I’m hoping through the power of the web I can somehow locate the ring. The ring is a 5+ carat diamond ring (I’ll try to get some pics up later). Right now we just hope to one day see the ring again. We will pay a very nice reward if anyone can help us get it back. If you have any information please email us at FindMyWeddingRing@gmail.com

If you have any suggestions on how I can try to locate it I’d love to hear your ideas. Right now my plan is to blast facebook, twitter, and craigslist to try to find it. I’m going to buy some geo targetted facebook ads to see if anyone in the area knows anything about it. If you have any other ideas PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE add them to the comments below or email me. We are desperate and would love nothing more to find it.

The next time you think you can’t do something. The next time you think you have it rough. Watch this video and see what real determination can get you.

I’m sure Butch Lumpkin would agree with a great line by Sonny LoSpecchio in Bronx Tale… The Saddest Thing In Life Is Wasted Talent!

As Butch Lumpkin says “Nothing is Beyond Reach!”

WARNING: If you are like me you’ll probably feel useless and inadequate after watching this video.

Butch Lumpkin Video

I’ll start with the meaning of the saying. The intended meaning of it is…
“Success comes to those who prepare well and put in effort.”
Nowhere does it say you have to wake up early. So the author spent his time discussing the literal meaning instead of the intended meaning. Well done Mr Biologist (Note: another thing that bugs me are people that believe higher level education is the ONLY thing that means something. I was nowhere near the top of my class in school and yet I’ve made far more money than anyone I went to school with). I don’t think anyone can argue the intended meaning is dead on. Prepare yourself, work hard, work smart and you’ll be rewarded.

My issue is with the literal version. The old generation always pushed the fact you have to wake up early to be successful. Somewhere along the way the world changed and they didn’t get the memo. I started my company when I was 19 and still in university. All my classes were in the morning or afternoon. As a result if I wanted to build my business the only choice I had was to work at night. Working from 6pm to midnight wasn’t enough. I had no money so my success would be determined almost entirely on how much time and energy I invested. I usually put in a good 10 to 14 hours a night. I’d work through the night, go to class to sleep then come home and work again. Waking up early played no role in my business success it simply determined how late I’d be for class.

In the past 15 years the world has gone from a 9 to 5 world to a 24/7 world. I believe old school businessman used to feel they had to be up early to be prepared for the business day and the markets to open. Obviously being an early bird would be important for someone like Warren Buffet. Most of us are not Warren Buffet. The internet changed everything. The world is your customer base and the world is always awake. You can always get business done no matter what time it is.

One of the biggest benefits I had in not working early in the morning was that I worked when I was in the ZONE! I’m a little (or maybe a lot) ADD. My mind wanders. Late at night I’m usually able to fully concentrate and really do my best work. I think it’s very important to work when you are at your best. Time is not only money it’s precious. Don’t waste it

If you are starting a business remember there is no equity like sweat equity. If you are going to take the saying literally then you should change it to be what it really is. The Hustler Gets The Worm! Out hustling your competition is one of the first steps to crushing your competition!

Why I Sold Zappos – This is a really good read for anyone who’s chased (or wants to chase) VC money. It comes with a price even for a guy like Tony Hsieh.

15 Things Every Business Owner Should Know – The title explains it all. A quick list of 15 things you should know as a business owner.

How We Got To 40,310 Facebook Fans In 4 Days – A very good step by step process as to how this person ran an online campaign.

Secrets of restaurant marketing with Foursquare – If you own a restaurant you have to read this. I love stories that showcase people who GET IT and absolutely destroy as a result.

Let me know what you think of these and if you have any articles you think I may enjoy by all means post away.

I honestly didn’t know what to say. I had two answers that immediately came to mind.
The first was… “Wrong Question, you are screwed if you have to ask that question!”
The second was… “It doesn’t feel like work. You can work 16 hours straight on it and the time just flies by.”
For some reason I always have a nice guy reply and asshole reply that comes to mind. Luckily I usually pick the nice guy reply (unless I’m having a bad day). I gave him the second reply but I didn’t like it. It bothered me because I felt my reply did nothing to help him. It left me wondering how can I be such a passionate person and not be able to answer his simple question.

I wanted to help him but didn’t know how. I started to ask others how they’d answer the question. Nobody was able to answer the question any better than I was.

I then decided to identify my own passion. What was I passionate about? Surprisingly it was a very tough question to answer. I looked up the dictionary definition and one of them was “boundless enthusiasm”. Doesn’t that sound motivating and powerful? What did I have boundless enthusiasm about? The Answer: Making Money. I didn’t come up with that right away but after thinking about my life that’s what I came up with. I always loved sports cars (always wanted a Porsche) and loved the power money gave people. As a teenager I wanted that power. I wanted to be in control of my life. Wanted to be able to buy whatever I wanted, do whatever I wanted and not have anyone have any power over me. I always felt money was the way to get that and I was determined to do whatever it took to get it. I didn’t have to go to extremes. It turned out devoting all my time and energy to business was all I had to do to attain my financial dreams.

