5 Ways to Pitch Your Product Like Steve Jobs

Anyone who was present for Steve Jobs’ keynote speech at this year’s Macworld conference in San Francisco (or anyone who watched online), in which he introduced the iPhone as a groundbreaking new product, knows how captivating a speaker the Apple CEO is. And anyone who saw the long lines in anticipation of the iPhone’s release date knows how effective the PR hype has been.

Communications coach Carmine Gallo recently wrote up a great critique of Jobs’ presentation, packed with some useful tips for the rest of us to improve our public speaking skills:

  1. Build Tension. A good novelist doesn’t lay out the entire plot and conclusion on the first page of the book. He builds up to it. Jobs begins his presentation by reviewing the “revolutionary” products Apple has introduced. According to Jobs, “every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything…Apple has been fortunate to introduce a few things into the world.” Jobs continues by describing the 1984 launch of the Macintosh as an event that “changed the entire computer industry.”
  2. Stick to One Theme Per Slide. A brilliant designer once told me that effective presentation slides only have one message per slide. One slide, one key point. When Jobs introduced the “three revolutionary products” in the description above, he didn’t show one slide with three devices. When he spoke about each feature (a widescreen iPod, a mobile phone, and an Internet communicator), a slide would appear with an image of each feature.
  3. Add Pizzazz to Your Delivery. Jobs modulates his vocal delivery to build up the excitement. When he opens his presentation by describing the revolutionary products Apple created in the past, his volume is low and he speaks slowly, almost in a reverential tone. His volume continues to build until his line, “Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone.” Be an electrifying speaker by varying the speed at which you speak and by raising and lowering your voice at the appropriate times.
  4. Practice. Jobs makes presentations look effortless because he takes nothing for granted. Jobs is known to rehearse demonstrations for hours prior to launch events. I can name many high-profile chief executives who decide to wing it. It shows. It always amazes me that many business leaders spend tens of thousands of dollars on designing presentations, but next to no time actually rehearsing. I usually get the call after the speaker bombs. Don’t lose your audience. Rehearse a presentation out loud until you’ve nailed it.
  5. Be Honest and Show Enthusiasm. If you believe that your particular product or service will change the world, then say so. Have fun with the content. During the iPhone launch, Jobs uses many adjectives to describe the new product, including “remarkable,” “revolutionary,” and “cool.” He jokes that the touch-screen features of the phone “work like magic…and boy have we patented it.”

[via: Steve Jobs’ Greatest Presentation]

/by

An Interview with Pamela Slim of Escape From Cubicle Nation

I’ve been working on a interview series over at IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com about women and their relationship with personal finance and business, featuring several successful female entrepreneurs, consultants, and freelancers. The first one-on-one is with Pamela Slim, a great gal from Mesa, AZ. Pam left the corporate world in 1996 to start Ganas Consulting, and she writes a great blog called Escape from Cubicle Nation, about transitioning from the rat race to independence! These women each have some amazing firsthand experience and a lot of great advice; they’re an amazing source of wisdom, and it’s really eye-opening to hear their viewpoints. Here’s a short excerpt:

What challenges did you have to overcome in the process of setting up Ganas? Did you face any hardships you think most men in the consulting business might not face?

I actually had it pretty easy when I started my business since I got a nice, juicy client right off the bat (Hewlett Packard) and a six-month project that guaranteed I could pay my bills without worrying about hustling for new work. Since I was selling my brain and not a physical product, there were no big start-up costs or financing hurdles, which is sometimes where you hear stories of slightly increased challenges for women to get VC funding or bank loans.

My challenge in the early years had to do with pricing my services appropriately, since I tended to undervalue my services and felt uncomfortable asking for “too much.” I know that this is something that affects many new entrepreneurs, but in my 11+ years of self-employment experience, I would say that it affects women at a much higher ratio then men. It could be that there is a big conspiracy by the misogynistic male white corporate machine that starts to disempower us in kindergarten and stop us from all kinds of things like getting into math, finance and engineering careers. I discount nothing, as I was raised with a healthy dose of skepticism and a fondness for theories of oppression.

Another likely theory is that females are raised in many societies to be in a “helper” and “nurturer” role, and to downplay material gain. Fathers historically talk to sons more about business and finance than they do their daughters. Women are taught to compromise and broker peace, not to engage in hardball negotiations. Whatever the cause of my beliefs, I had to get over some ineffective mental blocks in order to charge what I was worth. I am always curious what other women (and men!) think about this topic, so please comment here.

You say you went through a phase of self-employment evangelism. What are some of the more effective methods you found to encourage others to go solo?

My best experience with encouragement is through my blog. I call it the Magical Mystery Tour, because ever since I began to write it, I have experienced a strange and wondrous connection with thousands of people I never would have had the chance to talk to. I never know which topic or post is going to make an impact…sometimes what I consider the most off-topic or “out there” subjects get the most heartfelt responses. Perhaps my favorite compliment ever came from a reader who told me that I represented “virtual hope.” How cool is that? I would like to stress that my goal is not to have everyone in the world quit their corporate job to start a business. Some are not ready, equipped or naturally suited to self-employment. What I do want to do is demystify the process so that more people feel comfortable exploring the option to see if it is right for them.

Continue reading at IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com: Heroines of Personal Finance and Entrepreneurship #1: Pamela Slim.

/by

An Interview with David Anderson of Palo Alto Investors

This week, I’m very happy to present an interview with David Anderson, partner and investment analyst with Palo Alto Investors, a $1.3 billion private equity hedge fund in Palo Alto, California, with a strong focus on fundamental research in undervalued technology, healthcare, energy, consumer products, and financial services companies. Anderson is an alumnus of the California State University at Sacramento, and earned his MBA at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. He brings 17 years of experience in oil and gas exploration and in investment banking, and currently manages the Palo Alto firm’s roughly $400 million energy investment arm. I’ve been corresponding with David for a few weeks, and as the resident PA Investors energy and oil expert, he’s been kind enough to write back with some thoughtful insights on a few energy industry questions.

Before you joined Palo Alto Investors in 2001, you spent eight years with Chevron. What industry knowledge did you gain there that helps you with your current investment approach?

