It continues to surprise me how many leaders attempt to be one way at work, while their “true” personality emerges outside of work. Once a CEO reminded me, “Leadership is acting.” And it surprises me when these same leaders seem shocked or confused when their employees don’t trust them, don’t like them, and can’t really wait to work elsewhere.
Authenticity has been explored throughout history, from Greek philosophers to the work of Shakespeare (“To thy own self be true.” –Polonius, Hamlet). Authentic leadership has been explored sporadically as part of modern management science, but found its highest levels of acceptance since Bill George’s 2003 book, Authentic Leadership.
While different theorists have different slants on the concept, most agree that:
1. Authentic leaders are self-aware and genuine. Authentic leaders are self-actualized individuals who are aware of their strengths, their limitations, and their emotions. They also show their real selves to their followers. They do not act one way in private and another in public; they don’t hide their mistakes or weaknesses out of fear of looking weak. They also realize that being self-actualized is an endless journey, never complete.
2. Authentic leaders are mission driven and focused on results. They are able to put the mission and the goals of the organization ahead of their own self-interest. They do the job in pursuit of results, not for their own power, money or ego.
3. Authentic leaders lead with their heart, not just their minds. They are not afraid to show their emotions, their vulnerability and to connect with their employees. This does not mean authentic leaders are “soft.” In fact communicating in a direct manner is critical to successful outcomes, but it’s done with empathy; directness without empathy is cruel.
4. Authentic leaders focus on the long-term. A key tenet in Bill George’s model is the company leaders are focused on long-term shareholder value, not in just beating quarterly estimates. Just as George did as CEO of MedtronicMDT +1.16%, and as Bezos has done for years at Amazon, leaders realize that to nurture individuals and to nurture a company requires hard work and patience, but the approach pays large dividends over time.
Everyone wants to be successful. Everyone dreams of it, and no one wants to get stuck in the average lifestyle that this country flaunts as the American dream. The truth about success is that it is something that only a small group of privileged people manages to experience. The 1% as this country calls it.
Being successful in life and living a life worthy of the name includes hardships and challenges that the average person can’t handle — which is why they end up average. The peasant mindset makes people believe that when you become successful and make lots of money that all your issues are solved and you are living an easy-breezy life. Unfortunately life isn’t a movie, and when success comes, things get hard.
But until then, to even attain any type of success in life, there is a journey that people must embark on. Some take that road and keep going, others get afraid and run back to the safety of lifestyle that keeps them feeling comfortable. There are hardships you need to overcome if you ever want to be successful and it is better to know about them beforehand so you know what to expect rather than to get blindsided by them on your journey.
Here are the 10 things you are going to have to overcome if you ever want to be successful. Best of luck to you, the odds are stacked against you, but the only one who can change that is you.
10. Procrastination
We live in a world where we love to procrastinate. It seems as if ADD has clawed its nimble fingers into all of us and we will do anything to delay something that we need to get done. Stop wasting your time with nonsense. We procrastinate because we are lazy or we fear a specific task because we are unsure of its outcome.
If you fear it, it is something that you need to get done for yourself and for your journey. It is essential for your growth to throw away the procrastination pigment, which is inside of you, and discipline yourself to get what you need done.
9. Limiting beliefs
When you venture out to do something or have any kind of dream, there will always be some internalized limitations. You are going to have some self doubt and feel like things are getting too hard or that they might not work, but if you succumb to these weak thoughts, they will actually become your reality.
Remember, if everyone listened to the negative advice of others, no one and nothing would really progress in this world. Block out all of the negativity that is around you and make the only limits there are in the world are the ones you set for yourself.
8. Bad environment
As the good old saying goes, you are who you surround yourself with. As Jim Rohn once said “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” Don’t be hesitant to limit time to or to cut off those who continually drag you down. Surround yourself with people who will push you and help you rather than those who will hold you down.
7. Lack of Motivation
If money is your end game, and that is all you are basing your journey around, you will fail because it’s not good enough motivation for you to get through. There has to be more than that, there has to be a meaning, a purpose and a sort of passion that will keep you up at night thinking about work.
Motivation is everything, and pushing yourself to achieve what you once thought was impossible is what makes it all worth it. And no money can ever buy that feeling.
6. Part-time dedication
Many people mistakenly believe that you can be successful by just half-assing it or by working on something in your free time. Unfortunately it’s not that simple and it doesn’t work that way. To be successful you have to constantly be working toward your goals. And not when it’s convenient for you, but all the time, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. It’s not a job, it’s a lifestyle.
5. Time is limited
You don’t have all the time in the world and opportunity rarely strikes twice. Every minute wasted is another missed chance to move closer to your dream. Time is not on your side and it is always working against you. Take advantage of every second you have because you will never get it back. Manage yourself and manage your time and you will be successful.
4. Lack of specific goals
The funny thing about life is that there really are no lazy people out there, there are just people who are lacking goals, and we decide to call them lazy. A goal, a dream, a future is what gives you a purpose to work toward something and get off your ass.
When you love what you do, and you progress with it, even through baby steps, that is when you begin exceling. Life is about fulfillment and progression, but with no goals you can’t have any of those. Have specific goals and know exactly what you want out of them. Have short-term goals and long-term ones too.
3. Settling for less
People love to be content, they love settling for what is in front of them and feeling somewhat accomplished. Why do you think you don’t deserve the best and the most out of life? You do. And to get it, you just need to want it.
How much is enough? It’s never enough. Never settle; there will always be a new bar to set, a higher bar and once you have gotten there — keep going. Life is too short to take a break or to think that you are accomplished; there is always something else to conquer.
2. Lack of persistence
The most successful people are the ones that never give up and persist in reaching their goals and dreams. It’s about knocking on 7 doors, getting rejected, but not giving up and succeeding at the 8th door. It’s about constantly trying and never stopping. Some of the most successful people in the world are the greatest failures, but what separated them is that they never stopped trying.
1. Failure
Last but not least, one of the biggest things you are going to have to overcome is failure and this is where most people let go of their dreams. Most people will fail once, get discouraged and walk away, whereas others will treat it as a stepping stone and view it as a lesson to keep building upon — and that is what separates those who make it from those who don’t.
If you ever thought being successful is something easy, then you have another thing coming to you. Treat all failures as lessons, they are just stepping stones you must pass on your journey toward success!
From his time as Vice President, to his run against George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore has always been looked at as the underdog and a common man’s hero. So how the hell did he amass such a fortune?
When he was running for President, Gore wasn’t even a multi-millionaire. According to Bloomberg, he has since garnered a net worth that “may exceed $200 million.”
