Month: May 2011

PDT Part 1: The Values Test

This is part of a 3 part series inspired by this very good book on Time Management that I am reading at the moment. Of course, there is some amount of cliché’d content but there is a lot of good content as well.

Our end objective with this test would be to just revisit how we manage our day currently. This is one step in a two part approach.

3 questions to kick start the challenge –
1. What are the values that matter most to you?
2. Can you explain what they mean to you in a sentence?
3. Can you prioritize them?

This might sound like really hard work but I had a go in the train journey this morning and while some fine tuning may be required, I have a list I feel represents what I believe..
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To myself
1) Integrity I.e. walk the talk, keep commitments, demonstrate incredible energy and be dependable
4) Health I.e play hard, eat well and sleep well
5) Growth I.e. everyday I get better, invest in myself and read

To those around me
2) Family i.e care for those I love, quality time (1-1) by not taking work home, stay in touch and stay loyal
6) Grace I.e. grace under pressure, deliver when it counts and never make people feel inadequate..
7) Humble I.e never vain enough not to take in input to change for the better and to seek and merit divine help

To the world
3) Desire I.e. To be the ‘best I can be’ . To want to make a difference, to be the best I can be and give back
8) Orderliness I.e. Leaving every place Better than I found it
9) Openness and acceptance i.e. Of people and the world, broaden mind by new experiences – travel, the arts etc

Priorities
1. Integrity
2. Family
3. Desire
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I found it to be enormous value of course – especially the prioritization part. More on why coming soon..

The man in the arena – Theodore Roosevelt

It is not the critic who counts;
not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles,
or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;
who strives valiantly;
who errs, who comes short again and again,
because there is no effort without error and shortcoming;

but who does actually strive to do the deeds;
who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions;
who spends himself in a worthy cause;
who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement,
and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly,
so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

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A reminder to keep fighting the ‘good fight’.. Stay inspired, all!

On Corporate & Paid vs Free & Unpaid

Imagine you spoke to an economist in 1995 and told him about two contrasting encyclopedia models.

Encyclopedia A would be funded by Microsoft, the global technology behemoth.
Encyclopedia B would be a not-for-profit initiative and would be funded by nobody in particular.

Content for Encyclopedia A would be generated by paid employees in Microsoft.
Content for Encyclopedia B would be generated by people around the world who would work unpaid and contribute their own time to ensure accuracy.

Encyclopedia A would be sold via DVDs and CDs with lots of great interactive content.
Encyclopedia B would be text based and available for free on the internet.

Now, let’s imagine you asked the economist to peer into the future and ask which encyclopedia would be more successful 15 years down the line?
It would have been a struggle to find even a single economist who would predict the answer to be ‘Encyclopedia B.

Yet, in March 2009, Microsoft announced that it would suspend ‘Encarta’ thanks to Wikipedia winning the war of the encyclopedias.

The power of tapping intrinsic motivation is one that corporations around the world have still not fully understood. Wikipedia provides for a strong example of the power of purpose over monetary rewards!

Here’s to inspiring our colleagues/teammates/employees with purpose this week! :)
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Source: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

Happy Mother’s Day

To all those mom’s around the world. I would like to share this post by ‘The Gotham Gal’ that I thought was very very true.

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Still CEO of the Wilson household


About four years ago I took a step back and started to think about what life was going to look like as my kids started their exit strategy from our house. Also they were at the age where I wasn’t picking them up from school and I didn’t need to move them from location to location because we live in the city. I figured about 70% of my time was being spent on them and family stuff. I began to plan my strategy for filling up that 70% with other things and figured it would take me some time get there.

Like most everything else I do, nothing happens in long stretches. Once I pivot or come up with a plan it usually is like jumping on a rocket ship as I like to get things done. My first move since I had been blogging for 3 1/2 years at that point was to invest in Curbed Media. I had been watching Lockhart from afar and loved what he was doing. I knew he was starting to look for funding and so I reached out to him. That move was the first pivot in the direction of regaining my own identity and life back. It wasn’t that I didn’t love running the WIlson household which consisted of anything from baking cookies, having dinner parties, doing construction projects to buying a car, doing a project with one of the kids, helping them clean out their closet or researching our next dog but it was time to make it a little bit more about me.

It has been four years since I made that investment and a lot has happened since then. One investment turned into about eighteen different projects that I am involved with at different levels. Shocking right? I have to admit that I am a little blown away by that myself when I started counting. I do manage to think about all these projects and give them my time, energy and anything I can to help each and every one of them and still meet new people. Some are investments, some are non-profits and some are in the works so each take up different commitments at different times. On top of that I am blogging daily.

But the point of this post isn’t to pat myself on the back or to show what I can do but to write about the issues of being a Mom. I made a conscious decision to work again at a level that I enjoy because I am just happier when I am busy using my brain. For most people this would be and insane amount of projects but even though I have put a lot of effort into reposistioning myself I have not left my old job which is CEO of the Wilson house.

I still make sure the refrigerator is filled, I still have dinner parties ( I do adore them ), I still bake, I still make dinner most nights, I still make sure the kids are getting what they need and I do have 2 still at home, I am still planning our travel vacations, I am working on two huge construction projects as well as a few smaller ones, I am still making sure that the windows are getting cleaned when they need to be, I am still making sure the trains run on time in our house.

Although the 70% of my time spent on family is no longer 70% it is much less but it is far from zero. I have just figured out how to do it all within the 24 hours of the day and of course taking time out to sleep. Bottom line, as more and more women leave the workplace or re-enter the workplace, the reality is that whatever they choose to do for themselves or even if they never left work, their day job as CEO of the household will always continue to exist. So when VC’s or investors are concerned that pregnant entrepreneurs or women with families make them take pause to invest the reality is most women are doing a helluva lot more than anyone realizes and they thrive on it.

No offense guys, I’d love to see any of you do this.


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Respect to all mothers. I am very sure we guys don’t have that in us. :) And of course, thank you to all you super women.