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Browsing the Internet or checking emails daily shows many so-called business opportunities. Many of these opportunities advertise, "No experience, no skills, and no knowledge is necessary." However, I have not found one that states, "No time, no effort, and no brains are required." One day, some advertisements might start saying that. Unfortunately, I do not think any opportunity can bring in money without doing any work.
People's behavior consists of complex patterns. Their buying patterns seem relatively simple and can be categorized based on the following three reasons:
1. People buy things because of necessity (Need).
2. People buy things to provide better advantages (Advantage).
3. People buy things to get help (Help).
All legitimate businesses, both Internet-based firms and the legacy types, have developed the mechanism needed to meet these buying behaviors. Many opportunities do not show participants the mechanism for making money. In fact, they do not show participants the entire business picture, although they may explain how a participant can make money. A participant needs to look at all of the elements of the opportunity and analyze how the host makes money. If the host does not make money, there is no reason for the host to provide the opportunity.
The host of an opportunity requires a participant to pay for joining. People need to stop and think at this point. This type of host wants a participant to work as part of his or her sales team. If it was a legacy business, the host would need to pay to recruit a salesperson.
If you were hired to send 100 emails a day, you would not pay to send them, the host would.
Many opportunities require people to pay a fee to join. The host makes money by charging this participation fee. He earns money from you if you buy a product or a service from him. He also earns money on any sales that you make. The host's income is usually more than three times what you make. If a participant does not make money and quits, the host is not affected at all. He will simply find a replacement. When you come across a business opportunity, the best approach is to examine the following three points:
1. Who will make the most money?
2. What is the mechanism for creating business profits?
3. What is the whole business picture?
Are there opportunities to earn real money? Yes, there are. Some programs enable participants to grow and eventually host their own businesses. They may provide the only chance for some people to run their own businesses. The best way to build a profitable business is not to join another person's program, but to build one's own.
Many unpleasant things happen in our lives. They include human relationships, health issues, making money, or working conditions. For example, you may love someone who does not love you. You are not happy with your job or salary. You have a difficult boss at work. The list goes on. The question is, are they all bad? You may say that of course they are bad; they make you feel depressed, sad, fearful, resentful, or embarrassed.
There are two categories of people. The first category consists of those who are depressed by their problems. The others are those who gain energy in adverse situations and turn them around to favorable situations that work for them. The latter are like a coiled spring that shrinks once pressured, and they take advantage of the reverse force.
Hiroshi had a problem keeping a relationship with his girlfriend when he was a student. He loved many girls. None of them returned his love. He studied boys who were loved by girls. He saw handsome boys who were loved and cheered by girls without doing anything. Hiroshi also found that there were boys who were not so attractive but who were still loved by girls. He studied them. He found that they might not be good-looking, but they had something positive, something that appealed and said something about them.
In contrast, he was shy and not positive or active. He needed to admit that he would not choose himself as a friend if he met someone like him. His conclusion was that he needed to develop his own personality and expertise that nobody else could follow.
Although his appearance did not change much, he now has his own skills, personality, and his own story to tell. He stopped holding. He became positive and active. He discovered that he had developed many friendships with both girls and boys.
After graduating from college, he started his own consultation firm for boys who have problems with girls. Although making money was not his goal, his business became quite successful as he helped clients. Thinking in the ordinary way would have led to a downward trend in Hiroshi's case. He could have become weary, depressed, and desperate. Reserved thinking is the way to face negativity and replace it with positivity.
When you are weary, remorseful, or depressed about things happening in your life, do not let these negative emotions take control of your life. There is a way to change these negatives into positives. If negative things are occurring in the present, take the opportunity to turn these negatives to your advantage.
Last summer I visited my friend in Japan. My friend had become independent by starting his own business about one year ago. When I walked into his house, he was sitting in his living room looking at several caps and hats that were lined up in front of him. It was a Saturday morning and he was preparing to go to his office, trying to select a hat to wear to work. We decided to go to his office together. Oddly, he did not end up wearing the cap he had selected to wear. Instead, he was carrying the cap in his hand. I asked him why he did not wear the cap he had selected, and he answered that the cap had some special meaning for his business.