My Chevron days provided me with the basic understanding of oil and gas exploration, the economics of project development, and the underlying knowledge of how a company in an extractive industry works to grow and prosper through business cycles. Having worked in various sectors of the company, albeit mainly in North American exploration and production, I got a view of just how large the global energy infrastructure is. Most people really don’t realize just how much effort, time and capital it takes to bring on a major energy project, whether that is a new oil field, a new natural gas project, a pipeline, refinery expansion, or new shipping capacity. That knowledge allows me to understand that our global energy issues are not going to be solved in any short time period. I often like to point out to students the scale of the oil business by saying this: With global oil consumption of 85 million barrels PER DAY, that means that if you stacked up those barrels each day you would reach the moon about every four days. The size of the system to support that massive daily business is something that will not be replaced any time during my life. Knowing this makes me value those companies that help make it happen and gives me perspective on where the opportunities are. Finally, I’d say my experience allows me to recognize when I see a company that has significantly superior economics, a better business model, and differentiated operational leverage. Those are the things that can translate into superior investment performance over time.

What kind of assets does the fund hold? What kind of investing do you do in energy, and what alternative energy projects are you involved with?

Our firm manages about $1.3 billion in assets, with about 25% of that dedicated to energy investing currently. Most of what we do is traditional energy: oil and gas exploration and production, oilfield services, etc. We also look at energy technologies that enhance the core energy businesses–from 3-dimensional seismic technology for exploration to enhanced drilling technologies and what I call “chemical tech.” In pure alternatives, we divide our views into “transportation” alternative energy and “power” alternative energy. Those are two very different opportunities. On the transportation side, we have done a great deal of research into biofuels and on the power side we have researched and invested in solar, wind, as well as ancillary technologies that enhance distributed energy capabilities. In the transportation market, specifically the market for “alternative” diesel, we have also researched companies in both gas-to-liquids and coal-to-liquids markets.

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Texas Pacific Group just worked out the largest private equity leveraged buyout ever, for TXU Corp., which provides power to 2.2 million people in Texas. TXU agreed to scrap several planned coal plants and invest in renewable energy projects to get the blessing of Environmental Defense and the NRDC. Do you think it’s a signal that investors want to see the big energy companies move away from the status quo and focus on conservation and renewables?

My view on the deal is that power producers make for great private equity investments as they can be levered and have very visible cash flow streams. As for moving away from the status quo, I don’t see that. The plants to be scrapped aren’t really significant in the grand scheme of TXU and, in my opinion, represent a small sacrifice to allow regulators and environmental groups to “get something” out of the deal.

Since 2000, solar photovoltaics and wind power revenues have grown from about $6.5 billion to $30 billion annually. Do you think the renewables niche is driven mostly by environmental ideology and state policy, or do you believe there is a decent chance that a genuine market will evolve in the near future?

Wind is relatively competitive on a cost basis, but cannot be relied upon for baseline power. That means it is often a redundant investment and so can be hard to justify without significant incentives. Solar is definitely hard to justify for an average consumer, even with large incentives it may take eight to twelve years for the upfront investment to pay off. The advantage to any of these is that new distributed power generation allows us to stave off building incremental power projects in the short-term. Long-term I believe these will continue to be niche plays. As many energy analysts will tell you, there is no silver bullet that will replace the very large coal, natural gas, and nuclear power infrastructure that supplies about 90% of U.S. electricity. In the end, the opportunity for renewables is defined by the cost of the incumbents. If you tripled the cost of natural gas and coal, many renewables are still challenged.

Mike Morris, CEO of American Electric Power – the nation’s largest utility – was recently quoted saying that it is time to develop more sustainable, clean-coal technology for commercial use. Tell us how the coal-to-liquids process works, and what energy companies are doing with it.

We believe that the vast U.S. deposits of coal will be key to addressing the combined goals of energy growth, energy price moderation, increased energy independence, and potentially, improved emissions. Coal-to-liquids (CTL) is a process that first gasifies coal, then turns that gas stream into an ultra-clean diesel or jet fuel using Fisher-Tropsch technology. That can potentially provide some new sources for diesel fuel in the U.S. Rentech and Sasol are both companies involved in that area. On the power side, if the need to sequester CO2 becomes great, then coal power plants in the U.S. would benefit by using Integrated Coal Gasification technology, where coal is gasified and then the gas stream is burned in a gas turbine to create power. By gasifying the coal, the CO2 can be taken off the process in elemental form (rather than going up the stack of a coal burning plant). Burning gas creates about half the CO2 output of burning coal, so capturing the excess CO2 in the conversion process makes a big difference. Then you have to do something with the CO2–either inject it into old oil fields to increase the ultimate recovery of oil in the reservoir, or sequester it for some other purpose. A company could potentially create a power plant that starts with coal, gasifies it, and not only produces power from the gas turbine, but that can divert some of that gas to create liquid fuels using the Fisher-Tropsch process. One company calls that a “polygeneration” plant and it might even start with some other biomass other than coal, since lots of different feedstocks can be gasified.

Do you think ethanol or other biofuels stand a good chance to serve as a short-term solution if and when oil producers are no longer able to meet world energy demand?

Well, I believe oil producers can meet demand, but the price at which they can do that is the real issue. I am not a big believer in current corn-based ethanol economics, and that is not a unique view. Ethanol from cellulosic material may have a chance, but that is years away and ethanol as a product still suffers from other issues (difficulty in pipeline transport, etc.). Given that diesel engines are more efficient than gasoline engines, we believe this is where we should start. If we produce bio-diesel or alternative diesel from other biomass, then every gallon we produce gets used more efficiently. Also, diesel doesn’t suffer many of the infrastructure issues that ethanol faces.

What advice do you have for college students who are interested in a career in the energy industry?

Work in the industry for a few years, network all you can, find what you are passionate about, and don’t be afraid to fail. Keep an open mind and don’t accept other people’s views (including mine!) as gospel. There is much to be done and in my opinion there is not a single more important sector to devote your mind to right now.

Thank you so much for spending the time to give your thoughts on these questions and share your experience in the energy industry with us, David! You can follow many of David’s personal thoughts and research at his blog, Dave’s Energy, which he co-writes with research professional Grant Fox.

/1 Comment/by

The New Mecca for Dreamers

“I don’t know if there is another place on the planet where people are so full of possibility – whether it be the possibility of reinventing themselves by a change in thinking…or body…or starting a business with which they expect to change the world and become rich.”

— Ron Davison

I LOVE this article by Ron Davison! The Bay Area and the Reinvention of Self.

