The 40 People Who Can Change Your Life

Category : Entrepreneurship
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The 40 people who can change your life are, after your family and friends, the most important people in your life.

I first learned about the 40 important people who can change your life from Roy Elkins, the found of Broadjam.com and member of my MERLIN Mentor Team here in Madison.  The concept is simple, but very powerful.  Make a list of the 40 people who are likely to be able to change your life, either through business connections, investment, job opportunities or simply being there for you to help you get past a road block in your business plan.  Once every 4 months, email your 40 important people who can change your life and let them know what you are up to.  The goal is to keep the 40 people who can change your life up to date on what you are doing so that when you do need to ask for advice, money or other help, they will not only remember you, but know what you are doing.  Its much more likely that someone will be willing to respond to your request when you need it if they are familiar with you.

I just started doing this a few months ago and have already seen the results.  I set up a rotation so that I am always emailing 10 different people each month so that I always have someone different to connect with.  Its been a great way to stay connected with the people who might be able to help me out down the road and its been fun.  Many of these people have responded with articles or suggestions relating to my businesses that have been incredibly helpful.

I like the concept so much that I just started my own list of family and friends who I want to stay in contact with on a more regular basis.  I want to make sure that I stay up to date with friends from college who have moved away and my extended family who I probably only see a few times a year.

Try both of these ideas and see how it works for you.  I think both the 40 people who can change your life and a friends and family list are a great idea for anyone, but especially people who are interested in business.  Do you already do anything similar to this?  Do you think you will try it out?

Travelogue: Amsterdam

Category : Travel
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Note: I took a two week trip to Ireland, the Netherlands and England.  This post is the second in a short series about where I went, along with observations about how Europe and the UK compare to the US.  You can find the first here.

Amsterdam is an amazing city that gets a crazy reputation in the United States because of its portrayal in movies and popular culture.  While there are areas that are about as crazy as it gets, the vast majority of Amsterdam is a laid back, historic, beautiful city.  In fact, if you did not know the red light district was there and did not wander into its few square blocks, you would never suspect anything.

We spent four days in Amsterdam, wandering around the canals, looking at old buildings and people watching.  We stayed about two blocks from the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum in a quiet neighborhood on the southwestern side of the city.  We talked with the desk clerk about what we should see and do in Amsterdam and he gave us a bunch of places to go.  Like most Dutch people, he spoke perfect English.  Unlike America where John Kerry was mocked for being able to speak French, most Europeans highly value being able to speak foreign languages.  The hotel clerk could speak Dutch, German, English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French and a little Arabic and he thought it was no big deal.  In the US, his mastery of languages would be extremely rare, but in the Netherlands, its not that rare: many Dutch citizens speak more than three languages.

I love to cook and eat good food, so one of my favorite parts about traveling is eating great local food.  The Netherlands does not have much traditional food to speak of, but has a long history of immigration and foreign food.  Indonesia was a Dutch colony and when it declared independence, the Netherlands allowed hundreds of thousands of Indonesians to immigrate.  One of the best benefits, at least for tourists, is amazing Indonesian food.

A traditional Indonesian meal called Rijjsttafel, or rice table, is the best way to experience this interesting cuisine.  A rice table consists of between 12 and 30 small portions of different Indonesian specialties.  Indonesian cuisine has lots of coconut milk, peanuts and curry used in a myriad of different ways.  My favorite dishes were beef satay with peanut sauce, a spicy hard-boiled then fried egg, Indonesian chicken soup and coconut milk chicken.  We went to two different places and both were really good, but the second place we went was simply amazing.  It was the rated as one of the top Indonesian restaurants in Amsterdam and we could tell.  We ate early and were the only people in the restaurant, so we were able to ask the owner/waiter lots of questions.  We could tell he loved talking to people who liked to cook and after a few questions, he stopped by and told us all about each dish and how to prepare them.  The food was great, but the owner explaining all of the dishes to us made the experience even more memorable.

The Netherlands is a biking country and Amsterdam has more bikes than people, but that has not stopped some from gaining weight.  The Dutch weight problem is no where near American proportions, but it is a growing problem that many have started to pay attention to.  The Dutch also have been revamping their health care system, much like the US is trying to do at the moment.  There is a newer story about how well the system is working that I saw on BBC World News while I was in London, but all I can find is an older Wall Street Journal article explaining the system.  Here is how it works:

Starting in 2006, the Netherlands has required all adults to buy their own health insurance, or pay a penalty. And insurers must offer policy to all comers, no matter how sick or old they are, WSJ’s Gautam Naik reports.

