This is first time I’ve decided to include a guest posting at Dream Jobs Dialog.  However, after stumbling across a young Australian entrepreneur, Yaro Starak, I became so entralled with one of his articles that I asked him if he’d mind if I reprinted it.

Yaro usually writes abouts business, so it was interesting to find his take on happiness, as I think what he has discovered will be of great help for anyone here who’s fighting hard to find a meaningful career and place in life.

So here goes . . . Yaro Starak and his key to happiness.

At the bus stop near my house where I catch my ride into town on a regular basis is an unusual piece of graffiti. I often walk to the bus stop, sit down and turn my head to the ground and read the line of words neatly scrolled on the pavement that I guess you can only call vandalism, but it seems somewhat inappropriate to label it so -

“You Deserve Happiness”

The first time I read this, I had a chuckle because it felt wrong to be reading a statement intended to be uplifting in a format usually reserved for rude comments or political statements. I put it down to the fact that my suburb has an unusually high proportion of New-Age hippy types with an affinity for positive affirmations. I love people like that. I’m one of them too, so I’m living in the right place.

Positive Affirmations

Over the more recent years I’ve worked hard on my own self-talk to improve the way I speak to myself. You probably know your own inner voice quite well. It’s that little trail of thought in your head, that little voice that says things to you throughout the day, that reacts to what other people say, to what you say and what you do. It probably says too much, but it has an opinion on absolutely everything so it’s hard to get it to shut-up.

In my recent history my inner voice was part of a problem I had. I can’t wholly blame it for all my issues but it was a major contributor to something I suffered through in my late teens and early twenties. I remember quite vividly the first few times I suffered the symptoms.

I jumped on the bus from university to go home after a day of lectures. I don’t think it was a day any worse than any others. I showed the bus driver my ticket and, being the cool guy that I was, went to the back of the bus to sit down with all the other cool back-seaters. I can’t remember what I was thinking at the time, but I remember feeling that it was quite inconsequential - everyday worries about university and life - the sort of thing most people would think about when they were a university student.

Suddenly out of the blue a feeling of absolute fear gripped me. It felt like it came from nowhere. My heart raced, my thoughts rushed, I couldn’t sit still and I had this horrible feeling like I was going to die. The sensation passed within a few moments.

I went on to experience this many times, sometimes in really obscure places like in the middle of watching a movie at the cinema, walking home just talking to a friend, sitting in bed before going to sleep and listening to a particularly boring lecture. It was all quite random and strange and not something I enjoyed at all.

Eventually with the help of my counsellor mother I figured out I was suffering from panic attacks. My story was not unusual, as I read a book about the problem. Apparently one in five people suffers from the disorder at some point in their life. Whether it is because of brain chemical imbalances or for whatever reasons it is quite prevalent in our modern Western culture and I was its lucky latest “victim.”

For people who have never experienced a panic attack it can be hard to fathom what it is like. It is pure fear. An awful rush of emotion that causes your body to react in ways it should not react given the present situation. As the book explained to me, my panic attacks were the result of a very animal instinct, a fight or flight instinct that in normal circumstances would come on in situations of life-threatening danger. The rush of blood, increased heart rate and alert senses were meant for me to be able to run away from or fight whatever it was threatening my existence, just like any good animal would. However, sitting in the movies is not a situation of life-threatening danger so clearly something was messed up.

Learned Behaviour

Over the course of the months and years from the point when I first had a panic attack, I went through therapy to help improve my situation. With verbal guidance from my mother and father, a helpful book or two and lots of self-development, I managed to curb the problem. I did go through several recurrences, especially during difficult times in my life, and I can’t really say that I am 100 percent cured even now, but I feel totally in control of that aspect of my life.

As a result of that experience, I gained a very powerful skillset - the ability to control my thought process. The benefits of being able to do this go way beyond helping me deal with panic and anxiety - I can now control my emotional state by changing the way I think.

Can you imagine how helpful that is? Think about any time you have been depressed, demotivated or reacted adversely to situations with anger, or frustration or self-loathing or hatred or by beating yourself up by drinking too much or taking drugs. While positive thinking and being in control of your emotional state is not a cure for life’s problems, it’s pretty close and I am very thankful for its benefits.