I think I love Ron’s musings about Silicon Valley and the Bay Area because they reflect my own. I am SO drawn to that region because of the tremendous number of creative people! It is a hotbed for startups, entrepreneurs, and young-at-heart companies–the kind I love, that toss out the traditional rules! There seems to be (at least a bit) more sense of collaboration as opposed to competition. People are less afraid of failure. They are more passionate about their ideas, and doing whatever is necessary to make them become reality! These are not people who give up easily.

And it’s not to say that the region is the only one with determined, creative professionals. I think what actually happens is that those sorts of people are attracted from all over the world to come and work together in this centralized area. Actually, I KNOW this is the case. When I’ve visited Stanford, and interviewed with small companies down there, I meet people from all around the globe. It is a creative center. Take a minute to read Ron’s thoughts as he visits Silicon Valley.

/by

Entrepreneurship Week at Stanford

Last week was EntrepreneurshipWeek USA across the nation and beyond, sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the New York Times, and Inc Magazine. Over 350 participating universities host their own events to bring together the best entrepreneurial thinkers and leaders–events like Brown University’s 60-second Elevator Pitch competition, Purdue’s Idea-to-Product (I2P) competition, and the Idea Bounce contest at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

I’ve been meaning to share my travels to Stanford for a few days, so I’ll start from the beginning. Last weekend, February 24th, was the national opening ceremony for E-Week at Stanford University. I travelled down to Palo Alto with my roommate Steve, where we stayed with our buddy Patrick Briggs (the Zazzler).

At the E-Week kickoff, Jonathan Ortmans (National Executive Director of EntrepreneurshipWeek USA) stressed the value of entrepreneurs to the US and world economy, citing that entrepreneurs especially reflect the pioneering spirit of the early American colonizers. An entrepreneurial career definitely highlights the difference between merely taking a job that someone else provides for you and making a job for yourself! It is a move back toward the self-made legacy of great American heroes like Ben Franklin, for one.

Next we heard from John Hennessey, president of Stanford University. Hennessey is one academic who has an entrepreneurial legacy himself, as he transferred his important research in microprocessor technology to actual industry application by co-founding MIPS Technologies (he also sits on the boards of Google and Cisco). President Hennessey explained that fostering an entrepreneurial atmosphere does five important things: it 1) increases people’s creativity and willingness to think outside the box, 2) encourages individuals to follow their passion and therefore excel at what they do, 3) creates a community that embraces and leads change, 4) encourages people to have a “glass half full” approach to problems and see them as potential opportunities, and 5) increases people’s willingness to take on and overcome challenges by building excellent teams. This entrepreneurial atmosphere is definitely prevalent throughout Silicon Valley–which is why I feel myself drawn there. It is one community of people who do not let fear of failure prevent them from giving their BIG ideas a shot! And they are great at assembling quality teams to tackle problems-as-opportunities.

Carl Schramm (President and CEO, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation) surprised some of the audience when he said that 70% of college students will start a business at some point in their lives. He referenced the common statistic that while our grandparents may have had on average four jobs over their career, we will have something like 13! And who is responsible for creating all those new jobs? Entrepreneurs, of course! Schramm is author of The Entrepreneurial Imperative and calls entrepreneurship the US’ “competitive secret,” which allows us to stay ahead of developing nations economically (who knows for how long?). He says that startups “birth the new” and give security to others by creating jobs, and they posses the only key to creating wealth! This presents an interesting new way to look at economic models that I hadn’t really approached before: without the for-profit businessman to virtually create capital, governments could not operate (no one to tax), and the non-profit foundations would not have any money to give to their causes. So without individuals to start up businesses, there can be no government, no philanthropy, no charity…

Finally Steve Jurvetson (Partner in the VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson) shared some insight into what ties philanthropy, raising families, creating art and literature, and entrepreneurship together–people’s desire to create some kind of a legacy that will last beyond our short time here on earth. He recommends students pay close attention for uniqueness, persistence, and infectious enthusiasm in their classmates (his peer Jim Yang went on to start up Yahoo!) because successful entrepreneurs are rarely lone rangers, but more often come in dynamic duos as he says. Most importantly, he says to look for ways you can harness what you’ve learned from past experiences in new and perhaps unfamiliar territory. That is why I try not to let job descriptions discourage me when I am looking for something new–I feel that my accumulated experience across many different job types will lend itself to being a flexible team-worker in different settings even if I haven’t worked in that field before. And I hope that my experience leading teams successfully in my academic career, recruiting and assembling student teams, and creating my own leadership projects in a position where I’m not officially given a lot of seniority, will translate well into being a fair and effective leader in business. You take the lessons you learn, and just apply them in a new setting.

In the end, I really felt like these guys opened my eyes to a few new ways of looking at entrepreneurship and how it benefits society. In a capitalist community, it really spurs all progress, and is responsible for all wealth- and job-creation. Carl Schramm says that all entrepreneurs are social entrepreneurs for these reasons.

/by

Career MasterMinds

Founder & Small Group Facilitator

January 2007 – April 2008

Sacramento, Carmichael & Roseville, California

Career MasterMinds was an exclusive Sacramento Mastermind group for young professionals and college students to empower each other through the college-to-career transition and beyond. We ran an organized group of 8-10 peers across different disciplines—from entrepreneurship to economics to philosophy to engineering—who met weekly for over a year to serve each other as a personal “Board of Directors”, supporting one another and holding each other accountable to goals in career planning, personal development, professional development, and in business.

/by

Vinod Khosla: Innovation Heals All Wounds

A colleague forwarded me some information this week about ethanol and Flex cars, a video in which Stone Phillips interviews Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems and now head of the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Khosla Ventures, a group whose interests in biofuels, solar power, web 2.0, microfinance, education, health, and more line up quite perfectly with mine. This quote from Khosla’s site exemplifies some of the sentiments I shared in my call for grassroots collaboration to solve global problems:

Innovative, bottom-up methods will solve problems that now seem intractable–from energy to poverty to disease. Science and technology, powered by the fuel of entrepreneurial energy, are the largest multipliers of resources we have to solve our many social problems.”

