• Inspirational stories about people who created great lifestyles, often through startup companies, without impressive academic credentials
• Identification of key skills to succeed professionally and how to develop them
• Reasons why college education in American is broken and why it’s not relevant

Like Four Hour Workweek, I found it to be a great book even though I’m not looking to start a company or work 4 hours a week.

Ellsberg identifies these skills as the keys to success:

• Finding great mentors – you can get great mentors, but you have to actually take the action of identifying them and asking them
• Marketing – great marketing happens when you focus on your client, not you, and how you can help them (not how great you are) — for example, try listing 25 of each of these for a client you’re pursuing:  fears, frustrations, desires, dreams, and nightmares and see how that affects how you communicate with them
• Sales – learn from people who are great at it, like great copywriters; don’t think sales is beneath you (it’s a key skill, not a separate profession)
• Investing in yourself
• Building your personal brand

Some great quotes/concepts from the book:

• “But what these cultural expectations for dropouts miss is that people can turn around.  Whether you’re a fast-food server or a cubicle jockey in a mindless corporate job [crappy] job fresh out of college, you’re not going to create anything better for yourself unless you make a fundamental shift:  from viewing yourself as a passive follower of paths other people set for you, to actively taking responsibility for creating your own path toward success, however you define it.  Thus, how much education you have doesn’t really matter; what matters is whether you make this fundamental shift in mentality.”
• “The people who are most successful, they had a problem gnawing at them, and they couldn’t be comfortable unless they did something to solve that problem. … It was about solving a problem” – Sean Parker
• “Understand that no matter what you’re doing, even if you want to be a ballplayer, a rapper, a movie star — nothing happens until something gets sold. Ever. The reason actors make so much money is because their face sells the movie tickets. It’s not about their ability to act. … The key is … to cause someone to joyfully give you money in exchange for something that they perceive to be of greater value than the money they gave you.” – Frank Kern
• The skills of success (marketing, sales, leadership) are separate from the skill of your craft (writing, design, engineering, etc.) and you need both to succeed.  Marketing is getting people who didn’t know you to know you.  Sales is getting people to pay you who haven’t paid you before.  Leadership is changing the hearts and minds of people (not manipulation, but effectively leading).
• The five minute rule:  when you’re having a bad day, you can whine/vent/complain about it for 5 minutes; then focus on what you can control
• “We don’t get to choose what happens to us. But we do get to choose what it means. And in the choice is a tremendous power.”
• “If there are other people doing well in your industry, and you’re not, there’s nothing wrong with the business you’re in, there’s something wrong with you.”
• “Most people don’t see that they have options beyond what society tells them to do.  That’s the biggest problem.  They honestly believer that compliance is the shortcut to success. …there are all these people who work in newspapers who think that they can comply their way to success.  It’s insane.” – Seth Godin
• “There are two decisions you need to come to in order to be free, and to be more effective.  First is that you are not entitled to anything in the world, until you create value for another human being first. Second, you are 100 percent responsible for producing results. No one else.” – Joe Polish
• The entrepreneurial mind-set (not the employee mind-set) is the key to success, whether you’re a business owner or an employee:  focus on contribution (not entitlement), outcomes (not output), what’s needed (not what’s requested), working yourself out of a job (not working to protect your job), going toward big decisions (not avoiding decisions), seeing your circumstances as temporary (not seeing them as permanent)
• “I predict that many of the critics of [Education of Millionaires] will incorrectly say I reduce education to mere “vocational training.”  My book, in fact, recommends the opposite of vocational training.  Vocational training prepares you for a specific job — even though many of the jobs people people are now training for may not exist in five or ten years!  The courses in this book prepare you for success in any job, including jobs we can’t even imagine because they don’t exist yet.”
• Education doesn’t have to be linear anymore, thanks to the hyperlinked Internet of knowledge (concept discussed by Sean Parker)
• “[Peter] Thiel told me he asks a simple question of people who are seeking employment with him, as well as asking it of the young people applying to his fellowship program.  He says that many young people, raises for years and years through the hoop-jumping and conformism of the formal schooling system, have an incredibly hard time answering it.  So it weeds out most applicants:  ’Tell me something that you think is true that very few people agree with.’”