We went into his office where several of his partners were waiting for him. They began to discuss business. Since the company had first started it had not been financially stable enough to justify large spending, therefore the discussion was intense. After an hour or so, my friend told his partners to take a break. He stood up from his chair and put on the cap he had selected at home. He then walked out of the meeting room. Ten minutes later he came back, still wearing his cap, and announced that the meeting would resume. In the previous session of the meeting, he had been stubborn and adhered strongly to his opinions. After coming back, however, he was more flexible and willing to listen to his colleagues' opinions.
In contrast to the first session, the meeting ended amicably due to his flexibility. Collectively, they agreed on a productive conclusion why the company's spending had shown a significant limitation.
After observing his behavior during the meeting, I was curious about the meaning of the cap. When I asked him about his actions after the meeting, he laughed at my curiosity. He explained to me he needed to create a different persona who could observe himself objectively from a different perspective. He had tried to do a self-critique before without the cap technique, but was not able to be objective judging his own opinion, attitude and behavior.
During a weekend meeting with his partners, one of them attended wearing a baseball cap. This person sat next to my friend and put his cap on the conference table. My friend, without thinking, grabbed the cap and put it on. To his surprise, he was able to observe himself objectively while wearing that cap. Since then, he continued to buy caps and hats to become a different persona in order to objectively observe himself.
Japan became infamous for the large numbers of people committing suicide. According to a source, over 30,000 people have committed suicide every year for more than 10 years. The peak occurred in 2004 with 38,000 suicides, the highest number ever recorded. In 2010, the number showed a slight decrease at 31,560, while the number in 2009 was 32,845. The suicide rate has not been lower than 30,000 since 1998. The reasons for suicide vary greatly. They include diverse factors, such as unemployment, financial problems, health problems, relationship problems, or difficulties with school.
Every religion in the world has a negative view of suicide. Christianity banned suicide in the fourth century, during the age of St. Augustine. Islam also prohibits suicide and teaches that people who commit suicide will go to hell. Buddhism forbids all forms of killing, including suicide, which is seen as one of the most deadly sins.
When Buddha was traveling, he happened to come across a girl standing on a bridge over a river. The girl took off her shoes and put stones in her clothes. It was obvious that she was getting ready to commit suicide. Buddha approached the girl and asked her to tell him her story. She answered that her life was full of pain. Her family was starving. They had no food, no money, and no work. She loved a man who did not love her. She became pregnant, but the man cheated on her. She believed that she should die to avoid giving her baby the same pain that she had gone through.
"Poor young lady," Buddha said. "I will give you a story to think."
Once upon a time, there was a cow whose job was hauling a cart. The cart was heavy and the distance was great. The cow had to haul the cart all day, every day. The cow wondered why he had to work so hard. He thought it was the cart that made the work hard. One day the cow smashed the cart against a rock and broke it. The owner was surprised and thought that the cart was not strong enough. The owner built a new cart out of steel and put it on the cow. The cart was almost 10 times as heavy as the previous cart. The cow regretted that he had broken the previous cart, but it was too late.
Buddha told the girl that killing oneself was the same as the cow breaking the cart. She would destroy her flesh, but she would not be able to escape from her pain. The pain she would suffer after her death would be 100 times worse.
Putting religion aside, committing suicide brings sorrow, pain, and agony to one's family, friends, and the society they belong to. It obviously does not bring an end to one's problems, but rather it brings additional agony.
When I saw my friends in a martial arts master class, I found they were not strong from the very beginning. Instead, many of them had inferiority complexes about their physical strength. They were always targeted for beatings by bigger, stronger friends because of their physical weakness. Some were chronically sick during childhood. They overcame their weaknesses by facing them and enduring the drawbacks. It is interesting that kung fu movies take physically weak people as heroes and show their growth. In this sense, these movies are close to reality.
During his childhood, Kenichi was constantly sick before he began school. Kenichi did not play baseball, basketball, or football with boys his age because of his physical weakness.