Gore is said to have netted about $70 million in Current TV’s sale to Al Jazeera in January, which is slightly less than the $100 million earning that was initially reported from the controversial deal.
Also in January, Gore exercised options on 59,000 shares of Apple Stock because of his service as a board member since 2003. Receiving them at $7.48 per share, he was able to make approximately $30 million on the deal.
Now, Gore’s wealth is comparable to that of Mitt Romney, whose net worth and snobbish attitude were a turnoff to many voters during the 2012 Presidential election.
So what separates former Vice President Gore from the other mega-millionaires in Washington?
For one, Gore’s track record as VP speaks for itself. Serving as a part of one of the most beloved Presidential terms of all-time, Gore and President Clinton united a normally divided country.
Beyond that, his work after losing the controversial 2000 Presidetnial election on raising global warming awareness earned Gore the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
Gore’s success and accumulated wealth are results of his hard work, luck and timing; and not from anything malicious.
Despite this, Gore says democracy has been “hacked” by the influence of money in politics.
“That is what has been happening to American democracy,” Gore said. “They have not been able to regulate these phony baloney financial derivatives that caused the financial crisis. They voted to invade Iraq even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Unfortunately there are a lot of examples. They can’t pass a budget. I can’t keep the country from facing financial danger and the main reason is simple, the influence of the money is at un-healthy levels.”
Stefan Olander, head of Nike’s three-year-old Digital Sport division, is watching a group of his engineers hack an experiment together. They’re using a pair of Nike trainers with embedded sensors. The sensors measure pressure created when the shoes, which happen to be on the feet of a lanky product manager named Brandon Burroughs, strike the ground. The data are collected and then fed wirelessly to an iPhone; the iPhone is plugged into a MacBook; the MacBook’s screen features a program that is busily imitating a 1987 Nintendo video game called Track & Field II. Which brings us to the ostensible goal of all this madness: finding out if new-age sensors and wireless devices work with an ancient video game.
That’s why Burroughs, who is outfitted head to toe in Nike attire, is crouched in anticipation like a runner before a starter pistol is fired. Suddenly, a whistle screams from the MacBook–it’s the game’s signal that a steeplechase “race” has begun–and Burroughs starts sprinting in place. It isn’t pretty. He’s panting heavily. He’s been at this for a while and is clearly spent. His feet thud against the carpet like a clumsy drumroll as his crude avatar lurches forward on screen. And he’s doing all this in a big, clean, stark corporate lab full of engineers, which isn’t very glamorous. But the experiment is working, sort of: As his avatar nears the first hurdle, Burroughs leaps too late, leading his digital self to trip and tumble into a pixelated pool of water. “Arrrrrrr!” yells Burroughs. “Come on!”
Olander, who bears a distracting resemblance to Matthew McConaughey and looks fit enough to have cleared that hurdle with ease, jokes that the only problem here is that Burroughs “is not very fast.” He actually loves that the group is “just mucking about and having fun,” as he puts it. “Really cool stuff can come from the opportunity to test without constraints.” And that, in sum, is innovation, Nike-style: a messy, exhausting process culled from myriad options and countless failures.
Nike CEO Mark Parker.
In 2012, Nike’s experimentation yielded two breakout hits. The first is the FuelBand, a $150 electronic bracelet that measures your movements throughout the day, whether you play tennis, jog, or just walk to work. The device won raves for its elegant design and a clean interface that lets users track activity with simple color cues (red for inactive; green if you’ve achieved your daily goal). Press its one button for a scrolling stock ticker of how many calories you’ve burned, the number of steps you’ve taken, and your total NikeFuel points, a proprietary metric of activity that Nike encourages you to share online. The FuelBand is the clearest sign that Nike has transformed itself into a digital force. “Nike has broken out of apparel and into tech, data, and services, which is so hard for any company to do,” says Forrester Research analyst Sarah Rotman Epps.
The other innovation is the Flyknit Racer, featherlight shoes that feel more like a sock atop a sole. Created from knit threading rather than multiple layers of fabric, it required a complete rethink of Nike’s manufacturing process. The result is a shoe that’s more environmentally friendly and could reduce long-term production costs. “Flyknit could turn the [shoe] industry on its head,” says Nike sustainability VP Hannah Jones.
To produce even one of these innovations in a given year is a rarity for any company, especially one with 44,000 employees. But Nike CEO Mark Parker knows he can’t just rely on celebrity endorsements and the power of the swoosh when confronted by big-name competitors such as Adidas and upstarts like Jawbone and Fitbit. “One of my fears is being this big, slow, constipated, bureaucratic company that’s happy with its success,” he says. “Companies fall apart when their model is so successful that it stifles thinking that challenges it. It’s like what the Joker said–‘This town needs an enema.’ When needed, you’ve got to apply that enema, so to speak.”
Every CEO says this kind of thing (minus the enema part). The difference is that Parker delivers. Last year, Nike’s annual revenue hit $24 billion, up 60% since he took over the reins as CEO in 2006. Profits are up 57%, and Nike’s market cap has more than doubled. This story is about how he has achieved that growth, and how he has driven a commitment to the company’s culture. Nike is a business with much corporate lore, that lovely, misty story of how a bunch of renegades with a waffle iron bucked the system and revolutionized an industry. But a close examination of the development of Flyknit and the FuelBand, based on interviews with top Nike executives, current and former designers, engineers, and longtime collaborators, reveals four distinct rules that guide this company, that allow it to take big risks, that push it to adapt before competitors force it to change.
Rule #1: TO DISRUPT, YOU MUST GO ALL-IN
What makes Flyknit so truly disruptive is that it isn’t a shoe–it’s a way to make shoes. As the team members who spent four years developing the technology like to say, they’re “breaking the sewing machine.” The old Nike model involved cutting rolls of prewoven material into pieces, and then stitching and assembling them. But with Flyknit, a shoe’s upper and tongue can be knit from polyester yarns and cables, which “gets rid of all the unnecessary excesses,” says Ben Shaffer, studio director at the Innovation Kitchen, Nike’s R&D center. The Flyknit Racer, one of the first shoes in the Flyknit line, is 5.6 ounces, roughly an ounce lighter than its counterparts. Nike uses only as much thread as it needs in production, and the shoe can be micro-engineered–tightened here, stretched there–to improve durability and fit.
Parker clearly has big expectations for Flyknit, telling shareholders it “is one of those technologies that has incredible potential, not only within running, but across multiple categories.” That’s a massive bet given Nike’s dominance of the athletic-shoe business, where, for example, it owns half the running market and a whopping 92% of the U.S. basketball shoe business. And Nike has gone all-in on that bet, building a whole new manufacturing process around the product. “Does this change our business model in some cases, or our supply chain? Absolutely,” Parker says.
