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The time has come! We posted a challenge to our readers a few weeks ago to interview themselves. Many people responded. Peter & I read and read and laughed and cried. We got some amazing stories and wanted to bring to you a few of our favorites and pass on our congrats to the winners and the community at large. We are giving out 3 prizes. One for our favorite interview, one for the best original question and one award for sheer determination and chutzpa. The winners get to pick one book from my personal reading list. I hope you enjoy these as much as I did.
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in.sta.ma.cy [in-stuh-muh-see]
noun

1. a phenomenon in which complete strangers feel a powerful connection as though they have known one another for years.
2. a power sales approach built upon techniques such as mirroring and matching, eye contact, asking key questions and active listening, employed by master salesman around the world
3. a common precursor to the one night stand

Examples: The instamacy of the moment was so overwhelming, that I believed my new best friend when she told me that I need a forum, a wiki, 4 blogs, and a shopping cart for my lemonade stand business.

First coined by our friend and developer Stefan.

I’m going to Germany for Christmas!!! Or so I thought, until my car was broken into at a lunch stop on the way to the airport. Grabbing my backpack through the smashed window, the thief made off with my laptop as well as our passports and Lindsey’s green card. Having no passports, we were forced to cancel the trip.

After the initial shock, I thought about it and realized, as long as my identity is not stolen, this really isn’t that big a deal. The laptop is replaceable and was insured. The data was backed up the night before. I had carefully removed my credit cards from the backpack the night before. And frankly, although Germany would have been fun, it wouldn’t really have been a vacation, it would have been an exhausting gauntlet of feasts with German relatives.

As it turns out the thief left the bag and passports sans gear on the street for the police to pick up. We received a call the next day and gleefully picked up our travel docs and otherwise empty backpack.

What this got me thinking about more than anything is the importance of being prepared. Do you have backups? Do you have insurance? Do you have a contract? Are you keeping good books?

I liken this to defensive driving (not to be confused with slow neurotic driving). It behooves us to beware of potential pitfalls so that we can avoid them. You’ll never be able to prevent all bad things, but you can avoid a lot of them just by trying.
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Do you have a system in place to check your work before it ends up in the public eye? Too often, I find that as contractors, we get so pressed by our deadlines we do not build in the time for careful review. It is a tough lesson Peter & I keep learning over and over again.

Today, Julie and I received some great holiday gifts. We ended up rolling around on the floor laughing as we read the tags and labels that came on them.

The Dillian Sakae company had the following label attached to the jacket Julie’s dad received. The label was in Chinese with English subtitles:

.Extra softness and superior warmth provided by using imported raw materials

.Due to not spurting mucus(chemical liquid), so there isn’t any harmful affection on the human body

.A super product of the 21st century which can protect environment because of its excelent fluey, softness, warmth and reusage.

Body is feeling lightly and gently

This kind of linguistic ingenuity is beyond my ability for fiction. Do they have companies who specialize in this stuff or just some poor schmoe in their marketing department?
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Happy Holidays you all! I’ve been doing some thinking about the meaning of things and a lot about the future of our industry. I’m so grateful you are part of our journey and love the relationships I have been developing through this blog. We love you all, you challenge us and you make us laugh. It has been a blessing.

The world is changing. How we view money. How we earn it. How we spend it. Does it rule our lives more or less than it did in the past? Can we change that by the way we choose to work and how we do it? The winds of change are blowing and many, many people are about to join this revolution we call business ownership. This is just the beginning.

I asked the first billionaire I met what it is like to have that much money.

His answer was “it’s just like air”

I must have looked confused because he smiled and he asked me if I knew any asthmatics. I nodded.

“During an asthma attack - what is the only thing that person is thinking about?”

“Their next breath” I answered.

He looked at me and said - “You have financial asthma. I never think about money, to me it’s just like air. It has almost no bearing on my life what so ever.”

I think about that all the time. That conversation significantly shaped my relationship with money.

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I am going to take the time to pick the winners on Christmas day. In case you think I am a workaholic, I am Jewish and it is the only day I can take all the time I want to read blogs without clients pinging me. So, bring it on folks, last call!

We are compiling a complete list of the respondents and do a brief promo of the top 10 most interesting responses! Please email me if you have not seen a link to your post below. I will keep adding them as they come in.

Peter & I will pick one lucky person with our favorite interview and one person who came up with the best original question not on our list and buy you each one book from my personal reading list.

Go check out the original post with the list of questions, then if you need some inspiration, you can see me lift my digital skirt.

Still want more? Below is a list of all the responses so far:
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Wow. I’m hosed!

I spent the last 6 days phonecall-coding-QAing-designing-fatigueing. I probably gained a few pounds. Think i may have lost some eye sight. Definitely got some gray hairs. After a week like that, I’m sitting here trying to remember why I wanted to work independently in the first place.
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entre·pre·nerd [ahn-truh-pruh-nurd]
noun

1. A person who derives significant visceral joy from the discussion of minor technical business nuances.
2. An intelligent but single-minded person obsessed with the idea that they can learn the magic behind the curtain called business by reading just one more book, going to one more seminar and talking to one last massively successful person.
3. A technician struck by an entrepreneurial seizure
4. A principal who performs sensationally socially silly acts, as wearing a name tag for 7 years or biting off the head of a rubber chicken (sorry no picture), to build up his brand and reputation. [see geek]

Examples: Scott Ginsberg | Hugh MacLeod | Rajesh Shakya | S&P

I’m going to get a bit naked here. Maybe I’ve been reading Naomi’s blog too much (don’t worry, my mom washed my mouth out with soap as a kid, so I’ll never talk like her). A few days ago Julie and I took a series of walks, whose dialog revolved around perception, motivation and sex. I asked Naomi for advice because I wanted a woman’s view and found out that she and her lad had a similar dialog. So for the woman’s perspective, check out her post (should be up tomorrow).

Our dialog over the last weeks have made me think a lot about setting the stage for success and giving someone what they need to perform. What food feeds their soul? What projects do they excel at? What feedback do they need? What turns them on and gets them going?
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This is a guest post from our friend, James. His blog was just awarded #4 in the 2007 top ten blog for writers contest. He and his business partner Harry run a company of more than 30 writers pumping out PLR articles.

“I quit.”

I pronounced the statement firmly (or as firmly as one can get over IM). It was my company, after all. I could certainly do whatever I felt like.

“You can’t quit.” Harry’s statement was just as firm, but it held a note of panic. “You need to run the business.”

I complained. Then I ranted. I eventually lapsed into what I refuse to call whining. A lot of patience and love from my business partner and I didn’t quit that day, but I wasn’t very happy. I had too much work. Those of you who have never been there, don’t scoff and envy me. This is a sucky place to be, when you can’t keep it all together no matter how hard you try. After all, shouldn’t working for yourself be a pleasant affair?
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