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You don’t know anyone at the party, so you don’t want to go. You don’t like cottage cheese, so you haven’t eaten it in years. This is your choice, of course, but don’t kid yourself: it’s also the flinch. Your personality is not set in stone. You may think a morning coffee is the most enjoyable thing in the world, but it’s really just a habit. Thirty days without it, and you would be fine. You think you have a soul mate, but in fact you could have had any number of spouses. You would have evolved differently, but been just as happy. You can change what you want about yourself at any time. You see yourself as someone who can’t write or play an instrument, who gives in to temptation or makes bad decisions, but that’s really not you. It’s not ingrained. It’s not your personality. Your personality is something else, something deeper than just preferences, and these details on the surface, you can change anytime you like. If it is useful to do so, you must abandon your identity and start again. Sometimes, it’s the only way. Set fire to your old self. It’s not needed here. It’s too busy shopping, gossiping about others, and watching days go by and asking why you haven’t gotten as far as you’d like. This old self will die and be forgotten by all but family, and replaced by someone who makes a difference. Your new self is not like that. Your new self is the Great Chicago Fire—overwhelming, overpowering, and destroying everything that isn’t necessary.

Julien Smith

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Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Steve Jobs

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Why do you dwell on things that don’t matter when there are so many things that do?

Dennis Sharpe

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Here's What No One Tells You About Living Abroad

I’m typing this from the seat of a plane and as I brace myself to permanently move back to Ecuador for the first time in what seems a lifetime, I look back and I know that shrinking my live into four bags (I can’t believe how much I had to pay for those extra two bags) and leaving Jersey City was truly one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make (ironically, making the decision of coming to study abroad felt the same way). Moving away, even though heartbreaking can turn your life into an adventure and suddenly you find yourself rethinking what “home” really means. You find out that home is wherever you left pieces of yourself in and not necessarily where you were born in. Living abroad and building a new life somewhere else makes you humbly grow as a person and broadens your horizons. One of the most important things I learned about living abroad is how to unlearn the bad things and embrace the exciting new things from your new home. Unlearning breeds change and constant evolution, which is what I want from my life. To always be open to new experiences and to constantly grow as a person. I’m starting to realize that I’ll probably always feel homesick from now on, never completely feeling at home because home is where your heart is and mine belongs to both places now. Living abroad completely changed my life; I’ve to build memories that will stay with me forever. Down in my gut, I know I can never miss one place over the other, but what I really miss is a strange and magical mixture of both places. This past couple of years I shared my life with special ones (you know who you are!). I’ve lived happy and very sad memories and I am extremely grateful for each and every one of them and also for the awesome people I met along the way. Living abroad is something that, if you let it, will crumble down your most trusted dogmas and is bound to make you feel fear and uncertainty on a daily basis -at least for a while until you get comfortable with your new home again. But it is also bound to make you stronger and wiser. For me, it boils down to truly appreciating being alive and able to experience it all, the good and the bad. For the second time now, I know what it means to give up my comfort zone, what starting from nothing feels like, only now I’m not fighting and dreading the whole experience but actually embracing the conflict of feelings in my chest. This time, I feel a little bit wiser and a little bit more optimistic. I don’t see myself locked down in one place anymore but open to all. I’m a citizen of the world now and it being so beautiful and exciting how could I ever decide not to live life at the fullest? I want to again thank all the people I met during my years at Saint Peter’s and know this will not be the last time that we hear from each other (you can always visit and I most certainly will). Special mention to 861 Montgomery, Durant 06 and the tennis house! I’m not going to mention names because if I would this post would suddenly turn into a book and it’s already longer than I wanted to be in the first place. Love you all and cheers! - I’m having a glass of vodka and orange juice as I finish typing this.

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Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.

