Here’s a quick video tour of our office in Phoenix.
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I have discovered something about myself that I find quite interesting. I’m really passionate about creating residual income. I’ve figured out that it’s one of my core beliefs.
As a core belief, it is also something that I strive to persuade my friends into achieving.
I think that most people in this world go about their lives content to earn a salary. They might earn $30,000 a year, or maybe a lot more, like $85,000 (insert your salary here). They spend a good portion of their lives going about this, but probably around 2,000 hours each year.
I haven’t been able to create many streams of residual income yet in my life, but I’m working on a web application that could become my primary means of income if it is popular.
The point of this post is really an observation: If you typically spend about 2,000 hours in a year generating a paycheck, what would happen if you devoted 10% of that time to building something that you could sell over and over again?
Let’s imagine you put 200 hours into building a widget. Let’s imagine that your widget can be reasonably sold to 1,000 people over the course of 5 years. If your widget made you $100 each time you sold it, you would have made an extra $100,000. Not a bad return on investment for 200 hours.
Taking this one step further, for all of you people who are stuck in jobs doing things for other people. Isn’t it about time that you stopped and invested some time back into a project of your own? People have GREAT ideas every single day yet they never invest the time to actually make them a reality.
I’m more than guilty of doing this myself. I get stuck in the middle of projects for clients (and don’t get me wrong, I love it! I get to learn about all kinds of businesses, and expand both my business acumen as well as my technical skills making web sites). But I never forget that I’m building their business. Not mine.
Who’s business are you building?
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I just took the Superhero Quiz and it agrees with the popular consensus. I am Superman.
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You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.  |
Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test
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This is a note to let you all know that I already have a 2007 Lighthouse Calendar. Yup, I got mine a few weeks early this year. It’s only December 18th and I have mine already. Lucky me! So if you had this on your list to purchase for me, as a gift. It might be a good idea to think about something else. Maybe ear muffs, or a lantern.
Oh, I already have a Journal. Got that, too. It’s got a thousand pages in it that are empty. Just crying to be filled up with my thoughts. Ooops, I have about 6 blogs for that.
Maybe I’ll use it to draw designs.
The things that I haven’t received yet but am expecting: a small assortment of hot sauces. Another lighthouse calendar. And lastly, but not to be forgotten, socks.
Seasons greetings!
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Well, it’s been half of a year since I told any good stories here on my site. I haven’t really had any good ones. It seems that the more I work, the less stories I have. If I go out and do something I have a million stories to tell.
I’ve discovered that I am an introvert. I took a personality test which pretty much defined me as such (the opposite is an extrovert, so you’re either one or the other), and I’m in agreement. I never thought of myself as an introvert before now. It’s something I actually looked down upon as a weakness.
Observations:
- I tend to dislike social situations, unless I know most of the people and have known them for a long time.
- I’m in a sales position, and cannot for the life of me figure out how that happened considering my personality.
- This may explain why I’m not that excited about sites like MySpace.com and Facebook. Plus, it explains why I have so few friends on there.
- I hold a lot in.
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This one is from December, 2005:
Years ago at my old job at marchFIRST we were all ushered into a small conference room one busy morning and it was announced that we would soon have a new boss. Since our current boss was also in the meeting it made for an awkward moment. And then we found out that our current boss would be staying, too.
“Oh great, now I have two bosses!” all of us were thinking.
Our new boss was named Jon.
Jon started a little less than a week later and on his first day he made the rounds in our small cubicle farm (the creative department consisted at that time of about 7-8 people). When he approached my desk I said hello and then he pointed at a CD on my desk and said “I designed that CD cover.”
The CD in question was “Repeat the Sounding Joy” which is a Christmas track. You could call it a classic or an annoyance depending on how many times you’ve listened to it. I still like it.
Now here’s where it gets awkward because instead of having the actual CD with me I had an inkjet print of the original cover and a CD I had burned. My original was at home.
“Oh, well, this is just a copy I made from my other disk” I explained.
“Oh, sure” he replied.
Great way to meet a new boss.
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I hear that the new Superman movie doesn’t really shine. We all know why, of course. It’s because they didn’t get me to play the part. Even I could have predicted that!
