Number of times I moved: 4
Number of companies with which I had a full time job: 4 (incl. my own company)
Amount of time spent away from home (wherever that was): 3 months
Countries Visited: 4 (not counting transits)
Distance Flown: 80,872 mi
Longest Bike Ride: 73 mi
Longest Car Trip: 1,845 mi

Being unsettled created an amazing amount of stress for me in 2007. However, I couldn’t be happier where the year is ending. The bike ride statistic was accomplished yesterday when Ben and I biked from our place in Cambridge to Newport, Rhode Island. Im a little sore, but dancing tonight should loosen me up. See you next year!

We all have in us the potential to be a pessimist, or an optimist. We also have in us the ability to create our ideal future. Those people you know who are successful. It probably seems that everything goes right for them, right? Wrong! Those people have just as many problems as the pessimists. It’s how they deal with them mentally that makes the difference.

But colin, I don’t know if I am an optimist or pessimist!

Personality tests are fun. If you answer honestly, you might get some insight into yourself. Take a look at this Optimism / Pessimism test. You can see how I did by clicking the image on the left. It’s kind of funny in the test that the lower your score, the better. I guess optimists can handle that better than pessimists!

Ok, I could be more optimistic, how can I get there?

This is by no means a comprehensive list… just a few suggestions on what I do:

• Celebrate every small victory – at BetaHouse, it has become a tradition that we take a vodka shot every time we roll out a new release of software. This happens a lot in the Agile Development Method. You don’t have to shoot vodka! But, you should develop your own ritual to celebrate victory.
• Focus on your goals, not what prevents you from reaching them – There will always be a reason why you cant do something. Forget it! You see a mountain in front of you. Your goal is to get to the other side. The optimist thinks “what can I do to achieve that”. The pessimist thinks “I can’t achieve that with what I have”. The optimist then goes to buy a bike to go around, or some climbing gear to go over.
• Do exercise – Set goals for yourself at the gym. When you achieve them, celebrate with a small victory. This is even better if you do it with a buddy who encourages you (thanks Ben!).
• Give out positive vibes – Think about how you can raise others up instead of criticizing them and bringing them down. When is the last time you told someone at work how much you respect their work ethic. Positivity breeds positivity.

Most of the time you can change a day or an outcome based on your state of mind. The tips above help me to tweak my mind on a daily basis to stay on the positive / optimistic track.

How do you stay optimistic in everyday life?

(All numbers go to me, so don’t worry where I am in the world)
US: +1-617-379-0726
UK: +44-2071-934-419
Skype: sud0n1m

A sample of my missions at the moment

• Help Pip @ unearthtravel.com get more hits & traction
• Help Tom get more publicity for his band, Headland
• Evangelize elifelist.com for Lee

I know a lot of people across many different industries and countries and I want to help you achieve your goals in life!

Well, this reminded me of an article I had read recently by Kerry Miller of BusinessWeek. “The Restaurant-Failure Myth“. The myth states that 9 out of every 10 restaurants fails in the first year. A study done by H.G. Parsa, an associate professor at Ohio State University has debunked this sticky myth. In reality, 1 in every 4 restuarants fails in the first year and over a three year period, 3 out of every 5 fails.

While this may seem high, this is in line with a “cross-industry average for new businesses”.

Don’t be discouraged by urban myths!

Take what your parents and friends think into consideration, but trust your gut. Most of the time, your gut is right.

Should you listen to friends?

For example, a friend of mine tells me I will be unsuccessful at running a tech startup because Im not a comp-sci major or an engineer. His theory is that the recipe for success is to be highly technical first, and then develop / be blessed with business sense and vision. He cites Larry and Sergei from Google, and other technical people he knows who have achieved success in consulting and technology companies.

So, what is my reaction to this?

Im upset that my friend is not supportive of my goals. Im ignoring his opinion for the most part. It’s not constructive to listen to ANYONE who uses the words “can’t , don’t, won’t” when they talk to you. I care about and respect my friend but I realize that what he believes is realistic, is just negativity.

Do parents have your best interest in mind?

If your parents are normal, they want you to be more successful than them, they want you to be independent and they want you to be happy. The problem is, they are also human. This means they have flaws. They may say “I told you so”. They may not understand what you’re trying to do and tell you to get a real job. They may not always be able to say the right thing to you. The problem is, if you’re looking for advice and approval, they are at the top or near the top of the totem pole. When they say something negative or discouraging, it’s hard to ignore.

My mother reminded a family friend who is a very smart man and always looking for the next big thing, but has been a failure all his life. Wow, how motivating! Obviously, she is sharing her fear about that happening to me. I can appreciate her concern, but IGNORE IGNORE IGNORE!

