Ryminate

Bar exam

I've just begun my third week of bar exam preparation.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised that like many of my law school classes there is quite a bit more to learn than humanly possible.  Such predicaments lend opportunities for "strategic" learning. 

Bar prep aside, I came across the best definition of an entrepreneur I've ever encountered while reading  last night in book entitled How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, by David Bornstein.  Bornstein defines an entrepreneur as follows:

...one obsessive individual who sees a problem and envisions a new solution, who takes the initiative to act on that vision, who gathers resources and builds organizations to protect and market that vision, who provides the energy and sustained focus to overcome the inevitable resistance, and who—decade after decade—keeps improving, strengthening, and broadening that vision until what was once a marginal idea has become a new norm.

I love that!

Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends & Influence People Summary

Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People is certainly one of the great instruction books on how to positively interact with others.  While his advice could be used in self-serving, manipulative ways, I'm a believer that if you act in positive manner for long enough you almost undeviatingly become positive.  In other words, consistently acting in a manner unnatural or uncharacteristic of us, can in essence change desires and thoughts and resultingly our characters.

Anyhow, Carnegie's book is full of great insights.   In fact, it's so full of great insights it's hard to put them all into practice.  Years ago I made an attempt at creating a summary of key principles using the book's table of contents, but it saw very little use.  I stumbled across a much improved summary on the web that you can access here.  Also, if you would like a Word version to create your own reference you can download it here. 

Below is a taste of some of Carnegie's advice:

Never criticize, condemn or complain.
Self-criticism is extremely rare. Your criticism won’t be welcome.
Criticism makes others defensive and resentful.
Positive reinforcement works better.

Make the other person feel important.
People deeply desire to feel important and appreciated.
Praise others’ strengths and they’ll strive to reinforce your opinion.

Frame requests in terms of what motivates others.
Ask yourself: “Why should someone want to do as I ask?”

Mike Leach on Business Strategy

If you are a football fan, or interested in business strategy (or both), I recommend you check out the NYT article on Texas Tech coach Mike Leach. 

Mike Leach has enjoyed extraordinary success at Texas Tech with players who when recruited were far from extraordinary.  His system--his reinvention, as well as his emphasis on aggressive but methodical execution, somehow derives value out of players who many judge as relatively average (including their recordbreaking QB, who prior to Texas Tech was benched as a junior in high school). 

Mike also graduated from law school, and then decided he would coach football (much to the dismay of his in-laws).  I love the fact that he had the courage (or naivete, whatever you want to call it), to do what he really wanted to do, and has found success there.

Happy New Year!

Happy 2006!  I'm looking forward to a fresh start.  Unfortunately, things were so busy this past weekend that I wasn't able to make a clean break from 2005.  I am planning on doing that next weekend, so I guess my "New" Year will officially begin on January 9th (I think that's OK to do, right).  What I plan to do next weekend is set goals, completely clean out my email inboxes, finish all to do's, and set goals for the year both personally and with my spouse.  I am looking forward to it.

Also, I plan to start an additional blog over the next few weeks that will be exclusively for posts related to  thoughts for entrepreneurs.  I would like a place to record and share the resources I am uncovering with those who are interested; however, I doubt that many of my friends and family get as excited as I do about venture capital financings, internet marketing, and web 2.0.  An alternative blog seems like a logical step.

Hope you all are well.