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Around 10 o’clock this morning I was returning from a meeting when I decided to get a bite to eat. An early lunch! Much better than eating at 4 pm (like I tend to do). I had never tried this one coffee shop over on Washington by the freeway, so I stopped in.
I decided that as often as I can when I order a coffee I would order a doppio macchiato. For a couple of reasons: Firstly, because I feel like that’s how a true coffee professional would test a coffee shops aptitude for coffee preparation. The second is because I’m a growing fan of that drink which is two shots of espresso with a dollop of foam.
One thing about the word doppio. It means double in Italian, but nobody even knows the term except Starbucks baristas. I may have to revert to saying double macchiato, instead.
So the coffee was fine and I went to Cousins next door to make my sandwich. They’ve got a different business model than Subway. They don’t prepare your sandwich in front of you, instead they prepare it back in the kitchen area. The other thing is that the sandwiches are 7 and a half inches long (Subways’ are six inches).
By mid-afternoon I was starved for food again and glanced to my left.”
“Hey Tom, you know what sounds good right now?” I asked. “Some pizza!”
“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing” he said.
We were in the car within a minute and headed over to this little pizza joint called Mama Mias Pizza (40th & Indian School). It was my first time there and just for kicks I decided to try some anchovies on my pizza. I’ve seen anchovies on the menu my entire life and never tried them.
I couldn’t convince Tom to even take a taste.
Anchovies are hugely overrated. But then again, I haven’t seen any ratings. They tasted like fishy little slugs with a lot of salt. Well, it wasn’t that bad! But I wouldn’t say they are amazing.
Since there were only a few places to sit we ended up sitting with this UPS delivery guy. He was telling us about how he drives around for 12 hours a day in his 1985 UPS Truck. There’s no air conditioning and no power stearing. Talk about a great way to strengthen your arm muscles!
We asked him if he listened to the radio much in the car and he said no. At least not since his radio fell out of the car when he made a sharp turn. He said that the truck comes with no accessories. Not even a radio.
It occured to me that more restaurants should have community tables where you get a chance to sit with new people. It’s such fun. You get a chance to ask them about their job and what they do.
Plus it was fun to tell him how the anchovies were all gooey inside.
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This is an old one from November 2005:
Five years ago when I had a real job I woke up early one morning and came into the office. I had prepared a couple of fun April Fools pranks which I had for some reason decided to pull in the middle of winter. Those who know me probably have figured out that this is not abnormal. Hey, I’ll do an April Fools prank every day of the year if I knew I could get a laugh out of it.
So I show up to work at 6 am and bring my materials to pull my pranks. I say pranks because I actually had two that day. I’m there early because I don’t want anyone to know who did it. In fact, nobody ever did find out.
I have printed signs I am going to place outside each elevator door on all levels including the parking garage.
The signs say “We have just completed our Winter cleaning. Please remove your shoes before entering.” They were signed The Management.
It was perfect. You should have heard the complaints. I hid in my cubicle listening to the receptionist and HR manager. Since they got in early I could hear them in the kitchen.
“Gosh, I just can’t believe the building management. They’re getting worse and worse.”
Other people complained and refused while others calmly complied with the written request.
That is, until all of the signs came down around noon. The building management took them all down — however the damage was already done and I had conned many people into removing their shoes.
Fun times. I need to pick a building and try that again.
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This is a story I wrote back in October 2005:
Down the street at La Grande Orange grocery store they have these wonderfal Spanish Latte’s that I love to get however I have one slight dilemma when I order my drink…
“What’s your name?”
“Chris”
“Last initial?”
“T”
Several minutes go by as I wait for my drink to be prepared and then I hear it.
“Spanish Latte for Chris T.”
Except instead of sounding like it should, the words blend together. So it sounds like a drink for Christy. As far as I know I’m the only name that has this type of problem. Drives me nuts.
So what did I do to resolve this problem? I started using different last initials. Like I’d say “M” or “W” or “P” and that would solve the problem.
Until…
I walk in last week and I order a Spanish Latte and apparently I’ve ordered from this woman before and she’s learned my name.
Yeah, you guessed it.
She says “It’s Chris, right? Chris M., or W??”
Not much you can say than “Um, yeah, M” and that’s the end of the story.
I suppose it’s not half as bad as the day I ordered coffee with shaving cream all over my face. Yeah, I’ll have to tell that story again sometime.
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