Positivity Training

Some people scoff at positive affirmations and consider them useless but, as anyone who has had panic attacks will tell you, at the root cause of them are the opposite - negative affirmations. As a result of spending most days thinking negatively and repeating self-talk that beat myself up, my body reacted with panic attacks. You may not have the same reaction I did, but if your self-talk is negative, it’s holding you back from achieving your dreams and can certainly be a cause of things such as depression, feeling like you have no control over you life, and an inability to feel happiness.

Here’s an exercise for you in positivity training - you are going to need to expand your awareness somewhat if you haven’t done this before. Today stop and take note of how you react to situations and be aware of what your little voice says to you as you go about your daily activities. Pay particular attention to how you react when other people speak to you, when you receive feedback directly relating to you or something you have done and when you see other people enjoying something you want.

You may be very surprised to notice that your self-talk is terrible and you spend a lot of your day beating yourself up over your inabilities, inadequacies and perceived failures. It’s amazing how easy it is to be down on your life and reinforce that attitude by telling yourself that it’s all your fault or you are just not “lucky” or you have no talents whatsoever. What is the “truth” doesn’t matter, what is important is to change your attitude, react positively AND think positively.

By changing the dialogue in your mind you become the greatest life coach you could ever have. Your trainer will be with you at all times, ready to pick you up no matter how bad your reality is. Then, and here’s where the magic really starts to happen, by simply telling yourself positive things and believing in positive outcomes you want and deserve they actually start to manifest. Whether it’s an active result of your positive attitude, a subconscious motivator or some great spiritual force doesn’t really matter (and all you negative-thinking skeptics will never experience this, not because it doesn’t work, but because you don’t change your attitude), what matters is that you will actually notice an improvement in two of the most important things in your life - you will feel great and you will start to achieve things you used to beat yourself up over because you lacked.

The Key To Happiness

During a particularly angsty period of my life searching for the meaning of it all I went looking online for answers. Who do you turn to when looking for answers? Why, Google of course.

I typed in “what is the meaning of life?” and came across one of my now favorite Web pages that I often refer people to when they are really down in the dumps and questioning everything. The page is mostly plain text and aptly titled for good search rankings although I doubt the author knows anything about SEO -

The Meaning of Life

This page attempts to answer quite a few questions and, while my intellectual side thoroughly enjoyed the discussion, it also helped remind me of a very simple fact -

You Choose To Be Happy

Happiness is ultimately not in anyone else’s hands or controlled by any external element at all. It’s purely a choice you can make. As often as I can, I choose to be happy. It’s not always as easy as that, but by undertaking to change the way you think and create an ongoing positive dialogue with yourself you are both working towards the same goals - that’s you and your little voice - both aiming for happiness.

Remember what the sidewalk tells us -

“You Deserve Happiness”

Yaro Starak
Happy

Popularity: 4% [?]

Anyone know Bob Parsons?  He runs a great domain-name registry company called GoDaddy.

Bob and I have followed somewhat similar paths through the years, and I’ve learned a lot from watching him and his companies succeed. Prior to GoDaddy, Bob started an amazingly succesful software company called Parsons Technology, and he was running it about the same time that I started up InfoSource, Inc., the online learning company for education, business, and government entities.

The following comes from a recent post at Bob’s blog at Bob Parsons.

Late in 2004, I was asked by BizAz Magazine (a local Phoenix magazine) to speak at one of its “Business Beneath The Surface” breakfast meetings. As part of the event, participants have the option of submitting questions to the speakers, which are then answered during the breakfast.

One of the questions directed toward me was, “What advice do you have for someone who is just starting a business?”

I liked Clint Eastwood’s rules.
Also at that time, I happened to pick up a copy of Men’s Journal. Clint Eastwood was on the cover and an article featured 10 items called “Clint’s rules.” I found his rules to be interesting. They were things like, “You are what you drive,” “avoid extreme makeovers,” and things like that. As Clint Eastwood is a pretty easy guy to respect, I thought the whole rule thing was pretty cool. And the more I thought about it, I realized that over the years I had accumulated a number of principles (or rules) that I tried very hard to adhere to — and these rules (in many ways) have become the foundation for whatever successes I’ve had.