The government subsidizes policies for adults who can’t afford to pay premiums and makes “risk-equalization” payments to insurers that cover the elderly and those with some chronic conditions such as diabetes.

According to the BBC, this plan led to more competition and lower rates for Dutch citizens.  Insurance companies have to compete out in the open and have come up with many interesting ways of attracting customers.  Most companies now have gyms that are included in the health insurance plan.  Customers get swipe cards to use each time they go and work out and receive discounts based on how much exercise they are doing.  Saving money is powerful motivator for people to go to the gym and it would be interesting to see how it would work in the US.  Instead of trying to pass a massive health care bill like congress is trying to do now, it would be interesting to see a more open debate with more time to check out other options.  I will save my health care thoughts for another post, but I think the Dutch solution is a very innovative model for America to at least consider before implementing more changes.  Traveling usually helps showcase different perspectives on problems in the United States and this trip to Amsterdam was no different.  I am thankful that I was able to spend time in Amsterdam.  It is definitely one of my favorite places I have ever been.

July Book Reviews

Category : Books
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One of my favorite parts about traveling is having extra time to read interesting books.  When I travel, I usually try to pick at least one book that is relevant to where I am going to be.  I read some great books in July and all but one of them were fiction.

The White Tiger(review), by Aravind Adiga, Time magazine’s Asia correspondent, is a look at both parts of India: The Light emerging technological power that serves as the backbone for many multinational companies and the rural, poverty stricken Darkness.  Its main character starts out living in rural poverty, the son of a rickshaw puller.  He moves up the social and economic ladder through street smarts, entrepreneurship, good luck and old fashioned hard work, but the story is much more interesting than a traditional rags to riches story.  Adiga puts the readers into the shoes of a poor man without options in such a way that by the end of the book, many readers completely understand why he makes choices that anyone not living in his situation would consider immoral.

Adiga writes in an unusual, but powerful style.  The entire book is written as a letter to the Chinese Premier Wen Jaibo, but I quickly forgot this fact until Adiga reminded me at the beginning of each chapter or with a witty remark in the middle of a story.  The White Tiger is well written and presents a side of India that I hadn’t really thought about.  I have no idea if many of the stories that Adiga write about are actually based in fact, but either way, The White Tiger is an excellent book.  Its sort of like a less sad version of The Kite Runner, but based in India instead of Afghanistan.  I highly recommend it.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (review), by Junot Diaz, is another work of fiction that deals with the Dominican-American experience living in New Jersey and traces the origins of the Dominican movement to the United States.  It follows the lives of a Dominican family from the days of the grandparents living under the Trujillato, The Trujillo Dictatorship, all the way to the grandson, Oscar who is a college student in New Jersey.  Like the White Tiger, Oscar Wao is written in a very interesting style.  It intermixes historical facts with lengthy, but entertaining footnotes and intersperses lots of Dominican slang (in Spanish of course).  You do not need to understand Spanish to read the book, but it definently helps give you a better understanding of what the characters are thinking.

Diaz puts the reader in the shoes of each character, letting the reader have a brief look into Dominican life at different points throughout history.  He writes with anger at the Trujillo regime, but with love for his native Dominican Republic.  The book is interesting and well written and a fun read, but may not be for everyone.  Diaz’s use of Spanish and copious amounts of science fiction/fantasy references might be a bit too much for some, but if you can get past it (or read the book with your browser open to google) you will enjoy it.

Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut.  Slaughterhouse Five had been on the top of my “to read” list for awhile now, but I had not gotten around to reading it.  I ended up reading it on the train from Brussels to Amsterdam and then again in a park in Amsterdam, fairly close to the Germany and a battleground during the Second World War.  The book is interesting, especially in the writing style, but I want to focus on Europe and WWII.  It was amazing to read the book while on a train through the route that the Germans took to invade the Netherlands and then France.  The farms and small towns would have been overrun by Germans in the 1940s, but now they are thriving parts of the Dutch and Belgian countryside.  It was a struggle not to picture the German tanks in the fields, crushing all resistance in the early parts of the war and then the American and British armies beating them back in the later part of the war.  Its amazing that Europe gets along so well now such a short time after such a devastating war.  If you didn’t have to read Slaughterhouse Five in high school or college, check it out now.  Its a fairly quick, but interesting, read.

Founding Brothers – Joseph Ellis. Founding Brothers focuses on the personal interactions between the revolutionary generation of American history.  Ellis takes a non-traditional approach and makes the book more readable than most history books.  My favorite short story was about the duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton and the events leading up to it.  Imagine if modern day politicians had to defend their honor against slanderous attacks with a duel.  Maybe bloggers, the media and politicians themselves would have more accountability?  I’m certainly not advocating for the return of the duel, but it would be pretty funny to see Dick Cheney (and his poor marksmanship) propose a duel against one of his political opponents.

