This week I have been dedicating time to my family and as I have done in the past, I would like to keep that time to them.

Keep Calm and Stay Humble

As I was talking to my grandmother today she was asking how things were going. She and I usually speak once or twice per week and we discuss everything that we can think of.  Today it was Brexit, the floods in West Virginia, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and our project.  As it relates to this project, I can tell you that it is sometimes difficult to explain it because it has so many moving parts.

But I think I figured out a logical way to explain it to her and here is my long-shot explanation: it is like Compound Interest, you know, interest on interest, which over time becomes quite an asset for you if you own it and quite deadly if you owe it.

The way I look at any new business is like this.  Let’s say we start business on Month 1 of Year 1 and we go after 10 deals, after 2 months we realize that 3 deals will proceed. After 4 months we know only 1 is a good deal after all.  Well, the same exercise happens on Month 2 Year 1, you find 10 new ideas and 3-4 months later 1 pans out.  Imagine this occurring over the next 12 months.  For a new business, not only will it take time to actually land the deals, but then they have to be the good ones to have any future positive effect.

Now imagine a business that actually survives and it is on its 10th year of business.  This is probably a business that not only has a stable line of revenue but that more than likely it has already been through the motions of the good deal, ok deals and bad deals. Business become stable after a while, it does not happen over night, nor after 1 month nor after 1 year.  It is a process that takes years and if not worked properly, even after landing good deals they can fall if those deals are not replenished properly

That is us right now, waiting for deals to mature and hoping they are good deals.  So we wait some more.

Keep Calm and Stay Humble…

Some months back we talked about the ledge that entrepreneurs must learn to face when running a business. This ledge leads to a precipice of despair and loneliness. It leads to crushed dreams and to financial future ruins. This is a ledge we don’t want to face, but one that we must. It is an event that no entrepreneur wants to face nor accept but it is one that I welcome with open arms and heart, because it means that the end of things as we know it is near.

Once you fall, you can’t get back up. It means you have exhausted your resources, closed your income avenues and declared that you have failed, not only to yourself, but your colleagues, to your friends, to the not-so your friends and to the trade. This is right about when you are realizing… maybe this whole thing was not such a great idea. Maybe I should have said ‘yes, sir’ or ‘no, ma’am’, maybe just maybe I could still be not concerned with all these problems.

When things come to an end, you rest and your pressure is relieved.  Now, let’s be clear, the end does not necessarily have to be negative. The end signifies the lack of existence of current conditions as they are today, whether good or bad. I am that guy that is actually pulling myself to the ledge and forcing myself to look down on it. I am that guy that is not afraid to say I failed and I am certainly that guy that is willing to go broke, twice over to get the satisfaction of not failing.

So in essence, the end of bad times is coming soon. I believe that our plans and our business will continue to flourish as it has now. I will have to make adjustments and some changes, as cash flow will compel me to do so, but I will not for a second lay off the gas pedal and will continue to do what we are doing. We are still here and we will be here for a while.

So sorry to disappoint our frenemies and so glad to communicate this to our good friends.  Sometimes, the heat of the battle does not let us distinguish who is who, – but I will fill you in on a secret: friends are scarce, good friends even scarcer, and I know who they are and I know they are nodding their heads right now and saying, yep that is me. Thanks for the continued support and well-wishes and to those who have not helped, I thank you as well, in a non-sarcastic manner, for making this adventure real and full of challenges. If it was easy, it would be no fun, and I don’t like things easy, as you well know…

Keep Calm and Stay Humble…

As we continue to find the right balance for our business we find that there are endless possibilities to what we can do.  They all require one thing in common, that is the ever-precious, non-renewable, natural resource of time.  You waste it, you can’t get it back.  Some would say that reading this is a total waste of time, or that taking the time to write it is a waste – everyone has a different appreciation of it I guess.

One thing I do know is that time in a new business is not only wasted daily but also we sort of build up a reserve to waste time in the future.  Highly inefficient.  This has to do with the broad-scope approach of taking a look at everything and the trying to be everything to everyone.  It has been proven, by many wiser than I am, that you need to focus your resources on defined areas and this way you will not waste time.

Just yesterday a good friend invited me for breakfast and we talked for about 90 minutes.  It took me about 30 minutes to get there and then waited a brief 10 minutes as well.  We had a terrific conversation about life and some business was  mentioned as well.  At the end of the reunion, I hurried back to my office and was backed up all day.  I got out at 630pm and went to see my kids at the pool, where I was pleasantly surprised to see another friend and we talked for another hour.  You could say that I wasted time.