-Vinod Khosla, venture capitalist and ethanol fuel evangelist

The May Dateline NBC report, The answer to sky-high prices?, examines the tremendous success of ethanol in Brazil, which has recently gone completely energy independent. There, “flex” cars give consumers the choice to use ethanol, gasoline, or an 85% mixture thereof (E85). Three out of four new vehicles sold in Brazil are equipped with flex-fuel engines, and automakers like Ford Brazil are pulling in profits, even while their domestic counterparts are failing. Drivers say the ethanol is cheaper in almost every case, and Khosla gives three reasons for making the change here in the States:

  • Economic: The fuel costs significantly less to produce, and he argues that prices at the pump could go as low as a dollar or even 70 cents! What more incentive do you need?
  • Environmental: Khosla also discusses alternate methods of processing the alcohol from waste materials such as leftovers from paper mills, fruit peels from food processing plants, and even from prairie grass. Such methods would be even more economical and go further to reduce and recycle waste. = Happy Earth!
  • Social: Ending our energy dependence on the Middle East would put more money into U.S. agriculture and new energy markets rather than into corrupt regimes and terrorist groups. Not to mention, make us INDEPENDENT! Which is always good.

Dateline also reports that WalMart has committed to install E85 pumps at all of its gas station locations. For a full transcript and links to more information, see A simple solution to pain at the pump? And for those of you with a little more technical understanding of ethanol, watch extended footage of Phillips’ interview with Khosla here: Fuel of the future?, in which he discusses the science and process behind ethanol in more detail.

Note: Ethanol is a very disputed topic among environmentalists. I’ve seen the argument that ethanol from corn delivers only very little excess energy than is necessary to produce it. (But that’s why it’s Khosla’s comments about ethanol from other, ready sources that interests me!) Get the other side of the argument at Robert Rapier’s R-Squared Energy Blog. Robert is a chemical engineer in the energy sector, and he takes a critical approach to Khosla’s claims. Very interesting piece.

I don’t have the answers. But it’s certainly worth looking at!

The only thing standing in the way? BIG OIL.

/by

How To Get A Life Beyond Code: An Interview with Rajesh Setty

Rajesh Setty is the popular author of the book Beyond Code: Learn To Distinguish Yourself In 9 Simple Steps and another of my absolute favorite bloggers, at Life Beyond Code. He is the president of Foresight Plus, a Silicon Valley management consulting firm that aims to give entrepreneurs a competitive advantage, as well as founder of the new online companies Suggestica and iPolipo. He has lived quite the motivated and successful life, not only as founder, president, and chairman of many companies, but also as an author, teacher, and public speaker.

With such an accomplished list of entrepreneurial pursuits, I thought Rajesh would make the perfect contender for my second business interview. He has had many successes and failures, and has a lot of solid knowledge to share from that experience. I was fortunate enough to be able to meet with him in person on my recent trip to Silicon Valley, and he was kind enough to let me interview him by email.

Rajesh, you are a founder, president, chairman, author, and blogger. Please tell us about the many business projects you are currently involved with.

Cody, first of all thank you for inviting me for this interview. Now, to answer your question, currently I am involved in five different companies. I will go with the latest one first:

  • iPolipo – I am one of the founders and serve as the executive chairman. We think that people want to spend more time “meeting” people rather than “scheduling those meetings” with them. We have a solution that will help in doing just that.
  • Suggestica – I am one of the founders and serve as the president. We think that there is a non-information overload on the web. By bringing trusted content, we not only hope to save time and money, we truly want to bring joy into people’s lives.
  • Compassites – This is a company in India and I serve on their board. Compassites is totally focused on helping entrepreneurs with their product development needs. Their claim to fame is that they can take an idea from concept to launch in record time.
  • Foresight Plus – This is a management consulting firm where I partner with some select businesses and individuals to bring them an unfair and sustainable competitive advantage. I am no longer accepting new clients with this business for the near future.
  • CIGNEX – I was one of the founders and served as the CEO for the first five years. While I am no longer operationally involved in the company, I help in some business development activities when appropriate.

I am involved in a few more projects but those are all in stealth mode. I am an entrepreneur at heart but I am also an author and a teacher. On the business side, I act as a catalyst to speed up multiple projects simultaneously. On the personal side, I love to help already high-performing people reach greater heights.

What sort of background do you come from? And what was your experience like living and working in different countries around the globe and finally coming to reside here in California?

I was born and brought up in Southern India. I come from a middle-class family. My father was a civil engineer working for the state government. That meant that we would move from one place to another place every few years. It seemed like a pain at that time but it taught us to adapt to new situations.

That family background helped me to adjust easily when I lived and worked in five different countries–India, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and France. I am generally a happy person so I enjoyed living and working in all those countries. These experiences have helped me tremendously in the following ways:

  • Increased my respect for diversity: Every country was different and we had to get used to the diversity. Now, it is more fun than a problem.
  • Enhanced my ability to adapt: Each country was also different in terms of how we live and work and basically how to get things done.
  • Expanded my network globally: Relationships in different countries help tremendously with globalization in full force.

Where did you get your formal education and what did you study?

I completed my Bachelor of Engineering at Mysore University in India, in Electronics and Communication. Of course, I didn’t use much of what I studied in my engineering at my work.

Do you have a word of advice for college students and other young people who would like to become successful leaders or entrepreneurs?

I think every college student should try to pursue a life of leadership. If you are a college student, you can learn that by taking some initiative to do what I call “filling in the blanks.” Wherever you are, you can always find something that everyone thinks someone else will take care of–blanks–and rather than thinking that someone else will take care of it, you can take the initiative to take care of it. If you make this a habit, you would have laid a good foundation to become a leader.

Are there any specific skill sets that don’t get taught in school that are invaluable in the business world? What do you recommend to get over those hurdles?

This question is very interesting to me. There are many skills that are not taught in schools, but if you don’t learn them you are at a serious competitive disadvantage. It will take me a while to list all of them, but here are a few for starters:

  1. Building long-term relationships: Long-term relationships can be a huge competitive advantage just because of the sheer fact that it takes a long-time to build them. Everyone knows that, but the schools don’t teach it. You have to learn it on your own initiative.
  2. Improving your likability: When I tell people that likable people have an easier time getting ahead, people usually agree. When I tell people that unlikeable people have a hard time getting things done, people agree to that too. However, when I ask them if they have done anything in the last one year to improve their likability factor, they look at me as if I am from a different world. Likability is a key skill and you have to learn it on your own.
  3. Learning how to learn: Schools teach you stuff but rarely teach you the concept of “learning how to learn.” It is your responsibility to learn the best way to learn new things. Many of your current skills won’t help you to succeed in the future. So while you are delivering your current projects with your current skill sets, you have to also learn new skills. Unlike the times when you were a student, you have less time to learn a lot more. This means you have to learn how to learn.
  4. Leveraging your time: Every one of us has only 24 hours, but successful people get more out of those 24 hours. How can you too get more out of your time? For starters, start designing your activities to yield multiple rewards. For example: you come across a very interesting service on the web, you can see who among your friends will be interested in it and why. Remember that even if only two people are interested, the reasons for their interest may be different. Your job is to send both of them a note explaining the relevance of that service to them. This is an example that you are caring for what they care about.
  5. Building your personal brand: Every person has a personal brand, whether they like it or not. It is “who they are to the world.” So, you have a personal brand too. The real question therefore is: “Is your personal brand effective?” Like likability, personal brands provide a powerful shortcut to many things. It takes a while to build a powerful personal brand and it takes a lot of effort to maintain and grow it, but the rewards are long-term and sweet.