Shaffer shows me some of the 195 major iterations the Flyknit went through as we tour the Kitchen. Some appear as rudimentary as a ballerina’s slipper. The prototype that marathon runner Paula Radcliffe marked with scribbles now looks like a rejected Project Runway design. Nike’s ambitions for Flyknit can be seen in the trays full of feet that live in tall carts around the Kitchen. The disembodied wooden lumps–most generically sized and others made by scanning some of the actual feet of the thousands of professional athletes that the company sponsors–are all waiting to be fitted, like Cinderella, with the perfect prototype shoe.
“Flyknit is a platform,” Nike’s Jones says. “We’re reimagining the upper, the bottoms–the whole caboodle.” In addition, as materials such as rubber become harder to come by because of overharvesting or climate change, “we’re going to be able to navigate the volatility of these resources,” she adds. Then, perhaps reminded of the fierce competition Nike is in with Adidas over knit shoes, Jones stops short and wavers, “I can’t say anymore.”
Rule #2: ANTICIPATE A PRODUCT’S EVOLUTION
Before the FuelBand, a product called Magneto was, briefly, Nike’s next big thing. You’d tape magnets to your temples and then clip futuristic eyewear onto them. “Perhaps we went too far with that idea, because we actually started to make it,” admits global brand EVP Trevor Edwards. Parker decided the product was impractical, and he killed it.
That sounds like an obvious call, but Parker reputedly approved Flyknit after being shown only a tube sock stitched to a rubber sole. Early on, great ideas can resemble bad ones: They both sound ridiculous. “Steve [Jobs] had a good bullshit meter, but also an open mind,” Parker says. “It’s that bullshit filter that says, ‘Really? Is this really compelling?’ We kill a lot of ideas.”
Parker says he often feels like Tom Hanks in Big–a kid at a toy company whose job is to approve only the products he has fun with. In the FuelBand, Parker saw what athletes would instinctively value. As a “smart” version of the already popular Livestrong bracelet, the FuelBand would give users their own digital coach to motivate them. They could connect with other users and with their friends and family via social media to cheer them on, whether it’s to lose weight or train for a marathon. Nike would benefit from this community, thanks to the ongoing connection with its customers, as well as every user promoting Nike with each post or tweet of their activity report. Plus, people were already comfortable with wearing a silicone wristband, unlike, say, face magnets.
As if to prove the point, when Parker and I meet, he’s wearing a FuelBand on each wrist–exactly double what any user needs. “I don’t normally wear two,” he says, beaming, “but I have to admit, I’m obsessed.” The company is now working to extend that obsession to others. In December, Nike partnered with the startup mentoring firm TechStars to woo entrepreneurs to launch companies that will build on top of Nike’s digital platform. Nike has already announced games built on Fuel points.
This three-steps-ahead thinking is important for any product. Flyknit is not only valuable because its technology will help Nike make all kinds of lighter, better-fitting shoes, but also because it fits into the company’s global growth initiatives. With Brazil hosting both the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics, Sterne Agee analyst Sam Poser believes Flyknit will help Nike reorient how it makes and sells shoes in such an important international market. “The duties importing from China [where Nike does much of its manufacturing] to Brazil are absolute craziness–way too cost-prohibitive, and the [manufacturing] in Brazil is so expensive,” he says. “But Flyknit is much less labor intensive. If they can go into Brazil and set up [knitting] machines, they win.” Poser goes further, imagining that Flyknit will one day allow customers to digitally personalize shoes to match the exact shape of their feet.
Parker wouldn’t be blamed if he had passed on Flyknit after seeing a modified tube sock, but if Nike doesn’t bet on crazy ideas, its rivals will. “They’re like sharks,” says Poser. “If they stop swimming, they die.” Adidas, also after four years of research, launched its Primeknit line only months after Flyknit’s. Nike then dragged Adidas to court over patent-infringement claims related to knit technology.
Rule #3: DIRECT YOUR PARTNERS
Stefan Olander has barely ushered me into his neatly arranged office when he invokes FuelBand lore. He has an early prototype at the ready, the very one that his team used in 2010 to pitch the idea to CEO Mark Parker. “We pulled up [our sleeves] and revealed this,” he says, sliding his fingers over the white leathery Velcro bracelet marked with green calculator-like numbers. “Mark is so consumer-driven that instinctively he said, ‘Go do this now.’ His first question was, ‘How fast can you build this?'”
The tale is burnished to a high gloss, which is a shame, because an idea as big as the FuelBand does not get cooked up in a single lab. It doesn’t become a sophisticated, beautiful product just because Parker admired a leathery wristband. Nike doesn’t like to discuss the gritty details of how something like the FuelBand gets made, but the real story shows how messy true innovation is.
In a world of rapid disruption, companies no longer must–or can–own all the skills required to thrive. Just as Google needed Android to attack mobile and Apple needed Siri to give it a foothold in search, successful businesses need to constantly evolve, either through partnerships, new talent, acquisitions–or all three. “You can’t have a barrier or restriction,” says lead Nike engineer Aaron Weast. For the FuelBand, Nike had to open its doors.
The FuelBand’s road to reality began in March of 2010, when a three-person Nike team flew to San Francisco to share their idea with the industrial design firm Astro Studios. “They had this concept of a tennis sweatband with an electronic watch,” Astro design EVP Kyle Swen recalls, as he sits in the same third-floor conference room where the meeting took place. “They wouldn’t even leave us the pitch; it was super confidential.” Nike also consulted engineering firms Whipsaw and Synapse, and longtime digital marketing agency R/GA.
This team of outside partners created hundreds of prototypes, imagining concepts for displays that resembled an Amazon Kindle screen; bands that fully illuminate with color; ones that fit over your leg or upper arm; and even a fastening system modeled after a gas nozzle.
“Everything was custom, custom, custom,” says Astro designer Anh Nguyen.
Olander played the shepherd. “You will never get good work out of anyone if you hand over a brief and go, ‘We have no clue what we want, but why don’t you just do it for us,'” Olander says. During the FuelBand’s development, for example, Nike’s specific requests to partners included its red-to-green color scheme; the idea of Fuel points, which Olander felt would encourage competition among users regardless of their sport; and a dead-simple interface without excessive metrics. The team learned that last insight from its experience with Nike’s earlier digital products, for which 30% of users turned off calorie tracking.