But I will differ with the experts and tell you, in my own humble know-it-all way that no time is wasted if you pay attention and consider the possibilities.  This friend of mine proposed a project that is out of what I want to do, but at the same time, put my imagination to work and I think that I can actually help him, help me and help some customers.  Just the day before I wasted time going to Dallas and I met another friend who was talking to me about a project that, guess what, we would be able to help him resolve his problem.  And on top of that, I truly believe that we can make it work (based on our limited info) with critical mass achieved quickly as well.

If I had not wasted time going to Dallas and wasted time going to talk to breakfast with my friend and wasted more time thinking about this in the pool, then this whole blog would have been a waste of time. As it is, it is now a project to consider seriously and hopefully I will have time to develop it.

Keep Calm and Stay Humble…

As I was looking at a beautiful baby girl in a flight back from a business trip today, I quickly realized that I missed my children. I transported myself to when my youngest kids were babies and I remembered, regretfully, that as a frequent traveler, I lost so much precious time with my children – all 4 of them and my wife as well.

I have been fully aware of this since those days, but now that I see things differently as changes keep hitting me, I could not help but tear up and ask myself why I had so very few recollections of my kids in their infancy.  Well the answer is simple:  I was not there most of the time.

The choices I made I can never take back. I have such a good relationship with my 4 kids that I only wish I could had more time with them to enjoy all of their talents and adventures.  But if you think about it, I just told you that I was on a plane coming back from a business trip, which had me 3 days out.  I have been preparing for this trip for the last 10 days of non-stop and stressful activities, and I have been pretty much in another world these last 10 days I have been at home. Needless to say, I was at home and at the same time I was away.  So is it really the fault of my years traveling that I lost so much time, is it really the fault of my choices professionally or is it just that I am so tired and probably don’t remember my name anymore (I actually do remember it very well.)

None of this is the answer; all I can come up with is that my choices were correct and that my memories are the ones I have. So be it. I can’t change what happened, good or bad; I can only expect that my future actions will lead me to spend more focused time with my kids.

I can only expect that our business decisions will be the results of the choices we have made so far. I know that we will have great results and that these last two weeks will deliver a great future.

I lost more hair this week than usual and had some great headaches, but I was proud of my team, my kids and my wife for the way they supported my choices. Now we wait for the results which should be grand.

Keep Calm and Stay Humble

This week was week of headaches.  Got a lot of good things going on, but as life is always complex, business becomes complex as well.  And nothing ever comes easy; in this case, things that were right there to be grabbed are slowly drifting away and some things that were already gone, all of a sudden are here and closed up.  Unbelievable. The roller coaster of emotions keeps surprising us.

One thing I must admit is that as things develop and progress, one’s imagination starts to wander.  You start losing focus as stronger and more important deals come in.  I am sure this happens to all, but it must be controlled.  We have some very good current customers and the team and I are trying our hardest to stay focused on servicing them and our principals.  We have hired another person and are committed to making sure that our original partners stay well-serviced.

Another thing that is happening is that the complexity of the projects is increasing and although I am up to the challenge, my time is being greatly constrained.  I have no problem with hard assignments or with complicated scenarios (I can make the simplest things really complicated) – but let’s be honest, it takes more time to solve a differential equation than to add fractions.  So, I am going to have to delegate some things I do not want or hire another person.  The fact that I am broke as a doornail kind of makes it difficult for the second option to happen, so I am guessing the first one will have to work…

The good thing is that I trust my partners and I know they can do whatever is requested from them.  I will have to spend some time educating them on the new duties, but all in all, as we know, part of the fun of work is learning and it keeps things interesting. If I can’t delegate, then I am the one that has an issue.

Kids are out of school and they are flip-flopping our schedules. Now let’s try and enjoy the summer break with them and let’s make sure I do not forget to write a blog because I am supposedly having too much fun.

Keep Calm and Stay Humble…

…and happy.  I guess that is what matters at the end of the day.  I have had a lot of luck in my jobs over the years. I have been truly blessed to work for people that were willing to take a chance on me and my big mouth along with my know-it-all attitude. I know I am annoying and sometimes arrogant.  As well as I know that my tone is condescending at times and my sarcastic remarks do not help.  That is what makes me special.

We are all imperfect beings; I am proud to count myself as imperfect and human. I am happy that I get to live everyday with my multiple flaws and countless people telling me (or not) about them.  I really hold no ill-will towards people who remind me of my character deficiencies or point out the brashness in my personality.  On the contrary, every time and every day I mess up, I learn to be more humble and to expect to fail again in my daily dealings.  Nothing like a good dose of foot in your mouth.

If you are wondering if I did something or if something happened for me to be so candid, well, no, nothing happened, but I am so busy at this point in time that two things I must confess:  One, I had nothing to post this week, so I roasted myself in an effort to fill these pages and two, and most importantly, I need to remind myself that I should not take myself that seriously, even though I am busy, busy, busy and might want to get the feeling of importance somewhere in there in my big head.