So, a few weeks before the meeting, I sat down and started typing — in no particular order — the rules I try to live by. At the breakfast meeting, I read my rules at the end of my presentation. The response was amazing. I was swamped with requests for copies of the rules. An edited list was published in the Arizona Republic newspaper a few days later. I was even called and interviewed by a local radio station about the list.

Since then, some of the rules have been edited, some consolidated, and a few new ones added. Despite those changes, the list of rules I presented that morning are pretty much what appears at the end of this post.

My rules come from the significant life events I’ve experienced.
As I write this, I am now 54 years old, and during my life thus far I suspect that I’ve encountered more significant life events than most people ever dream about. Here’s some information about me:

I grew up in a lower middle class family in Baltimore’s inner city. We were always broke. I’ve earned everything I ever received. Very little was ever given to me.

I’ve been working as long as I can remember. Whether it was delivering or selling newspapers, pumping gas, working in construction or in a factory, I’ve always been making my own money.

And, of course, not all life events are happy ones.
I was stood up to be executed during a robbery of a gas station where I was working when I was 16. To my amazement, my would-be executioner could not muster the nerve to pull the trigger. This saved both of us. I lived, and while he went to jail, he did not go there forever. Even though there were other witnesses to the gas station robbery and assault, and other crimes he and a partner committed, I was the only one who testified against them. They both received major jail sentences.

I was with a United States Marine Corps rifle company in Viet Nam for a short while in 1969. As a combat rifleman, I learned several key life lessons that resulted in some of the rules I try to live by. I learned first hand how significant a role “luck” or karma can play in our lives. The rifle company I was assigned to, Delta Company of the 1st Batallion, 26th Marines, operated in the rice paddys of Quang Nam province. We operated on the squad level (7 to 10 of us, depending on casualties), and most every night we left our command post and went several kilometers out into the rice paddys and set up in ambush. While there are many who saw significantly more combat action than me, I did see my share. After 5 or 6 weeks, I was wounded and medevaced to Japan. I returned to Viet Nam several times after that, but came back as a courier of classified documents. Although I requested (at least twice) to return to my old rifle company, the transfer was never approved.

After the Marine Corps, I used the G.I. Bill to attend college, and graduated from the University of Baltimore with a degree in accounting. I attended college mostly at night. After college, I took and passed the CPA exam. I worked only a few years as an accountant. The lion’s share of my career has been spent as an entrepreneur.

I’ve been very lucky when it comes to business.
I started a successful business division for a company called LeaseAmerica. During the four years I was involved with this business, it grew to 84 employees and wrote over $150 million dollars in small office equipment leases. Its success helped redefine how business in that industry is now conducted.

Not long after I started the division for LeaseAmerica, I started a software company in the basement of my house. I started it with the little bit of money I had, and named it Parsons Technology. I owned this business for 10 years, grew it to about 1,000 employees and just shy of $100 million a year in sales. Eventually, we sold Parsons Technology to a company named Intuit. Because my then-wife and I were the only investors, and the company had no debt, we received the entire purchase price.

Shortly after selling Parsons Technology, my wife and I decided to go our separate ways and did the customary “divide everything by two.” I then moved to Arizona and retired for a year. This was a requirement of my deal with Intuit.

Retirement was not for me.
Retirement wasn’t for me, so after the mandatory year passed, and using the money I had from the sale of Parsons Technology, I started a new business. This business eventually became The Go Daddy Group. I started this business from scratch, did it without acquisitions, and developed our own products. In the process, I came spooky close to losing everything I had, and actually made the decision to “lose it all” rather than close Go Daddy. Today, Go Daddy is the world leader in new domain name registrations, and has been cash flow positive since October 2001 (not bad for a dot com). As of this writing, I continue to be the only investor in Go Daddy.

Throughout all of these life events, I came to accumulate a number of rules that I look to in various situations. Some of them I learned the hard way. Others I learned from the study of history. I know they work because I have applied them in both my business and personal life.