Nike’s role was between a coach and a traffic cop. Nike designer Jamian Cobbett describes it as an “ebb and flow.” Astro’s Swen relates how engineers from other parts of Nike’s assembled team would see what the designers had in mind: “They were like, ‘No fucking way,'” he says, laughing. “But that’s innovation: full throttle, hit the brakes; full throttle, hit the brakes.” The effort produced several breakthroughs, such as when Whipsaw embedded 120 LED lights in the bracelet (to look like an old-time scoreboard) and Synapse developed a curved lithium battery. Both are key features of the final product.
R/GA was tasked with the interactive experience and toyed with making Fuel points spendable. “We had conversations around racking up points and spending them on Nike socks,” says Ian Spalter, who was then R/GA’s product design VP and who now serves a similar role at Foursquare. The agency tinkered with tabulating Fuel points in aggregate for public causes–the digital equivalent of charity runs. Several sources say Nike considered selling FuelBands synced in pairs (so spouses or best friends could track each other’s progress), and it even explored using the system to create campfire moments–that is, lighting up all the FuelBands in the world at a particular time to connect with its community, such as when the Olympics commenced. In the end, the pull of getting a small shot of electronic serotonin from checking your progress all the time, the same way many people incessantly refresh email and social media statuses, proved more than addictive. “There’s something about dipping into feeds,” says Nick Law, R/GA’s chief creative officer, “whether it’s fantasy football, Twitter, or Instagram.”
As the product rounded into shape, “editing [then] becomes critical,” Parker says. Olander adds, “It was like, ‘What if we know your heart rate and have galvanic skin response, or add a gyro and magnetometer? We could know everything.’ But who’s going to do all that stuff? It’s this interaction between design and engineering that keeps the experience refined.”
And during that process, “Nike was the ultimate creative director,” says Spalter. “What’s more important–the people who cook up all the options or the people who curate and make the decisions? For a company of Nike’s size, they keep the number of editors to a pretty damn short list.”
Rule #4: FEED COMPANY CULTURE
I am sitting in a Winnebago, parked in the middle of the Innovation Kitchen. The team purchased it on Craigslist for $750 to use as a conference room. There’s plenty of meeting space elsewhere, but as legend has it, Nike cofounder Phil Knight first sold shoes in the back of an RV like this one. So here we are.
Nike’s campus is full of odd talismans like this, a living museum of itself, a container of legends and oral histories. The waffle iron that cofounder Bill Bowerman ruined making rubber soles in the 1970s? It’s enshrined on campus like the Liberty Bell. In fact, with so many bits of lore around, anything can be mistaken as symbolic. The clock inside the Winnebago reads 2:59 even though it’s barely past noon. My PR handler makes a point of asking about the significance of the clock’s time. “I don’t even know,” Shaffer says, “but there’s always something superdeep in things like that.” Adds my handler, “That’s the kind of detail people obsess over here–little things like this have a story behind it. Or, well, maybe it just means the battery is dead.”
If Nike treats its past with reverence, it represents its present in a different but equally honed way: as “top secret.” In Parker’s office, he shows me a pink running shoe that he says will reinvent Nike’s manufacturing processes yet again. (It fuses Flyknit technology with a new, peculiar honeycomb-like sole.) “You might be the very first person outside of Nike to see this,” he says.
In fact, I’m repeatedly dipped into the company’s inexhaustible supply of secrets–so much so that I wonder if Nike labels ideas “secret” the way the government broadly labels files “classified.” Inside a garage on the outskirts of campus, behind a day-care center and a security firm, with its door simply marked “A,” I witness two toned athletes lunging in front of a pair of Xboxes. This is the Sparq performance center, which was key to developing the analytics behind the FuelBand and other digital Nike products. At one point, Sparq performance director Paul Winsper insists, “We don’t want anybody to know about this.” And as I enter the Zoo, another of Nike’s “secret” facilities, an engineer confides, “Sometimes you want to be nice and hold the door for someone behind you, but you just never know.”
All of this surely has some level of truth: Nike doesn’t want full details of its R&D leaked out, nor does it want, say, some Adidas employee wandering in to snap photos. (Ahem: “Hell would freeze over before we copied a product,” Adidas design lead James Carnes tells me.)
But like an action movie, the story isn’t built to withstand serious inquiry. I’m told, for example, that only a few dozen employees have access to the Zoo and the Innovation Kitchen. Yet there are clearly more than a few dozen employees inside both, which, mind you, are on the first floor of the Mia Hamm building, behind only slightly tinted windows through which passersby can clearly see from the campus sidewalk. At one point when I walk by, a door to the Kitchen is propped open, unsupervised.
So what’s with all the hush-hush? Culture. Employees internalize their own stories–that their work is imbued with a value worthy of secrecy, vaulting Nike into the lofty heights of philosophical (and sometimes self-important) corporate cultures alongside only Apple and Disney. When I bump into Nike coach and three-time New York City Marathon winner Alberto Salazar, in between the campus’s Olympic-size swimming pools and sky-high climbing walls, even he tells me, “This place is like Disneyland.”
That cohesive culture begets tangible benefits, such as talent retention. At Nike, you’re a rookie if you’ve been at the company for less than a decade. Workers quote the company’s maxims like the Ten Commandments. More than a dozen tell me, independently and unprompted, “Be a sponge” and “If you have a body, you’re an athlete.” “We can almost finish each other’s sentences,” Parker says. “But not in a drinking-the-Kool-Aid, cultlike way.”
That self-image is infused into every marketing message and product release, and transferred to a public eager to finally be let in on the secret. The more exclusive the presentation of those products and brands, the more they are desired. Parker borrowed more than a bullshit meter from Steve Jobs. No wonder consumers and media line the block for both Apple and Nike product launches.
“There’s a halo effect of being seen as an innovative company,” says Forrester’s Sarah Rotman Epps. “It’s hard to overstate how important it is that Apple CEO Tim Cook is seen wearing one of your products onstage at an Apple event,” as he was with a FuelBand during the iPad Mini launch last October. Never mind that Cook sits on Nike’s board. The cool kids are sitting at the same table, and you’re invited.
After leaving that secretive garage on the corner of campus, the one labeled A, I’m told I won’t be able to locate it again. It’s that hidden, my handlers say, like a witch’s cabin that vanishes into the woods.
It seemed like a challenge. So the next day, I go hunting. I search in the rain for 45 minutes, down endless little roads. Finally, there it is–unguarded, intact, no laws of physics denied.
Another Nike myth busted? Perhaps. But I can’t go in; the garage is empty. The lights are turned off. The building is there, but the ideas inside are gone. The secret is kept.
Serena Follows Nike’s Playbook
For nearly a decade, tennis star Serena Williams has been one of Nike’s most visible athletes. (In March, in fact, her core workout will be released on the Nike Training Club app.) But she’s also a serious entrepreneur: Her clothing line Signature Statement is on HSN.com, and her business investments range from skin care to tech startups to part ownership of the Miami Dolphins. And she credits Nike for setting her business standards.