What are you passionate about?

How would you have answered the question, “How Do I Know What I’m Passionate About?”

NOTE: If anyone is already doing this let me know. I’d love to use their service.
I’ll start by setting up the story. My wife wanted to make a reservation at Harbour Sixty, in Toronto, tonight. We’ve been there many times and spent a lot of money there. I think it’s safe to say we are good to very good clients. We both hate the process of finding a phone number, calling, waiting and booking a reservation. Thank God for OpenTable. We use it for all our bookings and unless we REALLY want to eat somewhere we rely on OpenTable to find out if there is availability.
So what is my idea? If the restaurants are going to allow OpenTable to book a reservation those same restaurants should automatically have a profile of me on their local systems. They should know how frequently I visit, how much I spend, favorite drinks, favorite meals etc. In tonight’s example if Harbour Sixty had had this in place their system would have shown an opening to OpenTable (maybe the times where they could best squeeze us in) and not lost our business.There is much more you could do with this idea. If you have this system you can make sure your frequent customers don’t have to rely on a waiter recognizing them for the experience to be memorable. You would already know their favorite waiters and make sure they are assigned to them. If their is something special happening you make sure they are in on it. For example we’ve eaten at Nobu Atlantis more than 100 times. The last time we were there Chef Nobu Matsuhisa was in town and we happened to meet him. We should have been guaranteed to meet him and introduced as very loyal and frequent clients.

The world has changed so much in the past year. As a business owner there is so much information regarding your customers that is now available.  As an example with Facebook connect you can pull pretty much all the relevant information you could possibly have ever wanted. The companies using the tools available and providing a better customer experience will be able to dig deeper (and more frequently) into those customers’ pockets.

It isn’t safe for any business (including restaurants) to continue to run the way they’ve traditionally been run. It’s a new world embrace it and, in the words of Gary Vaynerchuk, CRUSH IT!!!

If you implement this let me know. I’d love to use this service!

Sean Shapcott

Today I saw a really interesting story about one of the most creative contracts ever negotiated in baseball. Here it is…

In 1999, Bonilla returned to the Mets for a second stint at Shea following his borderline disastrous free-agent signing in 1992. Bonilla wasn’t any better the second time around, so the Mets waived him in 2000. The problem was that the team still owed Bonilla $5.9 million in guaranteed salary.

Bonilla’s agents worked out a deal with the Mets where he would defer the salary if the team would pay him $1,193,248.20 every July 1 from 2011 to 2035. Not a bad deal for someone who was so bad the team basically paid him to go away.

I don’t know about you but that makes Bobby Bonilla’s Agent the Best Sports Agent of all time in my books. The odds are he would have blown that $6 million 10 years ago. Instead of being broke he is now looking at $24 million coming his way in installments he can’t spend all at once. What a brilliant move! That is what I call looking out for your client. What do you think?

The source of the Bobby Bonilla story is CNN.com and you can read the full Sports Illustrated Article HERE

In 2007 Twitter had 5000 Tweets a day
In 2008 Twitter had 300,000 Tweets a day
In 2009 Twitter had 2,500,000 Tweets a day
In 2010 Twitter is now doing 50,000,000 Tweets a day

I go those numbers from the Twitter Blog

Do you realize how amazing that is? If that doesn’t get you motivated nothing will. Great ideas that are well executed have the potential to be bigger than ever. Our parents and grandparents never had opportunity to way we do. What are you going to do with that opportunity?

A few months ago I found about about Knet Golf in a business magazine (I think it was Fast Company). The magazine discussed how this great company was killing it selling millions of used golf balls. Not being the most accurate golfer I had to check this site out.

As luck would have it I hit the jackpot for golf balls. Knet Golf is the best. They sell all the high end golf balls at 50+% of the cost. These aren’t brand new balls but if you are 10+ handicap I’m almost certain you won’t see a difference. They have a really neat system to rate the condition of the ball. I usually buy their Mint/Grade A balls which are as good as new. I’ve bought over 25 dozen from them. Ordering, shipping, receiving is all fast and efficient. I can’t say enough about how bad ass these guys are.

Btw They have a special on Callaway golf balls this week they are offering an extra 20% off all Callaway golf balls.

So the next time you are golfing with me and you see me not breaking a sweat when I’m on my 12th ball of the round. It’s not because I’m a big shot. It’s because I have a horrible slice and I’m getting such a great deal from Knet Golf