Yin vs YangThe Battle for Success in Life

My First Post.

This is my first real post, a brief background about myself, my name is Christopher, I was born and raised in Brooklyn NYC for 28 years. I am now 33. I worked most of my 20′s in the downtown Manhattan financial sector, Wall street for 10 of them. from 92, – 02. However I have always been an artist and a very good one at that though I never really pursued my calling because well, life draws you to work and society tells you to do what many of them did in prior generations. That is you need a job and to do what everyone else does. Never quite questioning the norm or consensus.

I worked 4 blocks from the WTC, my fiance worked in Tower 1. I was in the building daily for lunch for 2 years. I don’t want to get into the emotion of Sept 9/11 as it has changed my life forever as so many other people, on that day I realized something seriously important in my life. Why am I just going thru the motions of life? Why should I get up each day to make a paycheck doing something I can’t stand? Can’t I find a way to make money from something I truly love? is this what God intended for me and millions of other people just like me? A cell of tax brackets and mundane hours, of long trips on the train commuting and fruitless raises? Not to mention to have half of my paycheck to be taken from me in taxes, State, Fed, SS, City, Med insurance. whats left? Crumbs. To me it has always seemed like a raw deal. For some it is a great safe and secure way of life. For others a nightmare and a prison for our soul. The new slave trade, corporate share cropping. That morning set in motion much sorrow, but through the deepest of pain in life, sometimes comes serene peace. An air of change for me and many people came that day. Matter of fact for this entire country and our way of living has changed since that dreadful morning forever. We are now considered a post 9/11 American society, some of our soul has been taken from us, some of our side walks have been stained with our own blood and tears, some sleep too lightly if at all at times. However we are survivors, especially in NYC we never say die. Concrete runs in our veins. We heal fast because we have thick skin. So not to be a morbid and dwelling person, a great rapper Tupac Shakur said this in a song:

Through out every dark night, comes a bright day.

There is a change in the air of America today. Technology has changed the frontier of business in 2 decades. Take for example the blog your reading which is built on a technology called Word Press. Word Press is a blog CMS, which stands for Content Management System. This technology allows any Joe or Jane access to a quality, robust, and scalable website. A site to organize and publish your own content as well as completely customize every inch of it to your needs. Allowing someone to publish content from their own living room or porch. Here’s the best part. It’s free. No memberships, no fees, nothing. (I will cover OS technology in another post stay tuned, OS by the way stands for Open Source, which is a bunch of young developers who work selfishly on a free code base to allow the world its benefits with NO return on their efforts. If thats not American I don’t know what is.)

Within the last decade some pretty amazing things have happened with computers. They have become as comfortable as cable TV. Many things you interact with have some sort of computer chip in it. Cell Phones, Blackberries, I-phones, your stove, microwave, washer, cars and even your toothbrush. This technology has produced great advances in the way we conduct business daily. For example, at one time a small town retailer of restaurant napkins would have to deal with local and national distribution. Today they can find, communicate and finalize deals over the internet with companies abroad at a much lower price than in America. One can say this is what hurts our country, and I may agree, however there has been a long list of people in the US who have turned a negative into a minus. The old adage of the typical Rocky story, and the NY Giants of 2007. Of course this will never replace face to face business, but it creates a much larger reach for a much smaller outfit as well as keeping overhead close to zero.

Its not a myth, our generation is faced with a grave situation. We are dealing with a falling dollar and rising costs of practically everything. SS programs that are broke, gas prices through the roof, health care that is insanely unaffordable, the need for 2 even 3 salaries just to make the mortgage payments, credit agencies that rob our society housing that costs no where even remotely close to our parents generation and to top that off the housing market is in a slump like a hurt pitcher. One must ask them self if the original plan is still working? Are the older generations still trying to fit a square peg in a round hole? Are we all just a tad bit out of touch with reality as we sip lattes in starbucks?

However that’s the great thing about plans though, they can always be changed on the fly. In a crisis this is when the clutch players step up to create some magic and a ton of 3 point shots.

If your reading this blog you probably revel in the entrepreneurial spirit, know someone that is one, or just passing the time cause your plain out and out bored.

Either way you can not turn a blind eye to the happenings of the tech sector and many new marketing and technological companies sprouting each day with enormous impact on American culture. Each year new companies are sprung from their home offices and laptops. Companies like Myspace, You Tube, Facebook, Google, and many more seeds of innovation planted in a virtual crop field. Many don’t grow, some grow remotely small, others become seeds that flourish to hearty trees of financial prowess. Trees with great limbs that older corporations are completely puzzled, baffled and envious in many ways. These young 20/30 something men and women take grasp of the forever elusive 1% of wealth in this country with complete style, swagger, and ease through hard work, innovation and many late night caffeine filled evenings. These alternative life companies have grown into big business players. Players in the range of 1/2 billion, 1 billion, even 2 billion and better in growth and sales. One can not take the web lightly, it has shown us it is here to stay in every facet of modern life. The companies that do make it to fruition, grow to a forest of hope for the future of technology as well as the future of America and the future of small business.