1/Always offer something new
“You look at where Nike started, from the ’80s until now, and it’s such a huge difference,” Williams says. “I wonder, like, how were athletes able to play back then? Every time I turn around there’s something new–pants with ventilation, seamless fabric. They actually invent fabrics, which is really cool for me, with my fashion background. I always use them in my line. I’m like, ‘So what are the colors for next season?'”
2/The invisible is as valuable as the visible
“When I first came to Nike I said, ‘I don’t care how I feel; I just want to look good.’ And they said, ‘We’re going to make you look good, and we’re going to make it comfortable.’ Last year at the French Open, my dress was almost like a Herve Leger [bandage] dress, really tight fabric. But I was able to perform, I was able to move. It was really functional, but it was also bringing design and style.”
3/Consider yourself an underdog
“I’m not disrupting my brand enough. I need to do it more. Nike always tries to improve. They never say, ‘I’m No. 1, and I’m happy.’ They always say, ‘How can we get better?’ Beyond a company, beyond entrepreneurship, you can really take that attitude in your life, like, I want to be a great mother, or a great student, or a great doctor. What can I do to be better?”
–As told to Whitney Pastorek
[Top photo: Jason Pietra, Prop Styling: Erin Swift; Parker: Art Streiber; Fashion Styling: Melanie Leftick; Grooming: Juanita Lyon; Serena: Photo by Art Streiber; Hair: Nikki Nelms; Makeup: Sheika Daley; Prop Styling: Nick Tortoricii]
Philippine stocks rose to a record after it beat Indonesia to win an investment grade from Standard & Poor’s, as President Benigno Aquino outshines Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in improving government finances and spurring growth.
The rating on the Philippines’ long-term foreign-currency- denominated debt was raised one level to BBB- from BB+, with a stable outlook, S&P said in a statement yesterday. In contrast, the assessor revised its outlook on Indonesia’s BB+ rating to stable from positive.
May 3 (Bloomberg) — Philippine Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima talks about the nation’s investment grade rating by Standard & Poor’s, and the outlook for the domestic economy. The Philippines beat Indonesia to win an investment grade from S&P’s, as President Benigno Aquino outshines Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in improving government finances and spurring growth. Purisima speaks with Susan Li on Bloomberg Television’s “First Up.” (Source: Bloomberg)
President Benigno Aquino has increased state spending and narrowed the budget deficit while stepping up its fight against corruption. Photographer: Julian Abram Wainwright/Bloomberg
“We’re continuing to address constraints to growth,” Philippine Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said in a Bloomberg Television interview with Susan Li today. “We’re fast tracking our infrastructure projects. We’re looking at areas we can open up to foreign investors.”
Aquino’s drive to transform the nation into one of the region’s fastest-growing economies is gaining strength, with the government forecasting record investment pledges this year as companies including Murata Manufacturing Co. expand. In Indonesia, President Yudhoyono has delayed cutting fuel subsidies that have drained government finances even as he tries to allocate more funds to infrastructure spending.
“For the Philippines, this is yet another confirmation that Aquino’s reforms have borne fruit, which would help in attracting not just short-term flows, but long-term direct investments,” said Santitarn Sathirathai, a Singapore-based economist at Credit Suisse Group AG. “The rating momentum for Indonesia is moving in the wrong direction.”
The peso climbed to a four-week high, rising 0.3 percent to 40.93 per dollar, according to Tullett Prebon Plc. In the past 12 months, it is the biggest gainer after the Thai baht among 11 Asian currencies tracked by Bloomberg.
“The upgrade on the Philippines reflects a strengthening external profile, moderating inflation, and the government’s declining reliance on foreign currency debt,” S&P said. “In our assessment, the stalling of the reform momentum in Indonesia and a weaker external profile have diminished the potential for an upgrade over the next 12 months,” it said separately.
Higher ratings may boost capital inflows into the Philippines and prompt the central bank to add to measures to curb asset-bubble risks. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas last month cut the rate it pays on special deposit accounts for a third time this year, while keeping the rate it pays lenders for overnight deposits at a record-low 3.5 percent.
Continued Strength
“The Philippine central bank has done a good job in managing inflows,” S&P credit analyst Agost Benard said in a teleconference today. Still, the peso will likely have to appreciate as inflows continue to rise, he said.
Moody’s Investors Service, which rates the Philippines one step below investment grade, is keeping a close eye on developments on the ground, Singapore-based sovereign analyst Christian de Guzman said in an interview today.
“Much of the momentum has continued in terms of growth, as well as the health of external payments position, as evidenced by the continued strength of remittance inflows and stability of foreign exchange reserves,” he said. “However, revenue performance is starting to slow and begs the question if efforts to increase tax efficiency have already been maximized.”
Philippine revenue collection fell a second month in March, a report showed yesterday, even after the implementation of a “sin tax” on alcohol and tobacco products. Indonesia’s rating of Baa3 above the Philippines is still justified, de Guzman said, citing a longer track record of growth and fiscal management.
Infrastructure Investment
Aquino has increased state spending and narrowed the budget deficit while seeking more than $17 billion of infrastructure investments to spur growth to as much as 7 percent this year. The Philippine economy, which was more than twice the size of Malaysia and 10 times bigger than Singapore’s in 1960, expanded 6.8 percent in the fourth quarter.
The president has taken on the Catholic Church with a bill to provide free contraceptives to the poor, arrested his predecessor on graft charges, and ousted the country’s top judge for illegally concealing his wealth. Transparency International raised the country’s ranking on its annual corruption index last year to 105, versus Indonesia’s 118.
Fitch Ratings was the first to upgrade the Philippines to investment grade in March. Moody’s Investors Service rates the nation one step below.
Fuel Prices
Ratings changes aren’t always followed by investors. French bonds and U.S. Treasuries both made gains after the nations were stripped of their AAA credit ratings, in a sign that downgrades may have little bearing on borrowing costs. Almost half the time, government bond yields fall when an action suggests they should climb, or they increase even as a change signals a decline, according to 38 years of data compiled by Bloomberg.
Yudhoyono said this week he will only increase fuel prices after Parliament approves compensation programs for the poor, a move that could delay efforts to contain a budget deficit that may be more than twice as much as estimated without subsidy cuts.
Fuel Prices
Failure to reduce subsidies last year drained government finances and led to a record current-account shortfall, hurting the rupiah as foreign investors lost confidence. Indonesia’s economy probably expanded near the slowest pace in more than two years last quarter as a decline in commodity prices hurt exports.