And one more thing.
I’ve read many times that original ideas are rare indeed. This is particularly true when it comes to the rules herein. I can’t imagine that any of my rules represent new ideas.

My contribution is that I’ve assembled these ideas, put them to work in my life, and can attest — that more often than not — they hold true.

While I put my 16 rules together in response to a business question, I’ve been told by others that they can be applied to almost any pursuit.

Here are the 16 rules I try to live by:

1. Get and stay out of your comfort zone. I believe that not much happens of any significance when we’re in our comfort zone. I hear people say, “But I’m concerned about security.” My response to that is simple: “Security is for cadavers.”

2. Never give up. Almost nothing works the first time it’s attempted. Just because what you’re doing does not seem to be working, doesn’t mean it won’t work. It just means that it might not work the way you’re doing it. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, and you wouldn’t have an opportunity.

3. When you’re ready to quit, you’re closer than you think. There’s an old Chinese saying that I just love, and I believe it is so true. It goes like this: “The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.”

4. With regard to whatever worries you, not only accept the worst thing that could happen, but make it a point to quantify what the worst thing could be. Very seldom will the worst consequence be anywhere near as bad as a cloud of “undefined consequences.” My father would tell me early on, when I was struggling and losing my shirt trying to get Parsons Technology going, “Well, Robert, if it doesn’t work, they can’t eat you.”

5. Focus on what you want to have happen. Remember that old saying, “As you think, so shall you be.”

6. Take things a day at a time. No matter how difficult your situation is, you can get through it if you don’t look too far into the future, and focus on the present moment. You can get through anything one day at a time.

7. Always be moving forward. Never stop investing. Never stop improving. Never stop doing something new. The moment you stop improving your organization, it starts to die. Make it your goal to be better each and every day, in some small way. Remember the Japanese concept of Kaizen. Small daily improvements eventually result in huge advantages.

8. Be quick to decide. Remember what General George S. Patton said: “A good plan violently executed today is far and away better than a perfect plan tomorrow.”

9. Measure everything of significance. I swear this is true. Anything that is measured and watched, improves.

10. Anything that is not managed will deteriorate. If you want to uncover problems you don’t know about, take a few moments and look closely at the areas you haven’t examined for a while. I guarantee you problems will be there.

11. Pay attention to your competitors, but pay more attention to what you’re doing. When you look at your competitors, remember that everything looks perfect at a distance. Even the planet Earth, if you get far enough into space, looks like a peaceful place.

12. Never let anybody push you around. In our society, with our laws and even playing field, you have just as much right to what you’re doing as anyone else, provided that what you’re doing is legal.

13. Never expect life to be fair. Life isn’t fair. You make your own breaks. You’ll be doing good if the only meaning fair has to you, is something that you pay when you get on a bus (i.e., fare).

14. Solve your own problems. You’ll find that by coming up with your own solutions, you’ll develop a competitive edge. Masura Ibuka, the co-founder of SONY, said it best: “You never succeed in technology, business, or anything by following the others.” There’s also an old Asian saying that I remind myself of frequently. It goes like this: “A wise man keeps his own counsel.”

15. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Lighten up. Often, at least half of what we accomplish is due to luck. None of us are in control as much as we like to think we are.

16. There’s always a reason to smile. Find it. After all, you’re really lucky just to be alive. Life is short. More and more, I agree with my little brother. He always reminds me: “We’re not here for a long time; we’re here for a good time.”

A special word of thanks.
I owe a special thanks to Brian Dunn. When I first wrote these rules down and was thinking about compiling them into a book — that book, like most books I suppose, has been half-done for a while — Brian read them and suggested a title. His suggestion was, “They Can’t Eat You.” I like Brian’s suggestion for two reasons: 1. It reminds me of my Dad. I sure miss him; and 2. It’s true. No matter how difficult things get, you’re going to be OK. It’s very important to realize that. Thanks, Brian.

The above rules for survival are included with the permission of Bob Parsons and is Copyright © 2004-2006 by Bob Parsons. All rights reserved.

Popularity: 2% [?]

