train was $6.50 (plus a $20 shuttle to the train station) and it only took an hour and a half.
2. I made Margaret order the “National Dish of Brazil” which consists of smokey black beans and black, boiled meat. We’re not sure that there is any good food in Manhattan. We haven ‘t managed to find any yet, anyway. If you know differently, you can take us out next time were in town.

I think these are really the only two mistakes. The good points of our trip were:

1. The Paramount hotel, on W. 46th (about two blocks west of Broadway) is excellent, and cheap compared to the other hotels in the neighborhood. Small rooms, but very stylish….retro-cool sort of thing. Amazing furniture in the lobby. Go there even if you’re staying somewhere else.
2. We had good meetings and fully justified making the whole trip tax deductable.
3. The Metropolitan Museum of Art rocks.
4. We saw a taping of Late Night with Conan O’Brien. He’s not very funny, but it was a good pre-dinner thing to do. Vince has a friend who is a writer with the show, so we got tickets and a little bit of special treatment.

going to NY, movie-making, and recording

I’m working on a new Gunrack album. The new one will be very different from the original recordings. Much more mature….but still immature. One of the tracks, Bucket Head, has already been recorded and is posted at Mp3.com. Expect it the full album to be released sometime this summer.
Also, Margaret and I have a camera checked out of ACAC for the weekend of May 12, and we’re hoping to shoot enough footage for at least a couple cable shows. Stay tuned for an update on that too.

We’re going to NYC this week to meet with clients and go to the transformmag.com party. Vince has a friend who is a writer for Conan O’Brien, and he got us tickets to the show. So, we’ll be doing that too. That’s all for now. Peace and we outta here.