Indonesia may implement incremental measures such as a moderate increase in fuel prices, S&P’s Benard said, while stopping short of bold measures given the stage of the electoral cycle the country is in, he said.
S&P said yesterday it may raise the country’s rating if the fuel reforms are finalized, the state budget is improved, or if structural reforms boost economic growth. The assessment may be lowered if renewed fiscal or external pressures are not met with “timely and adequate policy responses,” it said.
“Policy and exchange-rate management need to be more focused on sending the right signals to the market so as not to induce portfolio outflows,” Benard said.
Officially, there are two types of accounting methods, which dictate how the company’s transactions are recorded in the company’s financial books: cash-basis accounting and accrual accounting. The key difference between the two types is how the company records cash coming into and going out of the business. Within that simple difference lies a lot of room for error — or manipulation. In fact, many of the major corporations involved in financial scandals have gotten in trouble because they played games with the nuts and bolts of their accounting method.
Cash-basis accounting
In cash-basis accounting, companies record expenses in financial accounts when the cash is actually laid out, and they book revenue when they actually hold the cash in their hot little hands or, more likely, in a bank account. For example, if a painter completed a project on December 30, 2003, but doesn’t get paid for it until the owner inspects it on January 10, 2004, the painter reports those cash earnings on her 2004 tax report. In cash-basis accounting, cash earnings include checks, credit-card receipts, or any other form of revenue from customers.
Smaller companies that haven’t formally incorporated and most sole proprietors use cash-basis accounting because the system is easier for them to use on their own, meaning they don’t have to hire a large accounting staff.
Accrual accounting
If a company uses accrual accounting, it records revenue when the actual transaction is completed (such as the completion of work specified in a contract agreement between the company and its customer), not when it receives the cash. That is, the company records revenue when it earns it, even if the customer hasn’t paid yet. For example, a carpentry contractor who uses accrual accounting records the revenue earned when he completes the job, even if the customer hasn’t paid the final bill yet.
Expenses are handled in the same way. The company records any expenses when they’re incurred, even if it hasn’t paid for the supplies yet. For example, when a carpenter buys lumber for a job, he may very likely do so on account and not actually lay out the cash for the lumber until a month or so later when he gets the bill.
Remember: All incorporated companies must use accrual accounting according to the generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). If you’re reading a corporation’s financial reports, what you see is based on accrual accounting.
Why method matters
The accounting method a business uses can have a major impact on the total revenue the business reports as well as on the expenses that it subtracts from the revenue to get the bottom line. Here’s how:
Cash-basis accounting: Expenses and revenues aren’t carefully matched on a month-to-month basis. Expenses aren’t recognized until the money is actually paid out, even if the expenses are incurred in previous months, and revenues earned in previous months aren’t recognized until the cash is actually received. However, cash-basis accounting excels in tracking the actual cash available.
Accrual accounting: Expenses and revenue are matched, providing a company with a better idea of how much it’s spending to operate each month and how much profit it’s making. Expenses are recorded (or accrued) in the month incurred, even if the cash isn’t paid out until the next month. Revenues are recorded in the month the project is complete or the product is shipped, even if the company hasn’t yet received the cash from the customer.
The way a company records payment of payroll taxes, for example, differs with these two methods. In accrual accounting, each month a company sets aside the amount it expects to pay toward its quarterly tax bills for employee taxes using an accrual (paper transaction in which no money changes hands, which is called an accrual). The entry goes into a tax liability account (an account for tracking tax payments that have been made or must still be made). If the company incurs $1,000 of tax liabilities in March, that amount is entered in the tax liability account even if it hasn’t yet paid out the cash. That way, the expense is matched to the month it is incurred.
In cash accounting, the company doesn’t record the liability until it actually pays the government the cash. Although the company incurs tax expenses each month, the company using cash accounting shows a higher profit during two months every quarter and possibly even shows a loss in the third month when the taxes are paid.
To see how these two methods can result in totally different financial statements, imagine that a carpenter contracts a job with a total cost to the customer of $2,000. The carpenter’s expected expenses for the supplies, labor, and other necessities are $1,200, so his expected profit is $800. He contracts the work on December 23, 2004, and completes the job on December 31, 2004. But he isn’t paid until January 3, 2005. The contractor takes no cash upfront and instead agrees to be paid in full at completion.
If he uses the cash-basis accounting method, because no cash changes hands, the carpenter doesn’t have to report any revenues from this transaction in 2004. But say he lays out the cash for his expenses in 2004. In this case, his bottom line is $1,200 less with no revenue to offset it, and his net profit (the amount of money the company earned, minus its expenses) for the business in 2004 is lower. This scenario may not necessarily be a bad thing if he’s trying to reduce his tax hit for 2004.
Tip: If you’re a small-business owner looking to manage your tax bill and you use cash-basis accounting, you can ask vendors to hold off payments until the beginning of the next year to reduce your net income, if you want to lower your tax payments for the year.
If the same carpenter uses accrual accounting, his bottom line is different. In this case, he books his expenses when they’re actually incurred. He also records the income when he completes the job on December 31, 2004, even though he doesn’t get the cash payment until 2005. His net income is increased by this job, and so is his tax hit.
The elusive million dollar milestone…is it reachable? Well, in short, yes. But not without some careful planning and discipline. Time is a key factor, of course. It all depends on your age, when you plan to retire, what kinds of accounts you use, your investment costs, and your risk tolerance. The more you are able to save on a regular basis, the less risk you need to take and the less time it should take to hit that first million.
Start Saving Now
If you are 35 and starting from scratch, for example, you need to save around $735 per month to have $1 million by age 65, assuming an 8% average annual return. If you are 40, you need to save around $1,135 per month. If you were willing to take on more risk with your investments and managed to average a 10% annual return, you would only have to save around $506 per month from age 35, or around $850 each month from age 40. If you were more conservative, you would need to save more. You get the idea. (You can use the SEC’s calculator to plug in your age and determine monthly contributions.)
Keep in mind that these numbers do not take potential investment costs into account like management fees and fund expense ratios, which could decrease your annual returns by more than 2%. This means that you will likely need to contribute more and/or take on more risk to meet your goal. They also don’t take into account inflation and taxes (we’ll get to that in a minute).
Max Out Your Retirement Accounts
So, where is the best place to save this money for retirement? In tax-advantaged retirement accounts, of course! We’re talking about your 401(k), 403(b), traditional IRA and/or Roth IRA. These kinds of accounts allow you to avoid paying taxes on market growth (capital gains), which really makes a big difference in how much you can accumulate over the long run.