When he went to elementary school, his lack of experience with physical education in his younger days began to give him problems. He was tall, but thin; he looked like a sensitive type. He was good at school subjects, scoring high marks in math, language, science, history, and geology - anything other than physical education. Kenichi's smartness drew negative attention from the other students. They did not like him doing better than they did in so many subjects. He was a constant target for persecution from his friends.
Kenichi did not like being the target of constant bullying, but he did not know how to avoid or counter it. One day, he was walking along the street when he saw a sign for a karate dojo. At first he was not confident that he could practice martial arts. It seemed to him to be a pursuit for strong, physically superior people. He thought that he would never be able to be good at it. But, since he was desperate, he decided to walk into the dojo. He talked with the sensei (teacher) there. Contrary to his expectations, the teacher was a kind-looking, softly spoken gentleman. He decided to join the dojo.
The training was not easy. He needed to train his muscles and increase the flexibility of his body. There were fierce competitions with his fellow trainees. Five years passed, and he became a third grade black belt. He did not have to work to avoid, encounter, or fight against abuse, because nobody bothered him anymore.
Kenichi successfully changed his weakness to his advantage. If you can identify your disadvantage or inferiority, you should be happy. Your inferiority might be turned to your advantage some day, if you try hard.
Japanese swordsmanship is called "Kendo". Among the principles and techniques in this martial art, there is one thing which a beginner must learn. It is "zan-shin" in Japanese. The literal translation of the words is "Leave Heart". It means, "Continue to be alert until you are 100% sure you finished your enemy." If you have watched any match of a martial art, you must have seen that a winner would not release his guard until he found his enemy admittedly lost, or the judge declared his victory. He is using "zan-shin". Many fighting concepts from martial arts are useful for life or business. I found this concept of alertness useful for business in general.
Koji was an owner of a software business. He needed to go through all the hardships and problems because he started his business in recession time. He called all the banks, investors, and the financial institutions. He could not find anybody who could provide him the capital he needed to start his business. He could manage to start his business collecting small amounts of money from his family and friends. He could not hire any software engineer. He designed the software all by himself. He had very good clients' contacts when he left his former employer, but they did not deal with the new and start-up company due to recession.
He had worked like crazy. The economy started to pick up, and his projects gradually brought money to his company. He hired two engineers first. He could recruit more engineers later that year. He could finally have a breathing space. His company's financials were getting better.
Koji was relaxed now. He began to leave the software development process to his engineers, and his company began to receive orders from major companies.
One day, when he was looking for an opportunity to expand his company, his phone rang. It was the vice president of general affairs, calling to tell him that their key engineer had left the company, taking with him all of his intellectual property. The engineer had started his own business, competing against Koji's company. Koji regretted that he had not paid closer attention to the behavior of his employee, but it was too late. The damage had been done. Koji tried to sue the engineer, but he did not have enough money to pursue a lawsuit. The engineer deprived Koji's company of more than half its customers and revenue.
Koji could have used the concept of "zan-shin" in order to feel more relaxed. He could have been more conscious of the external and internal affairs occurring in his company. Koji could have saved some of his excess revenue for times such as this. He could have pursued the lawsuit against the engineer. The lesson we can learn from Koji is that an entrepreneur should never be too relaxed, even in good times. We should be aware of what is going on, even when everything appears to be going well. Being an entrepreneur is not easy.
First of all, I would like to express my deepest condolences regarding Mr. Steve Jobs' recent passing. His passion, sympathy, and spirit contributed to the personalizing of computers. Computers in the 1970s and early 1980s were business and office equipment centered on IBM’s domination of the world market with the mainframe computer. Huge cabinet-like machines sat in a special room that was constantly air-conditioned, even when offices for workers were not. I remember those machines looked like the statues of Greek gods in Apollo’s gods’ palace. Even office workers, who were responsible for using the terminals to input data, were not aware that these cabinet-like machines were the ones that made them work. These machines had a very high cost. When the hard disk drive was introduced to the market, I remember a calculation that one mega-byte was about $100,000.