So, as I was telling you, it is good to be happy with one’s imperfections; I would rather know them and work on them than ignore them and believe I am something I am not.  An entrepreneur’s life is simpler when you accept things as they are.  If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck…

Quack!

Keep Calm and Stay Humble….

As we have a large group of fans waiting to hear what we are doing (almost 6 at last count) I can tell you that next week is the deadline for deciding to continue or to shut down this crazy venture.  There is no way in hell I am shutting down.

I want you to know that we have so much stuff in our plate, we are considering seriously turning business away. No joke.  We have so many people interested in our services and our programs that I can honestly tell you we that are overwhelmed.  I am unfortunately working 6 to 7 days a week now, not what I wanted, but if you start a new business, what do you expect?  Money is OK, we are covering our expenses, not making much yet, but the maturity of the projects is what brings you long-term income streams not so much the initial phase.

My partners have started to get bonuses plus their salaries and my wife/partner might be getting a salary soon!  She is happy. I am the only one that is still broke, but happy!  I will tell you one thing, the one-year anniversary blog will be something interesting, I assure you, that is coming up after Labor Day.  You can’t do this by yourself, my partners are all great and most of all, our principals, are really awesome.

One thing that I do, and frankly I do well, is that I am always curious to push the limits of business.  I want to learn more and to meet different people.  We have been fortunate enough to make investments in avenues that will bring us more quality business. I think that your time investments are the most costly and they are the ones that take longer to pay off.  There is no substitute though for satisfaction and I am telling you, we are entrepreneurs and we rock!

Keep Calm and Stay Humble… while rocking it….

This weekend I graduated from Villanova University. I was bestowed a Master’s of Science in Analytics from the Villanova School of Business. Basically Predictive Analytics on Steroids. Big Data is the future.

As many of you know, I hold a Master’s of Business Administration from Rice University.  My specializations are Marketing and Strategy. I received my degree from the Jones Graduate School in 2010.

My wife and partner has told me no more school. I can see and understand why.  Not only are they really expensive, but they take a lot of space from our family time. They place a big stressful burden on me and most of all, they do not let me practice my golf game (which really needs to be practiced.)

All in all, this week’s blog is to tell you I am so tired of school (right now) I do not foresee anything in the future for the next 3 years at least. After that, I am not making any promises. Now, if something extraordinary were to happen and let’s say I have all the time in the world and nothing else to do, well then…education will always prevail.  An interested mind will always find a friend in culture and books.  An entrepreneur’s mind does not rest, it only loses consciousness.  Always educating yourself will lead you to discovery of new and wonderful truths about life, others and mostly about yourself.

I love to learn new thing and challenge myself. I invite you to take what seems an impossible challenge and look at how you can improve your own education. You will be a better person for it, not because of titles or initials at the end of your name, but because you will discover that there is a part of you that is wonderfully complex and yearns strengthening your most important desires: Curiosity.

For now, let’s stick to this new company and forget about the books for a while

Stay Calm and Keep Humble…

They say that when it rain it pours.  Figure Houston out the last month. We had some rain and then we got hit with two days of non-stop rain in very short periods and wind up with 30 inches of water.  Needless to say, you saw the news and the disasters.  Three or four days later we get another 10-12 inches.  A lot of people lost their homes, some lost their lives, we were very fortunate and we just lost some time.

Well, mother nature is wise and there is a reason things happen like this.  No, I am not going to tell you why.  That is what humans do. When we do not know something we attribute it to God and to Nature,  I am particularly feeling a little overwhelmed today and would like to skip the Nature explanation, which is probably half-right only anyway.

But let us not shy away from the reason of this dramatic beginning. When it rain, it pours.  Very fortunately, our situation is like California’s the last 4 years.  We need the rain and we will take as much as we can get.  That has been our reality and our upcoming near future.  We are getting all the rain we want and are extremely happy that we are super busy and without any free time.  We are so occupied, that our blog is late! (as you know this is not rare)

One thing I can tell you is that a bunch of work has never hurt any new business.  A bunch of opportunities has always given people hope. A bunch of people working together can make a real difference. A bunch of focused strategies can really create a new company from scratch.  That is us a bunch of hard-working partners who are standing in the middle of a tornado of activity. Not all of it will yield good results and not all results will be as expected. But we are so nailed down to the ground with perseverance that no force can move our resolve. We have hope and we have energy. We also have a bunch of bills that we need to pay by the way… Oh well, I guess that is success,

Happy Mother’s Day to all our lovely mothers who are reading this. And those who are not, make sure you thank them for being the most wonderful and special human beings.

Stay Calm and Keep Humble…