What values would you say have provided you with the greatest motivation to be continually successful? What do you care about most?

If I could pick one value, it would be the ability to touch the lives of people in a positive way. I like to have a magic touch–meaning when someone is already magical (high-performing), I would like to touch them!

As an entrepreneur and executive businessman, what experiences have left the most lasting impression or have been the most memorable in your work experience?

It is hard to single out any one experience during the last decade, Cody. However, every time I see a smile on one or more of our clients’ faces, I feel blessed that we were able to solve a problem for them or open up a significant opportunity with our products or services.

So, you’ve just unveiled your newest venture iPolipo just days ago. Please tell us all about it.

We launched iPolipo in the “controlled beta” mode on Monday, December 11. We hit 90% of our beta customer count by Friday of the same week. This was an overwhelmingly positive response for something that was built over the last one year.

iPolipo solves the everyday scheduling problem for business executives. It is common for two people to exchange multiple emails or voicemails to schedule one meeting. It is also frustrating to hold a particular slot on your calendar open waiting for a confirmation from the other party. iPolipo solves this problem by allowing people to share their free slots on the calendar effectively on the web.

 

And what motivated you to start writing? Tell us about some of your written work.

I started reading early. By the time I was nine, I must have read close to 700 books–mostly novels and other fiction. When I was nine, I had an idea–you can say a crazy idea–to write my own novel. At that age, you don’t have a lot of logic in your head. So I didn’t think much, but wrote a 200-page novel. My parents thought I was mentally ill, as it was odd for a 9-year old kid to write 200 pages of anything. But my craziness continued. I thought, “writing is the hard work; publishing should be easy.” I immediately took action and started searching for a publisher. Long story short, after more than a hundred rejections and four long years, I found a publisher to get my book published. After that there was no looking back, and I have thoroughly enjoyed writing since then.

I have so far got seven books published. Four novels, one collection of poems, one book on mathematics and my latest book Beyond Code (with a foreword by Tom Peters) is a management book that’s focus is to help people distinguish themselves to raise above the commodity crowd. I talk about 9 things that people can do to distinguish themselves. It is available in many major bookstores and almost all online bookstores like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and 800-CEO-READ.

What kind of readers do you write your blog Life Beyond Code for?

My blog is targeted at knowledge workers, entrepreneurs and ambitious students who want to get something more out of their lives. It started off as an extension to the book, but has taken a life of its own. I write on topics that range from how to get more out of your life, the art of leverage, distinguishing yourself, leadership, entrepreneurship and some occasional mini sagas (a mini saga is a story in exactly 50 words).

How do you think web 2.0 technology is changing the way we do business? Is this a positive trend?

Web 2.0, Software as a Service, Open Source or any other thing in and within itself cannot make a significant change. What we do with them is what is causing the change. I just received a business plan to look at where the entrepreneur had explained the business model something like this: “We have a web 2.0 application delivered as a Software as a Service model in the healthcare vertical.” I was sad because the idea should not be to create a buzzword-laden business plan. The underlying magic is the power of the business model and the power of execution. Both idea and the team are important and then comes the “how” part where web 2.0, open source and SaaS models come into play. Sometimes people tend to put the cart before the horse because of all the hype surrounding these buzzwords.

Describe your vision of the future of business. How do you think things might change on an international level, and how might businesses anticipate those changes?

All I know is that the rate of change that is happening at a global level is mind-boggling. I think nobody can cope with this change all on their own. Everyone needs help and whoever realizes this early and builds powerful configurations that can withstand the change can survive and thrive. There aren’t any sure-fire ways or practices that can help any organization to guarantee success. What I tell people is to constantly build the capacity to:

  • handle change
  • relentlessly innovate
  • read the markets
  • anticipate mid to long-term needs and start planning to create offerings before someone else does
  • execute better than the competition

Who do you think are 3 or 4 of the most authoritative experts in leadership, innovation, and business productivity currently, other than yourself?

Here are my current picks, in no particular order:

Leadership

Innovation

Productivity

What one life tip would you like to leave us with, Rajesh?

Focus on ROII. ROII stands for Return On Investment for an Interaction. Everyone is busy and running around to take care of many of their concerns.
People say time is money, but most people really don’t mean it or at least they don’t behave as if time was money. In fact, they do something that is shocking–they treat money as if they can never get it back, and they squander time as if they can easily refill it at a gas station or something like that. In reality, we all know that time lost is gone forever and money invested in the right things will yield multiple returns. Imagine for a second that you did subscribe to the “time is money” philosophy. This would mean that when someone interacts with you, they are investing their time and that means they are investing money in you. Like any business person, they are interested in getting the right return on their investment (in this case, this happens to be time) and it is your duty to provide that return for them.

If you don’t care about providing a decent ROII, you become a liability for that person. Worse, if someone else who is in the same role provides a better ROII for the same job, you have a serious competitive disadvantage.

I wish to thank Rajesh so much for giving me a few hours of his time and sharing his valuable thoughts and experiences! As is fitting, he is the king of ensuring he delivers the highest return-on-investment to everyone he interacts with!

Rajesh Setty currently lives in Silicon Valley with his wife Kavitha and their son Sumukh. You can learn more about him on his website Life Beyond Code, or from his book Beyond Code.

/6 Comments/by

How To Make The Most Of Being Sick

We all get sick. It’s a part of life.

About four or five days ago, my brand new running routine that I’ve been trying to keep up 3 or 4 days a week finally irritated my asthma (something that hasn’t bothered me for several years since I was a kid). I was in the emergency room until 4:30 a.m. Saturday morning on a breathing device, and then finally checked out with an inhaler, etc. Unfortunately I am still struggling to get a deep breath, so I chose to take a sick day from work today until I can get in to see my regular doctor tomorrow for follow-up at 11. (I’m hoping they can prescribe me something a little more preventative!)

