Business Lessons from a Crime Boss

Interesting quick read article on the business start-up lessons to be learned from a crime boss. Lessons include

- Don't sell rocks when you can sell mountains
- Cut out the middleman
- Don't shit where you eat
- If it don't make dollars, it don't make sense
- Closed mouths don't get fed
- Be a badass

All common sense lessons but voiced in a manner you may not have seen before.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Axis of Awesome 4 Chord Song is awesome! Pop music explained. (HT Borepatch)

- News you can use - how to detect a credit card cloner at the gas pump

- Great job MLB! I hope the Fort Bragg game becomes an annual event.

- The New England Patriots as a business model.

- Pop Warner wrongful death suit might open "floodgates". Unfortunately it might not be too longer before kids under high school age are prohibited from all contact sports.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Drinking more coffee may undo liver damage from booze! My coffee in the morning - beers at night lifestyle is validated once again! Science!

- Insightful - Gregg Popovitch on what the San Antonio Spurs look for in an employee. No wonder they have been so successful.

- Heh heh

- Interesting - could the Saudi Kingdom be on the verge of collapse?

- The promise of nuclear power

- Six extinctions in 6 minutes (actually video is 8 minutes long)

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- 33 Shocking Facts that show how the economy has tanked under Obama. Some really depressing stuff in there like #14 that points out the poverty rate is actually higher today than when the War on Poverty began in 1965.

- Heh heh - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in 61 seconds

- Did Bobby Riggs throw the Battle of the Sexes? Very interesting story - I think he did it.

- The ultimate cheat sheet for starting and running a company. Good stuff.

- The story of the space station crew stranded by the Columbia disaster

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Author Elmore Leonard hospitalized after a stroke. Wishing him a full recovery.

- Cool - nighttime view of the Americas

- When Hallucinations walked the world

- Interesting - never even heard of billionaire Richard B. Cohen even though his family's business started in Worcester.

- Never noticed it before - but you really don't see Tiger's kids much (I like that he doesn't use his kids as props)

-  Very well written profile of anti-hero Mal Reynolds from Firefly / Serenity (may only be available to read for limited time)

- If you could actually see Wi-Fi this is what it would look like

- Very cool and very large photo of Tokyo - have fun zooming in and out

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting and thought I'd share.

- Wow - Phil Esposito is a bitter old man.

- 26th anniversary of Ronald Reagan's "tear down this wall" speech. Reagan is still a huge icon in Eastern Europe and rightly so.

- Meanwhile in Australia - the phrase "small breasts, huge thighs and a big red box" enters the political lexicon.

- Wait what? Doris Roberts? Those wacky Japanese.

- Joe Rogan interviewing Bobcat Goldthwait was mesmerizing. Excellent stuff.

- Speaking of mesmerizing - tornadoes on the Sun! Oddly beautiful.

- Nice article on how to go into negotiations with proper perspective.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting and thought I'd share.

- 10 dinosaur myths that need to go extinct.

- Craigslist Missed Connections - some are these are very funny!

- The R2-D2 bra. I would have liked this much better if a real woman was modeling it.

- Interesting column on Mark Cuban's early business life and lessons learned.

Shahid Khan Interview

Interesting interview in Forbes of Jaguars owner Shahid Khan.

You can tell that this is a guy that gets "it". As an example - he changed the policy regarding bringing water and food into the stadium and the result was stadium food and beverage revenue went up! People may have skipped on the $5 hotdog to buy more $9 beers (which I hope was at least 24 ounces).

What Would It Take to Change Your Mind?

Interesting article from Harvard Business Review but I have to say that if you've gotten to the point where you have to ask, "What would it take to change your mind?" - then you really haven't done your job.

The way I learned and what has stuck with me is the following process when looking at advocating change (a new product or service). This process can be used for just about any new situation though:

1. Ask "What do you have now?" Force the person who you need to make a decision to look at what is currently in place.
2. What do you like about what is in place? Big mistake many make is to assume that just because some people are advocating change that everything about the current system is bad. In many cases there are features of the current system that people really like. They want change but they also want to keep the things that are familiar to them that works.
3. What would you like to change about what is currently in place? This question is the most important because it basically answers why do they want to make a change in the first place. It will also give you the clues to what the important decision factors will be.
4. How did the current system come to be? Why did you choose what is currently in place? This also reveals much about the decision process.

If you properly "qualify" the situation by asking the above questions and craft your proposed solution accordingly - then hopefully you won't need to ask "What would it take to change your mind?"

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting and thoughts I'd share.

Interesting - What the most successful people do before breakfast

Heh Heh - Its funny because its true. The One has become a punchline

Obama skips out on lunch tab - the funny thing is this comes right after Obama doing the metaphor of Bush sticking him with a dinner check. The gang that can't shoot straight.

Here's one of my favorite baseball commercials of all-time

If you are a Breaking Bad fan - how can you watch this and not get pumped up for the new season?

Eric McErlain is back to blogging

All the best to Sean McDonough who needs brain surgery. He literally has a hole in his head.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting and thought I'd share.

Jim Gaffigan's take on Subway sandwiches

I got a big kick out of some of these photos. Good stuff. 

Very cool story of 19-year old entrepreneur who worked out of AOL's offices for 2 months  

These GIF's are awesome - wicked awesome. 

Interesting profile of perhaps Mitt Romney's biggest groupie 

The 5-Hour Energy Guy

Very interesting profile of Manoj Bhargava - the man behind 5-Hour Energy.

"5-Hour Energy is not an energy drink, it's a focus drink," he says, turning one of the pomegranate-flavor bottles around in his hands. "But we can't say that. The FDA doesn't like the word 'focus'. I have no idea why."

I've never tried 5-Hour Energy but I could use some additional focus and energy on occasion so I'll probably be dropping $3 on a bottle or two.

Business Lessons from a Crime Boss

Interesting quick read article on the business start-up lessons to be learned from a crime boss. Lessons include

- Don't sell rocks when you can sell mountains
- Cut out the middleman
- Don't shit where you eat
- If it don't make dollars, it don't make sense
- Closed mouths don't get fed
- Be a badass

All common sense lessons but voiced in a manner you may not have seen before.