If your company has a plan available, the easiest thing to do is to save there through automatic payroll deductions. These types of plans have a 2013 contribution limit of $17,500 or $23,000 if you are over 50. If your company offers a matching contribution (a.k.a free money), you definitely want to put in at least as much as they will match.
If you have maxed out contributions to your company plan and still want to save more, you can put an additional total of $5,500 (or $6,500 if you are over 50) for 2013 in a traditional or Roth IRA. Remember that Roth IRAs — unlike their traditional counterparts — allow you to grow post-tax money that you can potentially pull out totally tax-free in retirement. Some companies even offer a Roth IRA option as well as a 401(k) within their company plan, which means that you could potentially save $23,000 per year of tax-free money (or more, if you’re over 50).
If you do not have a company plan available and are an entrepreneur, or even if you do have a company plan but also freelance part-time, you may be able to open a SEP IRA or Individual 401(k), two other types of traditional IRAs. These plans allow you to save as much as $51,000 (or $56,500 if you are over 50) on a tax-deferred basis, including any other potential savings in other retirement accounts.
Don’t Forget About Taxes and Inflation
It’s also important to remember that, while hitting that 7-figure mark is still a major milestone, $1 million today won’t be worth that much in 25 years. Assuming an average inflation rate of 3%, it would only be worth around $475,000 in 25 years. (Over the last decade, the average annual inflation rate was less than 2.5%, but over the last quarter-century, the average annual inflation rate has been a little over 3%.)
If you want an inflation and tax-adjusted balance of $1 million by age 65, you may need to save upwards of $2,600 per month from age 35, or $3,200 per month from age 40, assuming an 8% return, and not including investment fees or state taxes. (We know: GULP.) Of course, that’s also assuming that you’re starting from scratch and accounting for 3% annual inflation. (You can do your own calculations with Bankrate’s inflation calculator tool.)
We know that may seem daunting; most people aren’t in a position to save $2,600 or more per month. But it does highlight the importance of starting early, or retiring a little later, in order to reach your retirement savings goal. Hopefully, you don’t have to start from scratch and you can build upon some base savings. You will help yourself a lot by saving extra cash (e.g. bonuses, tax refunds, inheritances) in tax-advantaged retirement accounts whenever possible, opening no or low-fee IRAs at a discount brokerage firm, and choosing lower-cost investments like indexed mutual funds and exchange-traded funds. Whatever your goal, the most important step you can take is to start saving anything you can now so your money can start growing and you’ll be that much closer to reaching $1 million, or whatever your personal retirement savings goal may be.
Do you have any regrets about how you’ve prepared for your retirement so far? Noooo, not you, right?
But maybe you’ve heard from friends that they’d be in better shape if only they had remembered to set up that 401k their 20s…or continued to save after the baby was born…or hadn’t pulled out of the market in 2008…or…
Relax. For every regret you (or your, ahem, friends) might feel, there’s an opportunity to boost your retirement savings by avoiding classic mistakes and anticipating age-specific roadblocks.
“It’s inevitable that people have to make adjustments to their plans,” says Jane Bennett Clark, a senior editor with Kiplinger. The trick is knowing what fixes to make, and when.
In your 20s…
At this age, even a little savings is like rocket fuel for your retirement. While studies show that single women in their 20s are earning more (and more than their male counterparts), the reality is that it’s hard for most young people to save energetically for a life that won’t unfold for decades. (We know. We’ve been there.)
The standard to aim for is 10% of your salary. But if you really want to set yourself up, says Clark, “aim for 15% now, because you’re almost certainly going to hit certain roadblocks later in life.” Fifteen percent may sound like a lot, but you can (and should) ease into it—here’s how.
Meaning: It’s likely that your savings will nosedive for a few years if you decide to get your law degree or M.F.A., if you buy a house, if you splurge on a big wedding, or have a child. So frontload your savings while you’re relatively carefree—and you’ll stress less about the health of your nest egg when life takes over in years to come.
Your 20s are also a good time to set up a Roth IRA, Clark notes. The beauty of a Roth is that you put in after-tax money, so it not only grows tax-free, you withdraw it decades from now and won’t owe taxes on your principal or profit. “Starting early means you can really have the benefit of that tax-free growth.”
In your 30s…
It’s time to plan. “It’s too easy to fall into your 30s and 40s without figuring out your overall plan,” says Clark. Then you’re at the risk of life taking over, and slipping behind on your goals.
After all, you typically make some big decisions in your 30s: kids, career changes, investing in a “forever” home or maybe your own business. A plan can help you prioritize, make choices (or negotiate harder for a certain salary level)—so you don’t get off track.
If you don’t have a clear-cut plan that helps you hit savings benchmarks or important goals, meet with a financial planner (and be sure to follow these guidelines, and discuss their fee structure.
If you’re dealing with college savings, says Clark, “chances are you won’t be able to fully fund both college and retirement at the same time, so you’ll have to make choices.
“Since you can’t borrow for your retirement, you’re probably going to have to compromise on college savings.”
One thing that will help protect your plans: an emergency fund of (yes) three to six months of expenses, or an amount that makes sense in your life, which might be more or less. If you have a rainy day fund, you’ll be less likely to raid your 401k or IRA in a crisis.
In your 40s…
It’s time to check your asset allocation, especially if you haven’t given it much thought in, oh, five to 10 years. Unless your retirement money is in a target date fund, which adjusts the allocation of equities and fixed income to be less risky as you get older, your portfolio probably needs a tune-up.
You want to make sure you’re balancing the need for growth (retirement is still a good 20- to 25 years off, for you) with some security. Meaning, if your asset allocation is still pretty aggressive, i.e. weighted more toward stocks or stock mutual funds, you want to make sure you’ve got some hedge (protection) against risk, usually in the form of bonds and cash.
Another common mistake at this age: overcommitting to college bills, says Clark. Two things you can do to prevent filial love from sabotaging fiscal prudence:
1. Be honest with your college-bound or teenage kids about what you can afford, and what sorts of colleges they can apply to. Giving them a reality check will prevent them from being disappointed, and stop you from spending money you don’t have.
2. Avoid the debt trap. The last thing you need going into retirement is a heavier debt load, so don’t tap out your home equity for college tuition!
In your 50s…
As you get older, the likelihood of facing some sort of financial setback only grows. And unfortunately, the older you are, the higher the stakes are. Losing your job when you’re 25 is a bummer; losing it at 55 means you’re looking at an income loss, a dent in your savings, and a hit to your retirement.
Hopefully you’ve been proactive, because frontloading your savings is one of the best ways to tide you over in the event of a financial shock. But if you don’t have that peace of mind, do your best to maintain your retirement contributions, no matter what, says Mary Claire Allvine, an advisor with Brownson, Rhemus & Foxworth in Atlanta.