In previous generations the reach of a business was as large as a block, neighborhood, county, or in some rare cases, a state. Business ran (and ran well) with limited geographic exposure. This changed when corporations started to overpower small business in this country. Mom and Pops were no match for the likes of Walmart and such. Conglomerates bought overseas at a much lower price in enormous quantity, where mom and pops could not compete. The consumer base in this country was alive and flourishing for quite some time. However all wasn’t well for the mom and pops stores that founded this country. Eventually Mom and Pops became close to non existent or even worse existent but completely castrated. This hurt the meaning of our country.

Fast forward to a few decades later. Recently our dollar started to fall in value, some may say it’s failing. I want to believe that we are a vastly talented, innovative country that will learn to once again reinvent it self. Now a days nothing is worth the same as it once was. Bread is 6 dollars. Milk, 5 bucks. Gas, 4 shingles a gallon. Homes have plummeted leaving many over financed, with loss of equity.

This brings me into the point of this post:

The economy has changed in many ways, since technology has fallen in price drastically, and the inception of the web became a means of communication, more and more start ups are not just becoming successful entrepeneurs, but dealers and players in a global economy. In my digital media business I have long standing strategic relationships with people over the net I have never met, never seen their faces (maybe a digital picture) nor never shook their hands. Yet I do business on the regular with them consistantly, and with great success. As a freelance designer I have had clients in the UK, Spain, Eastern bloc countries, India, South France, Singapore, and many states in America. All from my home, most of the time in my sweats. This brings me to this, the Spirit of New America.

A good friends father said one afternoon over a lunch of turkey burgers and reuben sandwiches “I think your generation will be the ones to figure out a way to use the technology” (forgive me if thats not the exact words but it was something to that effect). After hearing that, I really believe that to be the truth. I think America will grow through new entrepreneurial business. It’s already started. What was once about a big office and many employee it is now in some cases more lucrative to work in small specialize groups, from home or a small office, creating strategic partnerships and relationships that help all teams grow and prosper. The web connects us seamlessly. A video chat meeting can link you with someone in Japan in seconds. Speaking and watching their faces as if they were right in front of you. It enables us to bring this world closer. And working from home with no overhead makes it not only freeing but extremely lucrative. Looking around their is a long list of postitive new ways of business and at the forefront of that is all types of digital mediums (Web, Video, Audio). The playing field is level, and thats an exciting time for us and many others. There are more entrepreneurs in the world then ever before, more success, and many creating innovations that can sustain our country over the long haul. Innovation is what this country is built on. From the T model Ford to walking on the moon, we have consistently stayed ahead of the innovative curve, historically. The spirit of the entrepreneur is very alive and thriving in America and will continue to do so, the Gen X’rs and Gen Y’s are maturing and some will rewrite how we do business. At one time it was beneficial to be competitive, today we realize in a global market its better to be cooperative and work in tandem.

In this mix comes another age group that is extremely knowledgeable. the 50 and above executive, due to floundering earnings of many companies, downsizing is like a plague. The ones that catch the bad end of the stick in this situation are the over 50 executive with great experience but also a great salary and a close (in corporate terms) expiration date. Many companies cut back on these valuable and seasoned employees to replace them with cheaper newer counterparts. 30 year olds with 1/4 of their salary. Many ex execs, are starting their own businesses or coupling with young savvy companies and have much to offer. Many are called Angel Investors. Take for example a 50 year old ex floor trader, with a high net worth and lots of battle wounds. A laid off Financial Analyst, hedge fund manager or Senior VP’s from a bevy of different companies just waiting to sink their teeth into something real, something they can be a part of and most of all something that won’t consider them just a number. I think younger companies are completely turned off to the lack of heart, respect and complete bottom line thinking most corporations possess. The combination is becoming remarkable for the small guy once again. It’s actually taking the once insurmountable field to a very level battle ground.

Food For Thought.

The spirit of the entrepreneur to me embodies the heart and soul of the American story. The under dog, the long shot on the Exacta, the Giants, and Rocky. Faced with in surmountable odds, yet through playing the hands we are dealt, a little ingenuity, some capital, and a whole lot of guts, we are capable of building something out of nothing regardless the odds. That is the wind of change that is brewing. The old and the new coming together to solve the problems the past generations have created and left for us to deal with little regard. But like the American people always have, we will prevail. That to me is American at it’s best.