Step 1 – Priorities – Equally Happy

Products Don’t Need To Be Perfect, They Just Need To Be Good Enough

January 18, 2012 By Gal 1 Comment

This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Diamonds or Dogs

Perfection sucks. It’s the enemy of invention, it’s the thing that holds you back. Trying to reach it might be an ok goal but never finishing a project until it’s perfect is the work equivalent of dry humping, it feels good but you never really get to the point. Sorry, but perfection can go to hell, I’ll take good enough any day of the week.

I say all this because I’m struggling with finishing up Diamonds or Dogs, my gift site. There are so many things I want to do. I need more reviewers, more reviews, a better landing page, a better “about us” and more information on why the site is the way it is. That’s just the beginning of my to do list. However, the more I try to get the site perfect, the more I push off the important task of starting to drive traffic to the site. Yes, I want the site to look good but I also want to start doing marketing for it. I want to start linking to it, telling people about it, running an AdWords campaign and the dozens of other things I will need to do in order to get people to my site. I’m not doing any of those things because I’m working on the landing page… [Read more...]

Filed Under: Achieving Success, Making More Money, Optimization, Perfectionism, Step 1 - Priorities Tagged With: Diamonds or Dogs, Goals, Good Enough, MVP, Perfectionism

How Can I Change The World? Or At Least My Country

November 21, 2011 By Gal Leave a Comment

So, if I think both the OWS and the Tea Party movements suck, how exactly would I go about changing the world? It’s an interesting questions because one of my goals in life is to leave this world in a better condition than I found it. Whether or not I have kids, I want my impact on this world (and on my country) to be positive. I don’t need to be the next Abraham Lincoln or Tim Bernars Lee, but I would like to have a net positive impact. This is especially important to me these days when the world seems to be in a bit of trouble all around. We have environmental issues, economic collapse, political instability, leaders who seem clueless and politicians who seem completely out of touch. In the face of all this, it’s easy to feel powerless and just give up. However, there are still plenty of ways in which one person can have an impact and I’m going to use this post to list a few. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Communication, Decision Making, Goals, Honesty, Responsibility, Step 1 - Priorities, Step 2 - Make A Plan Tagged With: Change, Goals, Government, Influence, Occupy Wall Street, Politics, Tea Party

Why Occupy Wall Street Sucks

October 31, 2011 By Gal 14 Comments

I don’t usually get into politics on this blog because I find that it’s too divisive. People either believe or they don’t, sort of like religion, and trying to hold an intelligent conversation over a matter of faith is silly. Today I’d like to change that a bit. I’m going to talk about politics and the occupy wall street phenomena in particular. However, I’m going to avoid talking about the political opinions expressed and just focus on the actions. That is, I’m not trying to say whether the OWS movement is right or wrong, I’m simply going to look at how they’re conducting themselves.

First, a little background for those of you who might be reading this five years from now or who might have been living under a rock for the past five years. OWS is a bunch of folks who are camping out in a park near Wall Street in protest of the current economic situation. They have a variety of messages but most of the them revolve around the idea that current income distribution is unfair due to the fact that the top 1% of earners take home far more than 1% of the income. That’s fine and if that’s your belief, good for you. However, what actions are these people taking? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Step 1 - Priorities Tagged With: Change, Economy, Money, Occupy Wall Street, Politics, Saving Money, Wall Street

Choose To Be Happy

August 16, 2011 By Gal Leave a Comment

I’m on a plane to Austin right now. I’m going to be meeting some customers there tomorrow and then flying back home tomorrow night. When I boarded the flight I saw a sign that said “free Wifi mid air” and it occurred to me just how wonderful these times are that we live in.

Sixty years ago it took my grandparents two weeks to escape from Romania to Israel. They huddled in trains and on ships, not quite sure where they were going or what was going to happen to them. They left behind all their belongings and faced a completely unknown future. And here I was, making a journey of about the same distance in comfort. I sip my complimentary drink and surf the web 30,000 feet above the American southwest. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Goals, Happiness, Making More Money, Step 1 - Priorities Tagged With: Goals, Happiness, My Cult

Retired At 31, A Lesson In Purposeful Living

April 27, 2011 By Gal Leave a Comment

“I’m retired!” That’s what my friend Ray said to me on his 31st birthday.

To better understand this comment, let me describe Ray to you. Ray’s family came from a poor farming community in Asia. They had no money when they came to the US, a poor understanding of English and no real education. His father worked as a school janitor for many years, slowly saving up money until he could buy a home. Then he bought another home, and another, and another… In his 50′s, Ray’s father retired on income from his school pension and from the dozen or so properties he owned and rented out. He spends most of his days travelling or enjoying life with his extended family.

All of this was done through a lot of hard work and determination with no “luck” involved. Ray’s dad worked long hours and saved up all his money for this goal. The family rarely traveled, never “indulged” in luxuries and the kids were expected to pay their own way through college. However, it was also a very happy family. Aunts and uncles would stop by all the time, large family dinners were the norm and both parents were very involved with their kids and their community.