Goethe

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5 THINGS YOU ABSOLUTELY NEED TO KNOW BEFORE STARTING A NEW BUSINESS

The word entrepreneur is highly misinterpreted. Most of the stories and testimonials you hear on the media talk about the results of years of effort and sacrifice; the spotlight is always on the aftermath but never on the journey that led to success. Eric Ries, one of my favorite authors on the subject of entrepreneurship, defines a startup as a “human institution designed to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.” This means the entrepreneur is putting everything on the line (career, financial savings, etc.) risking it all in the name of an idea, product or service. Contrary to what the mainstream media says, being an entrepreneur doesn’t happen overnight. No one can guarantee the success of a new business; however, you can work on important key factors to tip the scale in your favor.

Don’t buckle down without a plan:

This one sounds pretty obvious right? However, you would be surprised by how many people do not consider some type of business plan with at least an exit strategy, current strategy, milestones, tasks and basic responsibilities. In his books, Eric Ries criticizes old fashioned business plans defining them as obsolete. On the other hand, I still think for those who are starting a new venture, writing a well detailed plan is an essential step to take. You don’t necessarily need to create a 40+ page document but it is important to have a business plan detailing the crucial factors about your business. According to Eric Ries, one of the questions you should be eager to answer about your business idea is not “can we build it?” but “should we build it?” and your business plan should help answer this question. Today’s business plans should be growing exponentially, just like the lean startup concept.

Don’t be afraid of making mistakes:

When you start a new business, everything you have in your plan should be considered an assumption. In order to be a successful entrepreneur, you have to create and maintain a proactive mindset. This also means applying yourself to “validated learning” which is going to be the engine that drives your business forward. Validated learning means focusing on actions that lead you to learn what works and what doesn’t. It also means to take failure as an opportunity to pivot and proactively learn from the situation. Focus on a Build-Measure-Learn loop and know that being wrong about your assumptions is part of the process.

Don’t forget about living costs:

So many people don’t take this one seriously enough. Remember that in order for everything else in your plan to work you have to take care of yourself first – and that means personal expenses such as health insurance, rent, food, mortgages, etc. My advice is either to save enough money for living costs before starting your new venture or consider taking a part time job to guarantee a steady stream of cash into your pocket until things get going with your business.

Get out of your house:

After all your research about your product or service you should still get out there and search for potential customers to study them in detail. Most people, build their product/service, launch it to the market and then find out whether or not everyone wants to buy it. In my opinion, this approach is highly inefficient. We shouldn’t aim to quickly build an idea into a business to simply see what happens. Successful entrepreneurs get out there, research and discover which assumptions of their business plans are working, which ones are misguided, and then adapt their business plan accordingly.

Work on a MVP:

The MVP or a minimum viable product is going to help you prove whether or not your idea is serving a pain point or particular need. The MVP differs from a prototype in that MVPs focus on the minimum set of features necessary for a launch to the market. MVP serves as a way to test the product or service at the earliest stage so you don’t waste money and valuable time in learning whether or not you need to change your set of assumptions.

A world where you can make money out of following your passion is no longer reserved for the few.  These are the lessons I’ve learned through the experiences of others and there are many more out there. In my opinion, the best way to learn is through the insight of people that are doing what you love but are ahead of you in the game. Please comment on our social media and share your thoughts on any lesson you wish you knew before starting your new business!

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7 USEFUL WEBSITES FOR ENTREPRENEURS

There is a ton of information and websites out there exclusively dedicated to the subject of entrepreneurship. Knowing this can be overwhelming, I have selected my personal favorites that I think can be considered as valuable resources for entrepreneurs. I am constantly checking on them to stay in touch with everything I need to know on how to run a business efficiently. These websites are relevant for any type of entrepreneur – whether you are just starting a new business or you already have one up and running.

Allbusiness.com

This site has been acclaimed as one of the best online resources for small businesses, offering a large range of tools to start and manage your new business. They feature stories that show real world examples from small business owners dealing with all kinds of issues.

Ted.com

I find TED talks extremely educating, insightful, and relevant to anyone who wants to become a better leader in his or her field. Today, the talks cover almost all topics from entrepreneurship to leadershipand motivation. In addition, every year they offer a TED Prize of $1 million to a leader with a powerful idea to change the world.