Aside from my hopes and wishes, it’s very difficult for me to concentrate on work when I feel like I’m struggling for breath—plus I need to relax my body and get my mind off my breathing as much as possible—so I chose to stay home. While it is hard to concentrate on things, that doesn’t mean I can’t get things done! A day off from work is always an opportunity. So, the first thing I did after I slept in a little and called my doctor was read Patricia’s “How To Use A Sick Day To Change Your Life” at A Better You Blog. I figured this would be a great kickstart for my lazy day at home. She says, “Stay on track. Do not use your illness as an excuse to be derailed from your path in life.” Instead, she offers 10 examples of how you can make a sick day a productive and successful day! Here are a few of my favorite excerpts:

“You will be healthier if your mind thinks constructive and uplifting thoughts. When you are sick in bed is not the time to consider all the things you cannot do. Instead, make a deal with yourself to think only about what you CAN do.”

“Dream. What would you do if you could change your life? Use your sick day, a day away from your typical routine, to consider your life course. Set goals and aim high. Think big. It is okay, no one will laugh. And no one will even know if you stay quiet. Consider telling someone your dreams, goals, and aspirations. You may find encouragements in surprising places. Then take action. Are you stuck with an extended illness? Consider how you can use the time to help others. The biggest cancer fundraisers began with one person considering what to do to influence the world. What about you?”

“Grow, create, and expand. Before your day is over, enrich your life. Learn something new. Watch a documentary or “how to” show on television. Read a book about a subject you do not know. Browse the internet to learn what you do not typically seek out. Evaluate your life purpose, your measure of success, and consider your sphere of influence. Create a post for your blog if you have one, or express yourself through whatever medium your talent allows. You can be very productive while your body rests. You can even change your life. Do it today.”

So, after reading this insightful post, here are a few goals I have set for myself for today:

  • To blog about my sick day. Check!
  • Put the time I have to the best use and finish up a group project I’m working on strong!
  • Read a back issue of Vanity Fair (the Green Issue) to expand my knowledge.
  • Possibly catch up on balancing my checkbook and polishing my budget if there is time.

What will you do with your next sick day?

–How To Use A Sick Day To Change Your Life at A Better You Blog

/3 Comments/by

Interview: Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You To Be Rich

He won’t just teach you to be rich…he’ll also teach you the skills to get into college, get a great job, bargain for what you want, and so on. Ramit Sethi is one of my absolute favorite bloggers. He’s based out of Palo Alto, and is known for IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com. But aside from being a personal finance guru, Ramit is a graduate of Stanford University, he’s founded several companies such as his latest, PBwiki, he has two books coming out in the next year, and he’s just an all-around nice Silicon Valley guy.

Now, part of my own personal mission is to start interviewing people who are doing what I want to do, or people who are experts in their fields–in business, finance, environment, technology… So, here is the first of what I hope to be many.

Ramit was kind enough to sit down with me (outside on a freezing Sacramento morning no less!) for a cup of coffee on a recent trip home to visit his family. I am so grateful for the time and thoughtful answers he gave me! We had such an amazing discussion, but here are the highlights.

Ramit, how would you say your essential self differs from your social self? In other words, if you could be living your dream, independent of how others might perceive you for it, what would that look like? Do you identify yourself more as the IWillTeachYouToBeRich teacher, or as something else?

Actually I think I’m lucky enough to be able to do whatever I want right now, and I’m doing it! Some of that involves trying to build a great company with some other guys, some of that involves writing a great blog that’s completely my own, and I can say whatever I want–no editorial control or anything. I don’t think there’s much of a difference between what people see on my site versus my personality. What my readers see me talking about day-in and day-out though is personal finance and entrepreneurship, and really there’s a lot of other stuff that I’m interested in–I don’t talk about college recruitment, and I don’t talk about my travel that I do on a personal basis. And if there’s one thing my friends would say about me that’s a little different from what’s on the site is that maybe I’m a little bit louder, a little bit more vulgar in real life, but pretty much what you see is what you get. The biggest compliment people give me is that they say, “When I read that I can actually hear your voice!”

It’s hard to put me in a bucket though–like, personal finance over here, wiki over there, college recruiting over here. That may be a little confounding, but my general goal here is to find what I’m really interested in, get really good at it, and then turn around and teach other people. That’s what happened with personal finance, that’s what happened with the musical instrument I play–the tabla… Teaching it absolutely helps me learn it better, because people challenge me all the time when I’m teaching things. That to me is pretty exciting, because I can read all the blog posts and all the books, but there’s nothing like having somebody with an individual question I don’t know challenge me, so I really appreciate that.

What sort of background do you come from and how did your childhood influence the person you’ve become?

We’re sitting here right now in Sacramento–we’re about a five minute walk from my house. I grew up very middle class here, my parents were very modest. They were immigrants from India, and what they taught me were things like “just ask”–ask for a discount, or ask to get published, just write it up and send it in to the newspaper! They taught me the scrappiness of “just ask–there’s nothing wrong with asking”, and not to fear failure. I manage most of my life through my email, and I have a folder in my inbox called “failures.” And for me, I say if I’m not getting 4 or 5 failures in there a month, then I’m not trying hard enough. When I was in high school it would be like applying for scholarships, in college it was applying for grants or projects, now it’s applying for jobs, etc. Learning from your failures is like: what did you do wrong? And what could you do better?

What was your experience like studying at Stanford University? How do you apply what you learned about psychology and technology to the business world?

I loved it! I had a great time there. I did my undergrad and graduate work there. I studied technology and psychology. It was about the people. The way I prioritized my work was: number one was my friends, two was my own business stuff, then third comes my academics. I don’t know if parents will like hearing this, but if it came down to me working on an essay that was due next week or going out with my friends, I would almost always choose going out with my friends. I don’t know if that’s for everyone, but it worked great for me, because I spent all this time meeting all these different people that are now all over the country that I can visit anytime, and they taught me more than any book could teach.

I studied a lot of bargaining and persuasion, and combined that with technology. In general I think it helps me understand things like, “Why are my friends saying this or acting like this?” In business, what are the levers that would motivate people? I’ll give you an example: Some people are really, really motivated by money, and that’s okay–they’re open about it. Other people are more motivated by ego, while some people–a lot of engineers, for example–are motivated by a challenge, like “How difficult is this problem? How big is the impact?” So, it’s like, you figure out those motivational things, and you work with the person to get what they really want. If someone came to me and they offered me a lot of money, it probably wouldn’t be the most motivational thing, because money is not as important as other things to me right now. So, it’s really important to understand people’s motivation and then turn around and apply it.