I still remember going over to Ray’s house on the evening after Thanksgiving. Before she passed away, his mother would always save leftovers for us. We would all show up around midnight and feast on leftover turkey, stuffing, corn and pies! It was a warm and happy house, even if they didn’t have the latest big screen TV. I think Ray saw all this and, being the competitive guy he is, decided he would do the same, only faster. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Goals, Step 1 - Priorities, Step 2 - Make A Plan Tagged With: Family, Goals, Happiness, Purposeful Living, Real Estate, Retirement

Be A Better Buyer or: “Why You Have A $1000 Home Gym Collecting Dust In Your Garage”

March 16, 2011 By Gal Leave a Comment

A few days ago I talked about the value of selling solutions from a seller’s perspective and I mentioned that you need to understand your buyer’s problem and solve it if you want them to buy. Since all of life is selling, this strategy is effective for anything from selling a product or asking for a raise, to getting a date or asking for a promotion. Always strive to understand the other party’s problem and present what you want as a solution to that problem.

Today, I’d like to talk about that from a buyer’s perspective.

Have you ever paused for a second and thought, “why did I just buy that?” Do you have one of those giant home gym machines collecting dust in your garage even though you spent a good amount of cash on it? Are you spending too much on shopping for things you don’t need? Do you keep finding yourself in a relationship where the other person is not quite what you’re looking for? If so, read on. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Decision Making, Goals, Honesty, Losing Weight, Procrastination, Step 1 - Priorities Tagged With: Buying, Dating, Decision Making, Money, Relationships, Saving Money, Selling

Guest Post: Act Like A Kid to Find True Happiness

February 17, 2011 By Gal 1 Comment

Have you ever visited to a park and watched kids playing in the playground? They seem so free and so happy. Often if you look at the adults, they are happy just watching the children play. It’s contagious. Why does this make adults happy? Is it because they are remembering the pure innocence of children? Or perhaps it’s because they can see the beauty in the freedom from worry

Gal’s Note – Anytime I’m feeling a bit down I take my dog to the nearest park. Watching her play and watching the adults & kids there having fun, never fails to cheer me up. If it’s too cold for the park, try the mall or anywhere else where happy people congregate. Happiness truly is infectious. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Goals, Introspection, Losing Weight, Step 1 - Priorities Tagged With: Happiness, Kids, Priorities, Reducing Stress, Starting Out, Stress

My Big Plans For 2011

January 18, 2011 By Gal Leave a Comment

A few months ago, I posted up my list of things to do. This week I took some time to really evaluate these projects and see which ones I want to tackle this year. By doing so, I’m basically coming up with a list of goals that I’d like to accomplish in the next 12 months. This will let me have something concrete to work towards.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Goals, Step 1 - Priorities, Step 2 - Make A Plan Tagged With: 2011, Goals, Planning

Are You Honest With Yourself? I’m Guessing Not.

August 30, 2010 By Gal 2 Comments

This image look familiar? These are actually some of the most common new year’s resolutions out there. Does this look right to you? Think about it, these are things that people are resolving to change about their lives. These are big aspirations, huge goals, things to accomplish now that a new year has begun and the top one is…. lose weight! What the hell?!? Losing weight is the top life changing priority for people? Drinking more water is an important life changing event?!?! Come on, we can do better than that!

Last week we talked about the first step to a new life, figuring out priorities. Before we move on to the next step, I want to take a moment and discuss honesty. Why honesty you ask? Because most of you are god damned liars! Either that, or you have an amazingly tiny capacity to dream as evidenced in those new years resolutions. No, don’t take it personally, we all do it. We lie to ourselves because we’re afraid of being honest. Somehow we’re afraid of seeming like total selfish asses if we’re honest about what we really want. We hold ourselves down because we’re afraid of dreaming big. After all, we’re not worthy of those big dreams, are we? Well you know what? That’s total garbage! If you can’t be honest with yourself, who the hell can you be honest with?

For example, I have a friend named Daniel who’s working at a dead end job. It’s the kind of mindless and mind numbing work that would cause me to kill myself in under a month. Seriously, I have no idea how he does it. He’s hating his life because of this job and is trying to find a new one. So I ask him, what kind of job do you want? He says “oh, I don’t need much, something that will pay the bills and let me leave early on Fridays.” This is complete and utter crap!

Need Versus Want

I didn’t ask him what he needed, I asked him what he wanted. No one in their right mind wants “something that will pay the bills and let me leave early on Fridays.” Sure, we’re willing to settle for it and yes, that might be all we need, but it sure as hell not what we want. We want something fun, something exciting, something that will feel like it’s not even work. We want to be movie stars, stunt men, rock stars, CEO’s, supermodels, firemen, pro athletes and a whole lot of other stuff and we sure as hell don’t want to spend the rest of our lives “paying the bills and leaving early on Fridays”. What the heck kind of a dream is that?