SmartUp

SmartUp is a fun app to test and improve your entrepreneurial and business knowledge with games, quizzes, case studies and simulations on product development, financing trends, marketing, sales, growth and much more. This awesome app is for both current and future entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneur.com

This one sounds pretty obvious. However, this site is definitely going to help entrepreneurs stay in touch with the latest tips and news from our ever changing business world.

Coursera.org

An awesome educational resource for every type of entrepreneur, Coursera provides easy access to the world’s best education, partnering with the best schools to offer classes online. They are focused on many relevant subjects such as data science, finance and entrepreneurship.

Startupcompanylawyer.com

A perfect site for getting basic legal knowledge on everything related to entrepreneurship. Yokum Taku, a very successful startup lawyer in Palo Alto CA, has filled his site with useful and practical advice for entrepreneurs, including filling for incorporation, stock options, founders stock, seed financing, series A financing, IPO planning and M&A issues.

Startuplessonslearned.com

This one is a brilliant blog created by Eric Ries and is a result of his many years of experience as an entrepreneur. Eric Ries, author of the critically acclaimed book “The Lean Start Up”, writes about entrepreneurship and the whole process of starting a new company from scratch with an innovative and unique approach.

The list I picked up for you should be used only as a reference. These are the websites I have collected over the years, and they personally adapt to my needs and interests as an entrepreneur.  Of course, the most useful website is always going to be the one that fits better to your particular needs. So, if after reading this article you still feel you could find a better resource, by all means go out there and search for the one that suits you perfectly. Please feel free to leave your comments below, and tell me what your favorite resources are as well!

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THE 5 SECONDS RULE 

Hey guys, it’s me again – I just saw Mel’s Robbins TEDxSF Talk and think her 5 seconds rule is pretty awesome.  Here’s a summary of the key concepts covered during her talk – hope you like it! 1) When it comes to any particular commitment, you are loosing your time waiting to “feel” like doing it. In my experience that almost never happens and if it does, its rare. Everyone is wired to seek short term rewards, hence, the reason for it to be so difficult to stick to commitments that yield long term rewards.  2) Habits are extremely important in our life because they have the power to make us extraordinary or average. Procrastination, poor time management, self-doubt and fear of change are all habits that we can destroy. It is just a matter of breaking the habit and replacing it with a new one. 3) She also talks about controlling our impulses – stating that the moment an impulse to act arises, we have 5 seconds to respond before it is too late and our brain kills the impulse. In my opinion, that’s also a powerful way of breaking the corrosive habit of self-doubt and hesitation.  4) The 5 seconds rule is intended as a rule to reinforce good and positive behaviors/habits. It should be use for instances where you would normally hesitate or act negatively.  In summary, she wants to spread her idea about using a system that works wonders for her and a lot of people. I believe that a productive and successful life is most of the time based on those little seconds of hesitation and the small decisions that come out of them. 

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Hi There,

This is my first post as a blogger. I hope you people consider me a decent writer even though I do not do it often. I prefer to read but only because I’m too much of a perfectionist to be able to write without stressing out about the quality of the content. I started reading a lot when I was a little kid. I remember one of the first books that I ever read was “Mi planta de naranja lime” which means my plant of orange-lime. I don’t remember much about the story but I guess the title of the book stayed with me for some reason. After that one, many more books came from different subjects such as fiction, self-mastery, history, business and psychology but I was reading mostly science fiction. It wasn’t until I started to mature as a reader that I found out that I could take my passion for reading fiction stories like the “Dark Tower Series by Stephen King (which by the way is my favorite) and apply it to different reading genres. Enough about me for today, now I feel like I should talk about time management and how clearly important it is for a successful, balanced and productive life. I must confess I struggle a bit too much with it but in case anyone is interested I highly recommend “Zen To Be Done” by Leo Babauta. I thought it was a concise and simplified version of some of the teachings Stephen Covey expresses in his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” (which I also recommend). Effective time management determines your ability to Carpe Diem, which obviously we should all aim to do if we want to get things done in this immensely short period of existence that we call life. I believe time is our most valuable resource but, ironically, we tend to waste it. I wonder why is it that must people find it extremely challenging to seize the present and quit living as if they had all the time in the world.