I wanted to share a close friends blog today. He has the bug - he has taken the initiative to start his own business....please read below from my friend at www.sprenzy.com

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TIME!
I have a group of former co-workers who would IM… TIME …to each other. Just… Time. We weren’t interested in the actual time of day. What did it mean if someone IM’d?… Time. It meant that they had enough for the day, were ready to go home or ready to find another job. It was time.
Well I officially called… TIME… yesterday and resigned from my current job. No matter how many times I quit a job (this is my fourth time), it is still always an uncomfortable situation. I always want to leave on good terms and not burn any bridges because the world is very small. So I took the high road yesterday and informed my manager that I was resigning and starting up my own business.
Today I informed my team/direct reports that I was leaving. Most of them were very surprised. I felt very bad and guilty because I feel as if I’m quitting on them. I’ve spent a lot of time and effort in building a strong, trusting business relationship with each one of them. The key word is business relationship as I always try to separate personal friendships/relationships from work relationships particularly with direct reports. What happens at work stays at work and vice versa.
Although I feel like I’m letting my team down, I have to do what’s right for me. Most of them were disappointed that I had resigned (which made me feel good) but they understood my rationale for leaving.
Some of my friends have asked me why I would quit my job before I have a business partner/tech arch/developer? My answer is that I’m all out or nothing. I’ve made up my mind that I’m starting this business no matter what. There’s no turning back at this point.
So with that I have two more weeks for working for the “man” and then 110% on the new business venture.

More to come....

Quote of the Day:

To dream anything that you want to dream. That is the beauty of the human mind. To do anything thing that you want to do. That is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself to test your limits. That is the courage to succeed.

Bernard Edmonds

I got an email today with this quote - what this tells me is that Bernard Edmonds, albeit a brilliant writer, never accomplished anything in his life. I guarantee he never did anything in his but write inspirational quotes...crap. I bet if he was born in 1975 instead of 1910 he would have been a pot smoking slacker who wished that Jerry Garcia lives longer so that he could live off his parents a little longer yet speak peace and harmony...crap. One thing that I do know is that Bernard would probably write a damn good blog and would rule adsense...but I know that he would not be the man.

FYI - my mind is spinning with great business ideas...its coming soon people....I will be the man again..just like the 40k a year job I had 10 years ago!

more to come.....

Funny Story from my good friend who has the life we all want

Name: Biff
Education: Yale
Lives: Maui (dont know how he pulled this one off)
Hobbies: surfing, travel to distant lands
For fun...see below

Notes on a recent trip to Australia:

~North of Brisbane there's a great surf spot - noosa. it's a nice resort town, too. I met a really hot Swiss girl in the hostel i stayed at. she was from the town where rolexes are made. she was half swiss, half egyptian - no kidding. her name was alexandra azer. she loved chocolate milk and was into tae kwon do, too. she spoke limited english and wanted me to give her surfing lessons. i told her the first thing she needed to get was a rash guard so she wouldn't get a rash from the wax. but i told it was called a "trash guard" instead because I was happily insane at the time. So we go into this surf shop and i just sit back and she walks in and asks if they have any "trash guards". i fell to the ground and took a couple of clothing racks with me. this is how i kept myself entertained while traveling alone. i also told her that the nickname for a surfboard was a "beaver" because its shaped resembled a beaver's tale and everyone in Hawaii calls them beavers. so she bought a trash guard and rented a beaver and I gave her surfing lessons. I would say stuff like, "i'll hold on to your beaver..." "bring the beaver over here..." "let me rub a little more wax on your beaver" i think she figured out i was up to something because I had a hard time keeping a straight face.

How to Play like Larry Bird.

1) Play with passion. Regardless if it is basketball, consulting, building houses.

2) Be a team player. We all know larry could score but he was always in the triple threat position. Pass, Dribble, Shoot - think like that and you will always find a way for the team to score

3)Play to win. Why are you playing or working if you are not there to win. If you want to be complacent you should probably ignore this...if you want to be successful - always try to win. Anyone who plays just to play has 1 - already won, and is doing it out of boredom 2 - cant compete 3 - other..i am being nice with number 3..you figure it out.

A friend today read my blog and said that it was sad....well I guess that is her opinion...Two other friends wrote me emails saying that I was spot on, and I quote "its amazing, I guess we all have these feelings/ things we need to figure out out (the two other friends were guys). This blog is about thinking things thru during a state of transition.....kind of like the pilgrims looking for new land outside the rule of the king....accept my new land is my own business with my own rules, and the king is the people I have been working for.....

more to come...

So...As it turns out, I am still 33 years old and I just turned down a 100k+ a year job. Yeah - many of you guys may think that I am nutz, but in reality I have been making 100k+ for over 7 years now and for some reason it just doesn't seem to be much money. I know, I know, most people strive to make 100k, but in my world, which sometimes feels unlike reality, 100k is not that much money.