Dream Big

I’m not immune to this myself by the way. I’m currently training for a marathon and, when someone recently asked me what kind of performance I was hoping for, I said “well, I’m hoping to finish in under 6 hours”. Yah right. I’m hoping to kick total ass and finish under 5 but I’d be perfectly happy with finished under 6. See the difference? One is my hope and dream, the other is what I’m willing to settle for and still be happy.

Seriously folks, I didn’t ask you what you need or what you’re willing to settle for; I asked you what you want? What are your dreams? Sure, you do need a bit of realism. For example, I’m a 5’11 bald guy with back hair so my dream of being a Victoria’s secret lingerie model is probably out of the question. However, my dream of being a CEO is not. There are plenty of CEO’s, why can’t I be one? Same for my dream of one day being a US senator. Why is this unrealistic? Lots of people get elected, why can’t I? Can I be a pro basketball star? Well, at 36 years old, 5’11” and a complete inability to jump, probably not, but I can run a marathon or climb mount Everest. So keep things realistic but also don’t let your own self esteem hold you back. Write down your dreams and goals and be honest. Dream big. We’ll pull these back to earth next week, but right now I just want you to open your mind and DREAM!

By the way, here’s my list of goals and dreams

To be in a long term relationship with a wonderful woman and have two or three beautiful daughters.
To be retired from full time work by age 40 while still making around 1 million a year from passive investments and side gigs.
To own a bar
To climb Everest
To run an iron man
To be 180lbs
To scuba dive on the great barrier reef
To hike every hike in the 25 greatest hikes book
To be CEO of my own company
To write a book
To skydive
To be elected to state or federal level elected office.

Yep, I dream big! Your turn

Filed Under: Goals, Honesty, Step 1 - Priorities Tagged With: Bucket Lists, Dreams, Goals, Needs Vs. Wants, Priorities

First Step To A New Life – Figure Out Your Priorities

August 24, 2010 By Gal 4 Comments

Get A Life

I’m a member of Meetup.com, a site which I think is absolutely great. For those of you who don’t know it, meetup allows you to meet new people based on shared interests. It’s a site that deserves a post of its but for now, just bare with me. Today, I got an email from meetup telling me a new group had formed with the following description:

Did your college degree land you an assistant manager’s gig at Starbucks? Are you twenty something and still living with your parents? Is your debt to income ratio higher than you are right now? Are you tired of all the stupid, fucking corporate bullshit?

If you answered yes (or “meh”) to any of these questions then you should come hang out with us!

This group is for those of us, children, who have have been left behind. We realize it’s all bullshit, that we’ve been lied to, that it’s not going to get any better if we “just stick it out.” This is for all you people who spit out the bitter Kool-Aid and are looking for human contact that’s more genuine than “Would you like whipped cream on that latte?”

My first reaction was “geez! Whine much?” My second reaction was “geez! Whine much? Why not do something about your life instead of whining about it!” Then I realized something, I wasn’t that much better than these guys when I graduated school and I had the good fortune to graduate at a time when the world wasn’t going through a major crisis. Still, just because I was a whiny 20 something (and possibly 30 something), doesn’t mean it’s ok. You’re right, it won’t get better if you “stick it out” but it will get better if you get off your whiny butt and do something! It’s time to get a grip and accept some responsibility for that useless college degree (what on earth made you major in French?) and start improving your life! So here it is, step 1 of the Equally Happy life improvement regime, MAKING PRIORITIES!

What Do You Want To Do?

Seriously, have you ever thought about what you want to do with your life? What kind of experiences do you want? What kind of things do you want people to say about you at your funeral? What kind of life do you want to lead? Most of us go through life just getting by. We live day by day, waiting for the next weekend to arrive so we can try to forget about the previous week before the next week starts. What the heck kind of miserable life is that? I know Hollywood makes all those “free spirit” characters who flit from one day to another look very cool and romantic but this is total Hollywood bullshit. Most “free spirits” like that end up in meetup groups like the one I mentioned above. Which is not to say that being free spirited is a bad thing, it just needs to be done with a little bit of forethought (yes, you need to plan out your lack of a planned life. How perfectly ironic!).

Try This

Take out a sheet of paper (or even better, start a new Google doc) and write down some things you want to do and be. Don’t let reality get in the way of your dreams and don’t hold back. Just write it out. You want to be a chef? Write it down. You want to raft down the Amazon river? Write it down. You want to write a book? Write it down. You want to have kids? Write it down. You’re a beautiful woman who wants to have a casual fling with a personal improvement blogger? Write it down (and then email gjosefsberg@gmail.com). Ok, so maybe that last one was a joke (it wasn’t) but I would still urge you to do this little exercise. In the next few weeks I’m going to go through a number of steps I want you to take and writing down your priorities is the starting point. Seriously, if you can’t even figure out what you want to do or be, you’re in more trouble than I can help you with.

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Thank you to My Wealth Builder for including my “are you worthy of a raise” article in their recent blog carnival.

Filed Under: Goals, Starting Out, Step 1 - Priorities Tagged With: 1st Step, Life, Meetup.com, Personal Improvement, Priorities