One of the pioneers who tried to bring these huge and extremely expensive machines to the top of our desks was Mr. Steve Jobs. When the first Macintosh machine was introduced at the office where I used to work, I had no idea what kind of device it was. I was familiar with word processors by Wang Lab or Japanese word processors by leading electronics companies. I tried to use the early-stage Mac, practicing after work. I remember it took a long time to get to the HDD navigation menu after I turned the computer on. Even after I saw the first screen, I was still lost at what I should do with the icon. When I asked our system people about the cost, I thought the price was not too high. However, it still required additional an investment for modems, printers, and so on.
It was not my machine. My impression was that it was not worth my investment. My office colleagues and I discussed the machine, asking each other if we should choose a word processor or a personal computer for our next purchase. The majority opted for the word processor. Japanese word processors were well developed at that time; printers and communication modems even came with the main units.
Another 10 years passed before I re-encountered the Mac. I was thinking about replacing my PC when I heard that an Apple Store was opened in my town. I was aware that compatibility of data between Macs and Windows was extremely high, presenting almost no problems. Interested, I visited the newly opened Apple Store. What first impressed me was their design. As a laptop user, I always wanted a simple design, which I could never find. MacBook, however, was a simple and sleek white box with elegant curves on the corners. It was something I wanted to carry around and show to people, not just because of the design, but because the machine also was equipped with powerful capabilities and specifications, which satisfied all communication and multimedia requirements I needed at that time. In addition, when I asked about the OS language, I was surprised to learn that a variety of languages could be selected. I did not know OS X is multilingual. I am Japanese and live in the San Francisco Bay Area with my Chinese wife. The OS language-switching capability among English, Chinese, and Japanese impressed my wife and me. We ended up bringing a MacBook home despite having had no intentions of buying one during our first visit to the shop. The vision of Steve Jobs, which enabled the computer to become “multimedia” and “global” at the same time, was prominent.
We cannot forget that Steve was an excellent mentor for current and future entrepreneurs.
When I revisited Steve Jobs’ speech from Stanford’s graduation ceremony in 2005, the address was still vivid, active, and impressive, even six years after he first delivered it. The speech was simple, persuasive, and attractive. After he had joked about himself being a dropout from college, he focused on three basic points, using clear, simple language to grab and hold his audience. His first point was on “connecting the dots.” He referred to the calligraphy he first learned after he dropped out of college, which taught him the benefit of designing the Mac with smooth, scalable fonts. He emphasized that one should not be desperate even after a devastating experience, since at some point the value of the experience will become clear. His second point was “love and loss.” When he was removed from Apple Computers, Mr. Jobs grew from the experience, developing new companies, innovative technologies, and even finding his wife. He strongly believed that we should look for what we truly love in order to be successful, something that stayed with me a long time. He said, “If you did not find what you love, do not settle. Keep looking.” His last point was about “death”. He told the graduates that facing death taught him the importance of his own preferences and directions, without being overly influenced by the opinions of others. Steve concluded his address with his favorite words: “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”
Although Mr. Steve Jobs was sometimes criticized for his ego and temper, these traits were what needed to bring about change and to build the personal computer age. Without these characteristics he would not have invented so many popular products, such as “Macintosh”, “iMac”, “MacBook”, “iPod”, “iPhone”, or “iPad”. I strongly hope that Apple Computer will not lose his innovative spirit, even though Steve Jobs is no longer with us.
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One may believe that he has complete control over his thinking and behavior. Does he? During a meeting for addiction recovery that I attended, I kept hearing people say they find it difficult to stop thinking about their addictions. I heard one story of a patient who found a vodka bottle in his basement and started to drink again one year after he had quit. Although this kind of mindset is not easy to understand, there is no doubt a dark side to people's minds.
A story of an airplane crash follows. Jiro and Taro, who were friends, took the same flight one day. Unfortunately, their plane had a problem and needed to make an emergency landing, but the landing was not successful. Although most of the passengers died, Jiro and Taro survived. They found themselves on a snowy mountain with no way of communicating with anyone. Jiro was seriously wounded, and Taro tried to save him, but Jiro died during the day. After burying Jiro in the snow, an exhausted Taro returned to the cave they had discovered earlier and went to sleep.