Travelogue: Ireland

Category : Travel
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Note: I took a two week trip to Ireland, the Netherlands and England.  This post is the first in a short series about where I went, along with observations about how Europe and the UK compare to the US.

My friend Pat and I left from Chicago and flew into Shannon, a town that is pretty much only an airport, on the west coast of Ireland.  We talked to a guy on the plane, Liam, who was from the area who told us that the Shannon airport is a holdover from when planes from North America had to stop on the west coast of Ireland to refuel as they continued on to the rest of Europe.  It really is only an airport in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by green, rolling hills.  Liam told us that the hotel there “is only used by dumb tourists who do not know any better and book on the Internet.”  We thought it was pretty funny and he ended up giving us a ride to our first town, Ennis, about 20 minutes from the airport.  All of the towns we went to had live, traditional Irish music in most of their pubs and Ennis was no exception.

From Ennis, we went north west along the coast toward Doolin, a small town right on the sea.  We spent two days exploring the town, which is about 6 miles from the Cliffs of Moher, one of the most amazing natural wonders of the world.  We biked from Doolin with the plan of going 10k straight up hill to see the cliffs, but we ended up getting lost and biking closer to 20k up, then down then back up again.  It was completely worth it.  It was even more rewarding when we got to the visitors center because we were the only people who had biked to the cliffs.  Everyone else had taken huge buses or cars.  The cliffs themselves are stunning.  If you get a chance to go to the west coast of Ireland, the Cliffs of Moher are a must see.

After Doolin, we took a ferry to the Aran Islands, a group of three small islands that are unique for their rocky terrain and the unbelievable amount of pastures fenced in with stones piled on each other.  About 300 people continue to live on the small island where we stayed, making the time after the last ferry leaves a cross between extreme peacefulness with a bit of an undercurrent of “this would be an amazing place for a horror movie.”

After the Aran Islands, we took another ferry to Galway, Ireland’s artsy, third biggest city.  We happened to be traveling during the Galway Arts Festival, which meant that the entire city was packed with people and just about every bar had live music.  During the second day, we went to a pub to watch a hurling match between Galway and Cork.  We had never seen an entire match before, but we met two locals who explained the game to us and ended up showing us all around the city.  Our Irleand adventure ended the next day when we flew out of Dublin on our way to the Netherlands.

We met some great people in Ireland: Liam (Ireland), Kate (New Jersey), Sarah (Canada), Christine (Canada), Steve (Austrailia) and Jenny (Ireland) in Doolin, Sean and his wife (Ireland),  and Sarah (Ohio) in Galway and a ton more people who were incredibly interesting and fun to hang out with.

In Doolin, one of the people I met asked me why I liked to travel in Europe and if I could see myself living there some day.  I said that I could see myself living in Europe and really enjoying myself, but I could only come up with the food, soccer and a little more laid back lifestyle.  

I continued to think about this conversation and realized that the biggest draw for me to living in Europe is the cities.  The following is an excerpt from what I wrote during our stay in Galway:

There are so many more places in Europe where cities are amazing, fun place to live.  Kids can go to decent schools and there is little crime.  Bars, restaurants, shops and other cultural activities are all within walking distance and if not walking distance, they can be accessed by good, reliable public transportation.  In Europe, most well to do people live in cities, whereas most middle and upper class people in the US move to the suburbs as soon as they have families.  For example, the city center of Paris (and most other European cities) is where the well to do live and the suburbs or the Banlieues, is where the poor and immigrants live.  These areas experience many of the same problems as American central cities, but since they are farther away, they do not gain the same publicity as their American counterparts.

In the US, most families end up moving to the suburbs to avoid crime and find better schools for their kids.  I believe that this process leads to isolation and a focus on work, rather than family and culture.  Many people in the US get up, get in the their cars, go to work, get in their cars and then go home.  They may go days at a time without seeing or talking to anyone who isn’t a family  member or a coworker.

I have a feeling that many in my generation has started to reject McMansions, long commutes and the isolation that this lifestyle can breed.  I think that the biggest obstacle to more people staying is good, quality public schools.  Most people leave cities in the US when they have children because they want to give their children the best education possible and many cities have terrible pubic schools.  I would love to see more livable American cities in my lifetime, but the first step is getting better schools.  I am not optimistic, but am very hopeful that we will see some change in the future.