[Advice] The Realities of Bootstrapping

Here’s what the eponymous “they” don’t tell the massive, faceless “you” about bootstrapping a project.

Jesan Job Hunting

The most stressful part of bootstrapping is that the creditors call all the time:

  • They call about the mortgage payment that’s late.
  • They call about the credit card bill you haven’t paid yet.
  • They call about the 10,000 other little bills that pile up in a life because you “needed” that thing, that one time.

Or your kids did.

Or your neighbor needed to see that you had it.

One of the most telling examples from a film that parallels a bootstrappers’ existence, was from The Company Men, starring Ben Affleck (yeah…we know) and a few other actors.

Ben plays a guy who got laid off from a nice cushy, corporate job, and won’t take a step down in lifestyle, so he keeps driving the luxury vehicle, even as his much clearer wife sells everything around him to make the mortgage payment.

And then, they sell the house and wind up sleeping in his parent’s basement.

That’s the reality of bootstrapping. Except with a lot more “I-Told-You-So’s” from your relatives in who’s basement you may be eating ramen.

There is a growing amount of attention being paid to entrepreneurs who commit suicide. Or die early. Or get divorced. Or have substance abuse problems.

Bootstrapping means that you get the creditor phone calls, but you also get:

  • The looks from your wife as you try to explain that spending money on this piece of equipment was worth missing a meal
  • The experience of deciding that your kids need to eat this month, and so liability insurance can wait another month—hopefully no one sues you and takes the house
  • The moment when you’re at a networking event and you’re eyeing the salad bar closer than you’re eyeing the potential client in front of you because you haven’t eaten today—and might not eat tomorrow.

And no one cares. Not your creditors. Not the bank. Not your kids. Not your parents. And we won’t even get into your own grinding self-doubt about your own level of responsibility for all of this.

This isn’t the stuff that makes it into the business books.

This is the face of bootstrapping.

And after you’ve started down the road to building a project, your pride, ego and a stubborn, bull headed belief in your project is the only thing that allows you to ignore the ringing phone, put the ear buds back in, and go back to grinding out another product

  • Or sales call
  • Or mini-project
  • Or marketing strategy

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/
HSCT’s website: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com

Masculinity in Conflict-#ElliotRodger’s Edition

Another day, another mass shooting by a disaffected, young Caucasian male, and another day of the aftermath.

Serious

Not to be flip, but we have blogged about the importance of work, the damaging effects of envy and the nature of male violence before.

Because, unfortunately, this has happened before.

Now, we don’t know the killer’s mental health history, or deep family history, or life history, but a few things are clear:

Conflict occurs when there is a deep disagreement between two sides of an issue about something that matters.

Conflict continues when there is no resolution—or reconciliation—for that disagreement and thus no opportunity for catharsis.

We have blogged before about the solution to all of this, and its men.

  • Not changing the culture.
  • Not blaming the use of guns.
  • Not tearing down our already limited, mental health system.
  • Not taking to Twitter.

Because, as necessary as all of those conversations may be, it is no substitute for grown, adult, emotionally literate, responsible men taking responsibility for their lives, their wives, their children and their communities.

And men must step up and do this, if conflicts (which begin internally and explode externally) such as the one that Eliot Rodger was clearly suffering from, will abate.

Because misogyny, anger, self-righteousness, envy, jealousy all start in the home.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/
HSCT’s website: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com

[Opinion] 3 Routes to Get on The Cover of Fast Company

In our entrepreneurial journey we have found that there are only three kinds of entrepreneurs:

  • Those that have money
  • Those that have no money
  • Those that have more guts than money.

If you are in the third category, and you self-identify as a member of a minority group in this country, and you don’t see anyone who looks like you gracing the covers of Fast Company or Inc., then you owe it to yourself to try building something that you own yourself.

Look, an entrepreneur is a person who sees and established model, builds a better model, hustles tirelessly to break the old model with the new model, and then, once the new model is built up, moves onto break another model.

In the high tech start-up world, this is cleverly called “disrupting.”

And if the “traditional” minority success model you’re breaking involves acting/singing/ dancing/sports or any of the “traditional” models to minority success, then breaking that model might be the greatest social entrepreneurship ever.

After all, we started (and we continue) with more guts than money.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

This Memorial Day…

The history of military service for humanity in general is based in three principles:

Iwo Jima Memorial statue near Washington DC

  • Having the courage to die in order to accomplish a hard thing
  • Having the obedience to follow orders that may make no sense
  • Having the innocence to be willing to die for the resolution of the arguments of old men.