• Don’t use credit cards unless you will pay them off every month
• Contribute to your 401K at least enough to get your company match
• Read books about what you’re interested in (and if you find yourself never reading books in your free time related to your career, you should probably find a new career)
• Spend a lot less time watching TV and checking Facebook
• Surround yourself with cool people that you want to be more like, because you’ll become more and more like your friends
• Read challenging, inspiring books like Education of Millionaires and Radical (Christian book)
• Spend five minutes each day (35 minutes a week) to assess what it is that you want to do in your life (no really, life flies by if you don’t think about what you want to do, see http://www.csc.ncsu.edu/alumni/391)
• Study a little about leadership, business, marketing, and personal finance even if you don’t think they’re interesting (they’re super-important to everyone)
• Make time for important things instead of always reacting to urgent things
• Watch Dead Poets Society (“…Carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.” – John Keating)
• Whenever you catch yourself saying (“One day I’ll learn/do ____” or “I should do ____ someday”), decide if you actually want to do it.  If you do, make time for it.  If not, stop talking about it and don’t stress yourself out.

• Great small screwdriver set:  Boxer 30 Pcs 4mm Precision Screwdriver Set
• CR1616 batteries:  Maxell CR1616 Lithium Coin Cell (5 Pack)

I would attempt to explain the process (which is pretty intuitive), but someone already made a great instruction video:

Some of the highlights for me were:

• “I taught my sons and daughters that money is not their God. You control it…not let it control you.”
• People who have net worth (not necessarily high incomes, but people who are worth a long instead of people who make a lot and spend a lot) often share characteristics like: they enjoy their work, they don’t buy luxury items (big, fancy, new houses; flashy cars), but they do buy things of value
• They enjoy their work
• They spend significant time socializing with friends and maintaining personal and professional relationships well
• Millionaires see keys to success being things like honesty, discipline, being easy to work with; instead of intelligence, SAT scores, etc.
• They are very focused on using their time well — minimizing things they aren’t passionate about (e.g. they make shopping lists before they go to the store to avoid wandering) and making time for things they do care about (friends, passions, hobbies, etc.)
• They don’t blame others for their circumstances of think about or start things without finishing them

The book is full of inspiring stories about people who worked hard and accomplished impressive things, like the part-time, school bus driver who saved his pennies, studied the stock market tirelessly, and retired after sending his 3 children to Ivy League schools with $3M in assets.  It’s a great read as a reminder of how focused our society is on buying shiny, new things instead of spending time with friends and other things we’re passionate about.

(I love Evernote for taking notes of things on things like great quotes/points in books.)

In a recent article by James Altucher, one of the best writers anywhere, he writes about why entrepreneurs should not buy a house. What I really liked was how he dug into the psychology of owning a house. Predictably, the commenters hate him.

How often do we do something or want something without considering WHY we really want it? For example, if I were to say, “Why do you want to buy a house?” and you replied, “I’m tired of throwing money away on rent,” I would reply: How exactly are you doing that? Can you show me the numbers? If you cannot do that, you are not ready to make the biggest purchase of your life

The article that Ramit linked to had some really interesting points about home ownership.  I enjoy reading articles about home ownership, because it’s such a polarizing topic — people love it or hate it, often having a correlation with if they own a house.  Here’s a few other articles with similar viewpoints:

• http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/housing-prices-cultural-assumptio/
• http://patrick.net/housing/crash3.html
• http://finance.yahoo.com/news/pf_article_102603.html

I continue to be pessimistic about home ownership for a variety of reasons, including the recent volatility, the huge fees that are part of buying and selling a home, the popularity of renting instead of buying things (e.g. leasing cars, Netflix, subscription-based web applications, etc.), and the lack of unbiased observers (e.g. people in the real estate industry want real estate transactions to increase, people with houses want their house values to go up, renters want their rent to stay low, etc.).

I don’t know if I’ll buy a house or not, but it’s hard not to be intimidated by such a huge investment without unbiased support.  I wish the real estate industry had some concept of a buyer’s advocate who was really out to help you.  Instead, I see traditional buyer’s agents as being strongly incentivized to get you to sign on the dotted line (so they get paid) and wanting you to pay a high price (so they get a higher commission).  I’m hoping innovative companies in the real estate space like redfin keep making the industry better (and I’d love to see the big, walled garden that is MLS opened up to web services).