What if I’m delusional?

You’re not. Self belief is a much more powerful tool than you think. Most people in the world don’t follow their dreams and it’s tough for them to see people who do. The people who haven’t achieved greatness are hardly the ones to define what is possible / impossible in your world. What’s important is not to ignore completely when people discourage you, but to spin their defeatist advice into positive action.

Wow, I feel better after writing this.

…you have won one of the five prizes we were offering at the raffle. In the first round of drawings only 2 winners showed up to claim their prizes, afterwards we conducted the drawing again and your name came up as one of the winners for “Free $4,000 worth of Software Development Services** â€?.

Internally, we’ve been discussing integrating a global outsourcing firm into non-critical-path development for our company in order to keep the core development team lean and mean. It’s really exciting to have a trial opportunity to test it out.

Im going to be going to the NetProSys offices in March to meet and discuss how we would like to use our prize!

Stress is a dangerous thing. Not only does it affect your mental state, but it affects your physical state too. Under stress, my body produces excessive amounts of stomach acid and I experience severe indigestion. The whole experience is quite uncomfortable. When I have it for a prolonged period, I start to realize I am stressed and then it gets worse! This reaction to stress is ridiculous and unproductive. For me, managing stress is essential for physical and mental health.

If it were easy and comfortable to be entrepreneurial, many more would do it. It is not easy and it is not comfortable. The stresses, however, can be overcome.

The root cause of my stress is FUD – fear, uncertainty and doubt. For example:
I fear that I will fail.
Im uncertain if I will be able to pay my mortgage in 6 months.
I have doubts about my own abilities.

Every single one of those notions is utter nonsense. Naysayers around you seed your mind with these thoughts. Don’t listen to them! Others criticisms of you are rooted in jealousy and lack of confidence. They contradict what you know to be true:

“I will be successful. I will achieve my goals. I will meet and exceed my expectations�

This doesnt mean to say that you overcome stresses purely with your mind. Taking action to deal with stress is a large part of it. There are several things that I did to lower my sources of stress and enable me to focus on my startup.

1. I transferred in excess of my credit card balance to a 0% interest card for 12 months. This allows me to leave my cash reserves as is in case of a serious emergency. Moving has been expensive. It cost me more than $3000 to move to Boston. These are expenses that I hate paying, but they are necessary and you need to bite the bullet and do things correctly.
2. Not rushing into a new lease / mortgage (if you’re moving). If you’ve laid the groundwork, you already have a large network of friends around the country. I am subletting one of my friend’s apartment while he is in India on a consulting gig. That gives me 3 months to look for the “rightâ€? place to live for the next year.
3. Find people you trust and offload responsibilities to them. I am starting two companies at the same time! My “Top Startupâ€? and my real estate company (at the moment, there is just one property). In order to rent my Texas house out, I needed to find a property manager, a carpeting guy, insurance, paint, tenants etc… For the property manager, I went with my friend and Real-Estate agent, Nelson. I trust him and he is great at what he does. He’s not yet experienced in property management, but I know he will do right by me. For carpeting, I went with a company that is about 5 minutes away from my property where I liked the way the guy explained different carpet qualities and advised me to get the cheapest carpet for my rental. They were less expensive and more knowledgeable than Home Depot. I used the same insurance company I used for my homeowners insurance and they got me a rate that was comparable. For paint, I went to the closest place – Sherwin-Williams, also 5 minutes away. Tenants, I used craigslist. This saved me money (no fees) and it is a great way to find people to fill your place. By going with people and companies I am familiar with, I am able to get things done in half the time. It may not be bottom dollar, but how much is your time and energy worth? I will take this same mentality to our company. There is a point of diminishing returns with each incrementally “betterâ€? deal you find.

In addition to clever ways to reduce stress and increase productivity, there is also a larger idea that I know will help:

Your thoughts influence what happens to you.

This may be a tough one to swallow. The basic premise is that people who think bad things will happen to them HAVE bad things happen to them. People who think good things will happen to them HAVE good things happen to them. I have had a strong belief in the power of positive thinking for a while and I recently had this reaffirmed in the movie “The Secretâ€?. As a side note. I am writing this from First Class aboard a continental airlines flight. I didnt pay for first class, I was upgraded. Why was I upgraded over everyone else on the flight? It’s probably a combination of my frequent flyer status, the fact that I checked in online for my flight and the fact that I want to sit in first class and I believe I deserve the things I want.

I also believe I will be successful. I believe that my team will build a successful company and make my investors and my partners very wealthy. I know these things will happen because I believe them to be true. That statement will sound strange to the large number of skeptics in the world. It is true. It will happen. Keep watching this space to find out how.