Taro woke up the next morning to a fearful surprise. Jiro, whom Taro had buried the day before, was lying next to Taro. At first, he thought Jiro was not dead and had returned from the place where he was buried; however, he found that Jiro was indeed dead. Taro carried Jiro's body to the same place and buried him again. During the day, Taro tried to repair the airplane's radio communication equipment so he could call for help. Ground staff discovered the flight was missing and began searching for it. As night fell once again, Taro went to sleep in the same cave.
Much to his surprise, Taro again found Jiro's body lying next to him the next morning.
Taro repeated burying Jiro during the daytime and finding his body next to him the following morning. He found Jiro lying in the same place every morning for several days. Taro remembered that he had a video camera that had not broken during the crash. He set up the video camera before going to sleep to record what happened while he was asleep. The next morning started in the same way with Jiro's body lying next to Taro as on previous mornings. Taro replayed the video camera to see what had happened during the night. The video showed the shocking truth. Taro himself woke up during the night, dug up Jiro's body, and put Jiro next to his side.
The human mind can encourage behavior that is unexplainable even to its owner.
It takes about three hours to drive to Hearst Castle from downtown San Francisco. It is a beautiful drive-one that everyone who visits San Francisco should take. There are a couple of possible routes. The fastest route is to take US 101 South to San Simeon, although I do not recommend this one. I would suggest taking US Route 1 south, as one can drive along the Pacific Ocean coast. The Pacific Ocean will be on the right-hand side for almost the entire trip.
We were planning to visit a California sightseeing spot at the end of 2010 with my wife's mother, who came to join us in that year's summer. This was her fifth trip to California, and she had visited most of the popular places, especially San Francisco. She had visited Monterrey and Carmel, and she had seen the gold mines in 2009. My wife gathered sightseeing information from nearby hotels, and we decided that this trip to the American Castle would be interesting.
We took US Highway 1 south. We made several stops at Monterrey and Carmel to play with our dog, Xuer. We ate lunch in one of the fashionable restaurants in Carmel. By the time we reached San Simeon, it was already dark. The hotel kindly upgraded our accommodation to a semi-suite for the three of us and our dog for a very reasonable fee.
Next morning, after playing with our dog, we drove to the American Castle. This is a castle built by an American newspaper tycoon, W.R. Hearst.
W.R. was born in 1863 into a family who would become wealthy during the Gold Rush. However, his father did not become rich because of gold but rather through finding silver during the Gold Rush. W.R. was mostly educated by his mother until he was accepted into Harvard University in 1885. He later dropped out of the university to start his own business. Although many of his businesses failed at first, he became extremely rich through the newspaper business. He later expanded his fortune in the movie and magazine industries. He began to design and build Hearst Castle in 1919. His castle, rather than being a medieval period European Fortress, is a big mansion. W.R. was a world-class collector of art and antiques. His castle contains a combination of historical exhibits, such as the Greek statues situated in the middle yard, next to the pool. Pictures with a Christian theme are featured extravagantly in the guest dining room. It was impressive to learn that Mr. Hearst attempted to avoid damaging the natural surroundings by transplanting trees in the process of building his castle.
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The two hour basic tour includes the viewing of a movie showing the history of Mr. Hearst on an enormous IMAX style screen. Ironically his business began to decline around the same time his castle was completed. My mother-in-law and I found the tour of Mr. Heart's castle quite entertaining and felt that we experienced good old America and the American history of business.
All legitimate businesses, both Internet-based firms and the legacy types, have developed the mechanism needed to meet these buying behaviors. Many opportunities do not show participants the mechanism for making money. In fact, they do not show participants the entire business picture, although they may explain how a participant can make money. A participant needs to look at all of the elements of the opportunity and analyze how the host makes money. If the host does not make money, there is no reason for the host to provide the opportunity.
1. Who will make the most money?