I have a friend, Eldon Sarte, who’s crazy for golf.

He lives it, breathes it, reads about it, studies it, watches it, photographs it, and whenever he can . . . he plays it.

But, there are two catches in the perfect story about Eldon and his love for golf.

First off, he’s not really all that good (sorry Eldon, hope you’re not reading this).  He won’t make the pro circuit and he doesn’t have the patience to be a teacher.

Secondly, he’s married, has a mortgage, and needs to buy groceries from time to time.

So, what’s a golf addict to do?

Build a website and a blog, of course!

You can find Eldon’s at Human Golf.

There you’ll discover a growing collection of golf tips, articles, ebooks and many other resources on just about every aspect of the game, all geared, of course, to helping you improve and do better at it.  Don’t ask me if they work . . . I’m happy I gave up the game years ago!

Eldon has a number of web properties, and he makes his money by charging advertisers for space on his sites, but his most promising is HumanGolf.

So, maybe it will work for Eldon — making enough money from HumanGolf so that he can get his own human out on the golf course full time.

Popularity: 7% [?]

As part of one of my own dream jobs, where I’m the Chief Schemer (see About the Author for details), I’m on the lookout to buy interesting and full-of-traffic ezines, blogs, or websites aimed at teachers (K-12).

If you know of any such creatures, and they really do have a significant level of traffic (if an ezine, must have over 10,000 readers, and if a website or blog, must rank in the Top 100,000 per Alexa), please send me an email at blog@dreamjobsdialog.com.

Thanks for your help.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Dream Jobs and how to find them . . . if you remember from an earlier post, I mentioned that there are several steps to go through in finding your perfect job.

And, it all starts with a passion.  That’s Step 1 — Finding that passion.  (You can learn more about the Dream Job Process by clicking here.)

But what if you don’t know what that burning desire is? Or, as my teenage daughters tell me: Dad, I don’t have a clue.

Well, there are many ways to get a clue (and we all have them, even if they are buried deep inside), and I’ll talk about several of those techniques in upcoming posts.

One of the best ways, though, is to try different things until something clicks.

Even after I’d left graduate school and was working full-time in my Climb-The-Corporate-Ladder world,  I knew that I wanted to work for myself.  I had absolutely zero idea what that meant, or what field it would be in, but I did know that I needed to be in charge of my own destiny.

So, let me tell you about my Big Failure #1 and what I learned from it.

No one likes to fail, and I’m a very competitive person, so it’s unusually tough on me when I don’t succeed.

Let me take you back to the 1970s and the waning years of the hippy era.  Ever hear of Andino Imports?  Nope, didn’t think so.

Well, that was my first (ad)venture at self-employment.

Back then,  handmade clothing, and especially embroidered shirts, was the rage . . . they were muslin (soft cotton) material with bright colored designs on the chest or shoulders.  Cool shirts.  Everyone seemed to have a couple and wanted more.

At any rate, I’d been travelling a lot in South America and had many contacts in Ecuador where the best of these shirts were made. So, a college buddy of mine, Jerry Jones, and I figured we’d just corner the market in our little part of the world, Indiana, with imported/embroidered shirts.

Sounded good.  We’d buy up these things, which were selling at retail for about $20, for about $2 each, and sell them to the retailer for $10. Yup, so far so good.

And, it was good.  We even, smart guys that we just knew we were, went out to solicit some orders before we made our first buying trip to Ecuador. That even went better than we could have believed . . . not only did we get several boutiques to pre-order a few dozen shirts here and there, but we got the kahuna of kahunas (The Ayre Way chain of discount stores — sort of a forerunner to today’s Target) to take an order for 5,000 shirts.

I don’t recall our initial buying quantity, but I believe, including the Ayre Way order, it was around 6,500 shirts.

So, at $8 profit per shirt, we were looking at bringing in around $52,000, just from one trip . . . that was more than my pal and I would make in our day jobs for the next three years — combined.

We were pumped, practicing our Spanish, and ready to begin on the journey to the next great international fashion empire.

But, come back next time where I’ll tell you how and when this thing started to head south . . . literally.

Popularity: 11% [?]