What would you say are the most valuable lessons you learned from your education that have helped you become successful since?

I learned that being smart is not the most important thing–I’m a big proponent of that. There are people who are way smarter than I am; probably most of my friends are way smarter than I am. And that’s good if you want to, for example, get into law school. But for my path, being book smart is not the most important thing by any means; it’s about, “How do you get things done? With really limited resources?” If I wanted to write an e-book or start a website, I’m not too technical, so I would need to persuade people to help me, and I would need to create this passion in them. Or how would I go around the bureaucracy of a university and get what I want? That was the most important stuff I learned. For me, what I value more than anything when I’m hiring somebody, it’s not your GPA–I don’t give a damn! It’s “Show me some examples of where you’ve gotten something done.”

What experiences outside of your education would you say have been essential? What skills are there that you think business-minded individuals need that aren’t taught in school?

Number one is taking initiative. In school it’s so easy to get by if you do the papers, take the tests, and get an A or an A- or whatever. You’re done, you’re satisfied. And to me, that’s like the bare minimum. I would rather get the B or a B- in a class, and have done something really cool outside of class. So taking initiative to really find what you’re interested in, talking to the right people… Like you emailed me and here we are meeting up! That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I do that all the time. I did that in college, I do it all the time with CEOs or anybody I think is interesting. Take them out to lunch, take them out to coffee. They teach you something, maybe introduce you to their friends. And that’s the way that I’ve been fortunate enough to really come further than I thought I would have been able to.

What motivated you to start blogging?

When I was a sophomore–this was around 2002 in college–I came up with this idea called IWillTeachYouToBeRich, and I came up with the framework for a one-hour class, which I still use. And I went around to my friends telling them, “Hey you guys have got to take this class! In one hour, I will teach you how to be rich!” People would be so excited but they would never show up. I was so frustrated, so finally I thought I’d just start a blog, and I’ll just write–I’m gonna make it funny, I’m gonna make it how I really talk in real life, and I’m not going to make it really pedantic and boring like the old white men at Wells Fargo and Fidelity. There’s really cool stuff to be taught here; there’s so many lessons! And I can learn as I teach. So I did that, and for the first six months there were very few comments–like maybe one or two comments per post. And I just kept writing because I liked it. After six months I had all this that I had written; I was like, “I’m on a roll.” People started commenting, and maybe about 8 or 12 months into it there was some sort of click and a lot of people started commenting. In the background I was also doing a lot of marketing to spread the word. I was covered in the Wall Street Journal and a lot of people started coming to the blog, and then it really started building into a community.

College students and recent college grads are my core audience, that’s who I go after. But what’s interesting is that I have all these people I had no idea about. I have a very large group of 30-40 year olds, and I have high schoolers, and I have people who write me that are senior VP at a Fortune 100 company and they’re reading my blog! And it just happened because the word spread.

How significant do you think blogs and podcasts are as a new medium of communication?

I think they give everybody the ability to write something interesting about what they do, or communicate something interesting. I always say, everybody has an X-man ability… everybody’s got at least one thing that they’re amazing at—-they’re an X-man! Somebody’s got the piano, somebody’s an entrepreneur, someone may be a Westinghouse Scholarship winner, whatever it is. Everyone’s got something. If everybody just put their one thing, or their passion, on a blog or a podcast… I’ll tell you IWillTeachYouToBeRich was probably the best business decision I ever made. Now I have a huge reach, and I feel very fortunate about that. Business opportunities have come my way that I never would have found. The ability to start a blog–which you can do in like ten seconds–is great. It’s letting the really passionate people come out and spread the word.

What was your first company and what was it like founding and running your own business for the first time?

First one was right out of high school, called Scholastic Advising, which still operates with the involvement of my parents. When I was in high school I got so frustrated because so many people would say, “Oh I’m not going to apply to Stanford, because even if I got in, I couldn’t afford it.” This is exactly the wrong way to think about it. The right way to think about it is “I’m going to apply everywhere. I’m going to do a great application, and if I get in, then I’ll think about the money.” And usually what happens is if you’re good enough to get in, then they’ll take care of you. I saw a lot of kids doing this and it made me sad. My parents were very middle class and there were four kids in the family. They told us, “You guys have got to get scholarships, otherwise you can’t go to college.” So we did! And there’s no secret, it’s the same things I talk about: take the initiative, be patient, learn from your mistakes, that sort of stuff. So Scholastic Advising was an advisory company, a consulting company. We helped high school students get scholarships and financial aid, and with admissions. That was what we worked on, and it’s still continuing through my parents.

You’ve done some consulting with Omidyar Network and Storm Ventures. What has that taught you? And what do you think of the whole “web 2.0” phenomenon?

Pierre Omidyar was the founder of eBay. He’s very wealthy now and he wants to give back to improve the world. I was brought on to do some social psychology consulting. I would evaluate deals and make suggestions–“I think this is good, I think you should invest this much…” Similar thing for Storm and I’ve also done some consulting for a capital firm called Gemini. Mostly they want to get in and learn about this web 2.0 stuff and what young people are doing these days.

I think one thing a lot of young people don’t realize is that they are experts at what young people are doing! If you use instant messenger, Facebook, Myspace…you are an expert, and older people have no idea what’s going on! And that is a marketable opportunity. So, I turned that around and I marketed it, and they hired me as a consultant to teach them about blogs, social networks, photos, music sharing, all that stuff. A lot of companies are stuck in the past and they’re just buying big billboards, and they don’t understand young people don’t care about that anymore. We care about personalized recommendations, we care about what our friends say, we see it on Myspace and blogs and YouTube. And these older folks are struggling to understand that, so I think there’s a humongous opportunity for young people, if they’re smart and they package it right, to say “Here’s the things you need to know, here’s what I’m getting on a daily basis, and here’s the things you should be doing.” Older companies are paying a lot of money to have market research firms come in and instruct them, and I always just say why not get together a group of 5 or 10 people and just talk to them?

You’re also a co-founder and VP of Marketing for PBwiki. Tell us about PBwiki and where you hope it might lead you in the next few years?