My main issue is that I compare myself to my peers. I have friends that span the salary range, and I don't think any less of them - I personally am very blue collar by nature, but when looking at the white collar work that I have done over the last couple of years and compare it to the rest of my peers, 100k seems to be missing something....another 100k. For some reason or another I feel that I should be hitting the 200k+ range and I am disgusted with my feelings but there are the reasons why.

I have put in thousands of hours working for people who make lots of money (lets put lots of money at over 500k per year for the time being). I have spent a minimum of 1000 hours traveling on trains, planes and even boats for work as well as countless hours in airports waiting for delayed flights due to the crappy New England weather. I have spent sleepless nights putting together power point presentations for million dollar deals; not to mention many evenings at kinkos waiting for ill-timed presentations to be printed in color with special binders only for high powered banking executives to flip thru the slides and ultimately chuck them in the trash. I have conducted hundreds of sales presentations, some with success and others....well not so successful. I have gone from making 20k a year to 40k a year (when I thought I was the man) to making over 100k plus as already stated.

The funny thing is....I may have nice things but I don't really do anything different now than when I was making 40k...But I have lost that feeling of being the man. Over time I thought I was building something, you know the phrase: doing something with my life. I guess when its all said and done I guess my resume is pretty damn tight and I deserve a high paying job (as much as anybody with my background) but there is still something missing.

I could have taken the offer, but in reality I would still be working for the guy who makes 500k+ and the offer just didnt appeal to me...Something is off here. When do I get to the point where I am the guy in the higher tax bracket...is it even possible to make that without being the man...As stated in the last blog I said that it takes balls, it takes energy and it takes drive to be the man. I have those things but I don't have one thing...Passion. I don't have that one thing. Remember the Billy crystal movie - City Slickers.....Curly kept telling Billy that there is that one thing and he needs to figure it out. I guess in reality if we all figured out that one thing we would jump on it..or at least think about it. I personally have a dilemma - I have the drive and experience but I don't have that ability to lift just one finger and smile with a grin showing people that I have it - that I have figured out that one thing.

I had lunch today with a guy who wants to start a business. He is well beyond the 100k mark, and has about 10 years on me - but he also has the itch. What I also know is that he has passion - like Billy Crystal, he has found that one thing. The key outcome the lunch, besides being happy for my friend (always be happy that your friends are doing well - it will end up helping you in the long run; dont be jealous) , is that I know its out there - that one thing is real. Where do you find it? Where is the passion found? How do I get excited about one thing in order to become the man?

more to come....

I am 33 years old and have been in the working world for 12 years now - working for the man. Its true when you come out of college you feel empowered, you have energy to get moving on with life, but in reality the first few years after college are more like an extension of college. Your friends don't change, you end up living in a crappy apartment, you still party, you may or may not have a 'career' job, you still chase girls (although you may have a girlfriend), the only thing that may change is that your financial lifeline (your parents if you were lucky) gets pinched. Don't get me wrong you know that if you are desperate you can ask your parents for some coin - but if you have any morals you just would not ask, havent they done enough!

Once you find that 'career' job you find yourself working your tail off - if your lucky you actually like what your doing. Once you hit 27 things really start to change. Some of your guy friends get married (girls drop sooner - but lets not focus on them as friends for the time being), your body starts to change a bit, all the beer and taco bell that you ate has finally gotten to you and no matter how far you jog or how much you work out - that extra layer is there to stay (all you genetic freaks can skip that last part). Your social scene is now starting to evolve. Your mental outlook on life starts to take form - things are not as they once seemed.

Now I am 33 years old. I have twelve years of solid work experience with very respectable companies. I have worked at large consulting firms (Big 6, then Big 5, then Big 4: you will get that if you are old enough and have any clue of what I am talking about), financial services firms, worked all over the country, and I even took the risk of moving to cali and working for a .Com firm back in 2000. I own a pretty nice Condo, own my car outright (given I want a new one) and have been dating some pretty hot girls. Most of my friends are now bald, fat, married/divorced, living in the suburbs. Most are happy with life, but few of them are happy with where they are in life - When your fresh out of college the vision of 33 did not include the following: 1)time going bye so fast 2) the rapid change in your social scene (match.com and I can wait in line at a bar were never spoken) 3) $100 cable bill 4) underpaid/overworked 5) interacting at a bar with people who graduated high school in 2000 and 6) a career working for the man!

Working for the man....What is that. You know what it is - you work for someone that had the balls to do their own thing. Their own vision, their own ideas, their own energy...they had balls. Good for them...Needless to say I can put my experience up against anyone my age and feel confident that I have wasted more time working for someone else than anyone I know!

what's next - how do you take that leap to staring my own business. I am 33 years old and want to take that leap....I want to be the man....