If you haven’t been able to keep a steady 10% or 15% savings rate, you may have to play catch-up. Fortunately, that’s why there are, literally, catch-up provisions for most retirement accounts for folks 50 and older. Up until age 49 you can only sock away $5,500 in your traditional or Roth IRA (starting in 2013), but it’s $6,500 from age 50 on up.
One idea, if you do need to bear down on savings, is to downsize before you retire, suggests Clark. If you move to a small home, that could save on monthly mortgage or rent payments, plus taxes, heat, utilities, maintenan e. Maybe you can even ditch one of the family cars. “You can save quite a bit by funneling that extra cash into your retirement during the last 10 or 15 years,” says Clark.
In your 50s, it’s also imperative to consolidate all your 401k and rollover accounts—if you haven’t yet. You need to know exactly what your assets are, and where they are, so you can make the most of them.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Founder & CEO. didn’t get to where he was today on a whim. It took hard work, testing and starting somewhere. Unfortunately for him, his first Anglefire website has been discovered and is somewhat embarrassing. He proudly features a yellow eye that blinks to you, Eminem lyrics and early attempts at helping people connect on the web.
Along with games like Pong and Vader Fader, an interesting page exists called “The Web.” On this page, you can see an early drive of Zuckerberg to properly connect users on the web. Users can be added then scrambled and shaken around. He states:
As of now, the web is pretty small. Hopefully, it will grow into a larger web. This is one of the few applets that require your participation to work well. If your name is already on The Web because someone else has chosen to be linked to you, then you may choose two additional people to be linked with. Otherwise, if you see someone who you know and would like to be linked with but your name is not already on The Web, then you can contact me and I will link that person to you and put you on The Web. If you do not know anyone on The Web, contact me anyway and I will put you on it. In order for this applet to work, you must E-Mail me your name and the names of the two people that you would like to be linked with. Thank you!
Most of the other elements are rather silly including Slim Shady lyrics, a message about trying to get the site picked up by search engines. My favorite part was the commentary along with the games. Even on items like Magnetic Poetry, you can see that he was seeking input for a better collaborative effort:
My, how far Mark came in just 9 short years. To see the site in all of it’s animated-gif, yellow-blinking eye glory, head over to Angelfire. Thanks to HackerNews for uncovering this.
Last Friday night I made a bold, albeit characteristic decision to stay in like a true homebody for the 90th consecutive weekend. In part because the Tucson Arizona nightlife has very little to offer other than a stellar 2 a.m. Mexican hotdog, but also because I’m feeling a sense of urgency lately. Urgency to utilize time better, to minimize distractions and to approach every day with January 1st type motivation.
What I’ve quickly discovered is that, even within the confines of four walls, there are plenty of distractions. YouTube, Netflix, sleep, food, cable television, sleep, Facebook, Twitter — and of course, sleep. Those forms of entertainment and relaxation are embraced, and suddenly I realize, shit, I didn’t accomplish anything (unless conquering 10 episodes of How I Met Your Mother season 7 in one sitting is considered an achievement?). When you’re trying to be productive and progressive, there’s nothing worse than going to making the time to do those things, and realizing too late that you’ve failed to do them. Again, if 4-5 hours of Ted Mosby’s scripted love life is noteworthy, then many of us are sitting pretty.
The next day I ran into this elderly man at my apartment complex. He can be seen strolling around the place every single day. Seriously, he’s almost a part of the scenery — gigantic rocks, light posts, cactus, old man walking, etc. Aside from a quick “How’s it going?” we’d never really spoken. This time he struck up a conversation that covered baseball, military, exercise and eventually, accomplishing what you can while you’re young. “You married?” he asked. I emphatically replied “No,” leading to him asking my age. “I’m twenty-four.” He dropped his head back and laughed, “You’re just a baby in diapers — there’s plenty of time to do what you love and accomplish what you want to.”
The encouragement was appreciated, but what followed were these words that I won’t soon forget:
“The worst kind of regret is the one that it’s too late to do anything about. You know how people say ‘it’s never too late?’ — well that’s not true. There are certain things that unfortunately do have time constraints. I’m an 82-year-old man, and I wish I could be young again. I moved here from New York in the 80s when I knew I didn’t really want to, and now, it’s just too late to do any of the stuff I wanted. I mean sure, you can always take trips and try to become what you want to be, but traveling the world or taking a risk and chasing your dreams becomes harder if, say you’ve got children to be responsible for, or old age taking its toll on your body. Now I’m sounding depressing, but I’m not saying life is over when you’re old — I will say that there’s nothing worse than wishing you had taken those chances when you had the opportunity.”
This leads to the question, what potential future regrets are you putting off right now? If we’re being honest, in this day and age we’d all be lucky to make it to 82 and counting like this man has, but by that same token, playing it safe and surrendering to unfortunate circumstances or allowing them to run the show isn’t what we want to reflect upon down the road. It’s slightly terrifying because the general consensus seems to be that everyone feels as if the years are flying by rapidly, and days in our 20s and 30s are numbered. Do we use this time to live it up and party, using the lyrics of LMFAO songs as our guide to life — or do we buckle down and dedicate ourselves to our passions? Maybe there’s a balance, maybe there’s a way to have fun while also indulging in your passion; nobody has the right answer because there isn’t one — it varies from person to person.
I believe I had that timely exchange with the elderly man for a reason. Maybe I’m looking into things too deeply, but I’m not a big believer in coincidences. Had that conversation not happened, I wouldn’t be writing this to y’all, and you wouldn’t be thinking about what you’re currently thinking about (which is probably either “Oh, shut up, Hudspeth” or something regarding your goals, dreams and future). This isn’t meant to babble or preach about fulfilling our destiny, but then again, I hope we all do. His message was clear and it’s, at the very least, worth thinking about: it isn’t always what you regret; it’s also about when you regret it. That sounded Dr. Who-ish, but if there’s something you wish you had in life right now, is it still very attainable?
If you want to be the 6th grade Spelling Bee champion, sorry, that train has likely left the station. But if you just feel as if your dreams are farfetched because it’d take money, time, brains or skills that you don’t feel you have, that does not mean the ship has sailed — and even if it has started to, hop on a jet ski and track that sucker down. As a broke, busy, slow learning, uncoordinated individual, I firmly believe our desire is all that matters. That and a heavy fear of waking up with regrets that are no longer possible to change… Or not waking up at all. Like the man told me before we parted ways, “Do the most you can do while you can do anything at all.”
My Good Reads Dump 