It’s a scrappy startup that I love! We all co-founded this, there’s three of us, three Stanford grads. PBwiki means it’s as easy to make a wiki as it is to make a peanut butter sandwich. And a wiki is an easy-to-use website that lets a lot of people edit it together. You may have heard of Wikipedia; that’s a good example of using a wiki as an encyclopedia. So if you have a group project you might say “Hey Mike, you put the information about Thomas Jefferson, I’ll put the information about Susan B. Anthony.” Or if you’re taking a vacation, “You do the airfare, I’ll do the hotels, and we’ll put it all together and see what everyone has done.” And of course businesses are using it, educators are using it in the classroom… If you go to PBwiki.com it takes about ten seconds to set one up, we host it and manage it, and it’s free for you! And if you want to have more features or more space then you can pay us a small subscription fee. So we’ve hosted over 140,000 wikis in about a year, and it’s growing very quickly. We got offices a few months ago, which is a big step for us. And we just hired somebody else on, and have taken some funding. The goal here is: wikis for the masses. Most people still don’t know what a wiki is, and we want to share that, because if you’ve ever sent emails back and forth a hundred times editing this and that, why not just put it on the wiki where everyone can see the changes and everyone can go back in time to see past revisions?

You’ve co-authored a book on college recruiting coming out — Recruit or Die, scheduled for release July 5, 2007! And the big news is that you just signed your second book–this one to go along with your personal finance blog! What will be in your forthcoming IWillTeachYouToBeRich book that is unique from the online resources?

IWillTeachYouToBeRich, the book, won’t be coming out for a while. In fact, I’m just starting to write it. But if you’ve read my blog, you know that I have a no-nonsense style. I’m not about platitude, I’m not about being bought by any corporate interests, I’m just about telling people the best things to do. And I offer some different ways of thinking about things: for example one thing that I encourage some people to do is buy a new car instead of a used car. And that’s different than a lot of personal finance people, and I explain why. If you like my reasoning or not, at least you understand it. IWillTeachYouToBeRich the book will have a combination of personal finance and entrepreneurship, and you’ll be able to pick it up and finish it and say “Man, I know what to do tomorrow, I know what to do next week, and I know what to do for the next 30 years.” You can never finish learning, and I’m not saying this should be your only book, because of course it shouldn’t. But in terms of getting your strategy together and getting started, in the one or two hours it takes you to read it you will know exactly what you need to do. That’s the difference–I am very tactical. I could give you a lot of generalities like “start early” and “diversify,” but that doesn’t mean anything if you think “Shit! What bank account should I get?” Or, “What do I do with this debt?” I’ll be saying: here’s the steps, here’s what you do, and here’s what to look out for.

You’ll be able to see excerpts of the book on my site. And it’s not going to be just a book. I’ll be letting my readers contribute to it and actually add some of those stories to the book, and I’ll be asking people to actually help me shape the way the book looks, give me links, tell me what you think should be in this book. So it’s going to be a pretty collaborative effort. And there will be some fun stuff that I won’t announce yet, but stay tuned.

In your opinion, who are 4 of the most authoritative experts (other than yourself, of course) in the personal finance field today?

One I really admire is Suze Orman. I’m actually a big fan of hers. Some people are not a big fan of her style, but I don’t mind someone’s style so much if they have good things to say. Every time I watch her show I learn something. What I like about her is that she encourages people to manage their own finances. One of my core tenets is that almost everyone can manage their finances without a financial advisor. And she teaches you that you don’t want to be paying fees to these financial companies–you want to learn a little bit, and do it on your own.

Another guy I really admire is Jonathan Clemens at the Wall Street Journal. He’s saying “Think long term.” And a lot of young people are very stupid–they’ll say things like “I bought this stock and I sold it for a 20% profit.” And they don’t realize that–no they didn’t–they had to pay a huge amount in taxes on that, and they didn’t realize their gains as much as they could have, because if they just held it and read the research, long-term investing beats short-term almost every day of the week. He focuses on getting started, putting your money away and diversifying. It isn’t sexy, but there’s a difference between being sexy and being rich.

JLP at AllFinancialMatters is great. And J.D. Roth, who just started up a new blog called Get Rich Slowly, has just been around for a few months and he’s doing very well–he’s got great readership and great articles and it’s not a surprise. I think these guys are doing a phenomenal job. I think it’s interesting you have these experts like Suze Orman, but then you have just these regular guys doing everyday blogging, day-in and day-out.

To top this all off, do you have one financial tip you think everyone should know?

I don’t do that. It’s pretty sensationalistic to say I have one tip. IWillTeachYouToBeRich is a sensationalistic enough title! If you go to the site, you’ll be surprised because it’s not about any secrets. There are no secrets, but I’ll tell you a few things that I think work. You don’t have to be the smartest person in the room, you just have to get started early. And what I mean by that is you have to understand your financial accounts. You have to look at how much you are spending–most people don’t even do that!–and I will teach you to do that. And then you say “Alright I have one credit card; I need a few other sources of credit and I need to use them effectively.” And then you can get a free E*trade account and you can start trading a little bit and investing in index funds, which are a pretty good bet. And don’t be stupid! A lot of people just watch MSNBC and read CNN Money, which are some of the most hyped-up, unbelievable things, and they buy stocks that they read about in Smart Money. Big mistake! Because those magazines and those TV shows have to sell something. And I’m not out to sell anything, it’s just about picking something that you know and you love, and you use. Finally you need to learn to track these things, whether you use a pen and paper, or Excel. Tracking exactly what you’re making and what you’re spending is a way that you can get rich over a long period of time.

I have a very boring investment strategy: evaluate my diversification strategy, understand that I can take a lot of risk because I’m young, buy stocks or index funds and let it ride. If I think there’s a good value, buy some more. I’ve hardly ever sold. That’s not sexy, but at the end of the day the question is: do you want to be sexy or do you want to be rich? My basic message here is you don’t have to be the smartest person in the world, you just have to get started. And taking that first step will put you above 99% of other people your age. If you do start early and you are sensible, I think long-term you will be rich. That’s it, it’s as simple as that.

Well, again I want to thank Ramit Sethi so much for taking the time to meet with me and discuss his successes and experiences. If you’d like to learn more about Ramit and what he does, check out his blog IWillTeachYouToBeRich, his company PBwiki, and his upcoming book Recruit or Die. Students who’d like to learn more about personal finance can start with this article on Thrilling Heroics, Six Simple Money Tips to Get You Back on the Financial Track.

/7 Comments/by