Memorial Day is more than just a three day weekend to get in your car and go on vacation.

It’s about honoring those who fell and died so that we could sit here at write these words in relative peace in this country.

And as an American who happens to have brown skin and thick lips, I will be forever grateful for the 750,000 men and women who laid down their lives on the altar of liberty to preserve the union.

This Memorial Day, go to a cemetery. Lay out some flowers. And thank veteran of any of the recent wars.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/
HSCT’s website: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com

Guest Blogger Shem Cohen: Keys to Family Business Success

Shem Cohen of Change Events, Inc. is a widely recognized change management and organizational development consultant with over 20 years of experience in the Albany area of upstate NY.
Check out Shem’s website at http://shemcohen.com/.

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-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/
HSCT’s website: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com

[Opinion] Google’s Glass Problem is Your Problem Too

There’s currently no compelling reason for us to buy Google Glass.

There’s also no compelling reason (beyond the SEO game) for us to be involved in Google+.

There’s no compelling reason because the guys out at Mountain View haven’t given us one, other than the fact that they currently own all of Internet search worth talking about.

But, as the attention of the world shifts to mobile phone use, apps matter more than search, and Google will have one less compelling reason for us to be involved with them.

The utility of search, mobile, and even wearables is based upon the idea of resolving a need or a want that the customer has and then making the solution so attractive that we can’t help but use it.

However, as the web has matured, Google hasn’t and the utility of wearables really comes down to third party data gathering about users’ behaviors, antics and actions.

The much more compelling reason for us to buy Google Glass—or any other wearable—will be answered, not by Google, or Yahoo, or even Facebook, but by Big Data advocates and privacy hawks.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

[Opinion] The Idolatry of Selfie

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the selfie is on the rise.

So is being famous just for being famous.

And there are parents out there that are using their children to promote fashions, lifestyles and conscious ways of being.

All of this may just be fancy marketing, attention seeking behavior, or merely a sign of the times.

Much has been said and written about the rise of narcissism in the overall culture, and we won’t add to that here, except to say this:

The most pernicious conflicts that can occur are the ones that people have with themselves. And the rise of narcissism can be directly related to three things:

  • Idolatry of self
  • Idolatry of others
  • Idolatry of fame and celebrity culture

Once understanding occurs around those three areas, then we can maybe become a little wiser in how often we retweet that Ellen DeGeneres selfie.

Or the one attached to this post.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

Well That Went Viral

Well, that went viral.

Parakeets

How often do we note that now, in the post-social environment that we all now inhabit?

Going viral can be a good thing for an idea, a change or a movement.

Going viral can be a bad idea for a team conflict, poisonous personalities and bad ideas.

Unfortunately, when the negatives “go viral,” they can kill the body in which they live, unless stopped by a trained professional.

A “Doctor” of conflict, if you will.

Because, by the time the interventions occur, an outside expert may be needed in order to ascertain the cause of the negativity in a clear headed fashion.

And in start-ups, small businesses and partnerships, a viral conflict among passionate people can cause major damage.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/
HSCT’s website: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com

[Advice] Ethical One-Way Streets

The European High Court handed down their opinion dubbed the “right to be forgotten.”

What’s missing in all of the subsequent debate occurring around issue of privacy versus censorship,  is the very real issue about a lack of organizational (read “Googles’”) ethical dealing.

Organizations are seeking honest, fair, reliable, benevolent partners who will commit themselves to the relationship and prove trustworthy. In other words, they seek ethical partners.”

Organizations seek ethical

  • partners
  • employees
  • vendors
  • customers
  • clients
  • and audiences

who will deal fairly—and transparently—in the public commons space of the pro-social spheres that we have created.

However, when asked to engage in the same trustworthy behavior, (read “providing individuals the benefit of the doubt, forgiveness and grace about their messy histories”) they balk.

And then organizations wonder why individuals—who only build real, lasting relationships based on genuine trust, collaboration, ethical dealing and just plain enjoyment of each others’ company—balk at having their every move monitored, recorded and then used against them later.

Doesn’t sound like the thinking that leads to the behavior that will sow the seeds of peace to us.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

2 Cups of Active Listening

There are two parts to active listening.

Two Cups of Active Listening

The listening without speaking part is obvious.

What’s not so obvious is the listening with

  • honor
  • consideration
  • and caring.

These require exercising patience, which goes out of the window if you are dialed in on what you’re saying and thinking–and how to respond to the other person–rather than the actual emotional content of the other person’s statements.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA

Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/
HSCT’s website: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com