I met one of CodeAcademy’s founders, Neal Sales-Griffin back in December at a CodeNow event; and was excited to hear about the organization that he had created.  I was blown away when I went to see it in action — CodeAcademy has brought today great teachers; a powerful network of volunteer mentors; and a diverse, impressive set of students.  Last week’s demo evening, which was presented to a packed house, included 3 minutes presentations from all students and some of the teachers.  Some of the students focused the many things they’ve learned, and many showed off projects they’ve been working on including some impressive web applications including:

• http://signup.viveproject.co/ - a social bucketlist
• http://beta.giddyupapp.com/ - friends coordinating social events — I see so many apps trying to conquer this tough problems
• http://furnishly.com/ - Craigslist + Pinterest focused on used furniture, which apparently is a huge market
• http://datetracks.com/ - Dating website focused on music as a shared interest)
• http://signup.seewhos.in/ - multi-platform app focused on sharing where you want to go with your friends)
• https://twitter.com/#!/crowdcoin - an “easy button” to allow people to easily add tips to their credit card transactions at stores like coffee shops
• http://brightcontractor.com/ - lean CMS for contractors (e.g. electricians) to build simple websites
• http://ohexcuses.com/ - hilarious website with great excuses that are tagged
• http://www.leasemaid.com/ - beautiful website that helps landlords manage their properties (applicant screening, lease coordination, service requests, etc.)
• http://www.bike2workweek.com/ - social website to help businesses compete for Bike to work week (I’d love to see this come to DC and drum up some cycling interest)
• http://www.schoolsparrow.com/ - cool website that helps people find houses in their price range close to great schools in Chicago
• http://launch.wordzies.com/ - app to teach people new words to impress their friends
• And lots more

There were some great insights from the students and teachers at the event, including:

• When you love creating things, doing anything else isn’t fulfilling
• The collaborative learning of CodeAcademy had some impressive results — like the creation of utility apps like http://cssbits.herokuapp.com/
• You have to be 10 times better than the current solution to get people to change their behavior
• Simple doesn’t mean dumb in design, it means elegant design
• Know your users (reminds me greatly of my time recently at Lean Startup Machine DC)
• One of the students was inspired to pursue CodeAcademy by hearing about @dhh buying a Lamborghini
• The HTML/CSS teacher, Shay Howe, has an awesome, free set of HTML/CSS tutorials at http://learn.shayhowe.com/html-css/
• Carolyn Chandler’s presentation on design was awesome

FYI:  DevBootCamp in San Francisco and Hungry Academy in DC are similar to CodeAcademy, but each have their own business model and culture.

My initial reaction to lean, with has some significant overlap with agile, is focused on quickly validating business models through real tests of your assumptions.  Not thought experiments, not talking it over with you buddy; but real, tangible ways to test your assumptions by removing assumptions.  For example, an early idea of the team I was on was:

• Assumption:  people would share job openings on their social networks if they would get paid for helping getting someone hired
• Realization:  people are protective of their social status, as part of their online identify, and only want to share opportunities that help a friend and/or are associated with a cool company

Much of the weekend was spent wrapping my head around using tools to validate or invalidate assumptions (using tools like Google Ad Words, Facebook ads, talking to domain experts (finding them using your network and social media), and pitching concepts).  In addition, there was a huge focus on collecting “currency” or tangible validation of your idea, which could include letters of intent from vendors, clicks on ads (see http://www.stephaniehay.com/blog/lean-content/), email addresses on a launch page (see http://launchrock.com), initial payments, etc.

The weekend started with people pitching ideas on Friday evening and forming teams and ended with a Sunday afternoon series of presentations of each group, focused on their process, what they learned, and their results.  In between, there were some great local people sharing their expertise in entrepreneurship and lean concepts; as well as a team of mentors around to help guide people through the process.

Some highlights included:

• Peter Corbett talking about iStrategyLabs
• Discussions with Teague Hopkins about the future of the office of CIO
• Maksim Tsvetovat discussing how social networks grow
• Stephanie Hay’s discussions on initial tests instead of getting stuck in talking about ideas
• Great ideas from Chitra Sivanandam about focusing on pain points (and hearing about some of the super-cool stuff she does)
• Hearing Brian Sowards’ story of how he used lean to iterate a weak idea into a multi-million dollar valuation

• It’s a great break from the information overload technologies like iPhones and iPads (this is why I avoided the Kindle Fire)
• You can preview the first chapter for free on most Kindle books
• You can highlight phrases and sentences you like, and Amazon keeps them consolidated in a central place where you can review your highlights
• You can carry your collection of books with you easily
• It powers on instantly, is easy to read in most lighting conditions, and it’s lightweight
• It’s an immersive, simple interface (see Greg Nudelman’s post about immersive interfaces)
• You can email your Kindle PDF’s to read later
• It has a simple model of showing your most recently read books at the top of a list (and you can make folders of books if you’re so inclined)

My favorite aspect though is that it makes it easy to read, which I appreciate.

So what I’ve been trying to do is:

1. Examine my priorities daily, to make sure I’m focused on the right things
2. Spend a little time (about an hour) knocking out the quick actions and delegating what should be delegated
3. Focus big, solid blocks of time on making progress on the biggest, most important, most time-sensitive things