In May of 1995, I woke up one morning with very blurry vision. It was the beginning of my diagnosis of diabetes. Many people are not as lucky. Many times, diabetes does not hit you on the side of the head with symptons. This is why it is called the silent killer. The facts are brutal. 60 million Americans are unaware that they have diabetes or are at risk for developing it. Take the risk test. Don’t take a chance.

I have never been a big fan of "The Wisdom of the Crowd"- I think most times, people making decisions together in large masses get it wrong. Predict Wall Street now takes people’s predictions and tells viewers if the market will go up or down. I wonder how historically accurate they have been? The site lists the accuracy of individuals but not the meter as a whole.

The Bears losing the Super Bowl yesterday reminded me how much I hate to lose. As a fan, I will never be a good loser. I hate the way it feels, tastes and smells. As a get older, if I am to strive to win, I accept that I will lose some of the time. I accept it by not pointing fingers or placing blame. I accept it by moving on. 

I accept losing, but I am never going to like it.

I arrived home last night from about 5 1/2 weeks in New Zealand and Australia speaking and then on vacation for the last month with my family. After 24 hours of travel, I went to sleep at 9:00 PM last night and awoke at 2:30 AM….jet lag is going to be a bitch this time.

There is so many business and personal stories to tell about the trip which I will do over the next month in this blog. I learned:

• the withdrawal of being "off the grid" for a month (it got so bad the first week, when I carried my camera, I kept feeling that it was vibrating- like a phone) but being clear headed everyday to be there in the moment right now
• about the nature of fear- bungy jumping off of cliffs, riding helicopters over glaciers and climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge
• about the amazing creatures nature has created: Kangaroos, Kiwis, Koalas, Crocs,Fairy Penguins, and the beauty of the glaciers and the fish at the Great Barrier Reef.
• about "Starrying Eye Dogs" who control the sheep just by looking at them! Talk about if looks could kill!
• about fair pricing, service environments where consumers DO NOT Tip, and the important of Tour Bus Drivers in this world
• about the destruction of indigenious people like the Maoris, the Aborigines and the American Indians
• about loving new sports like Rugby and Australian Football and never quite getting cricket.
• about the gift of being able to learn something every day then you had no idea about the previous day
• and about celebrating the differences between people.The Kiwis and Aussies are different than Americans and that is a good thing. I have always been one to celebrate the difference and not judge them. It humbles me that in the end, people is what we have.

And thank you to Katherine for writing in the blog over the past month. I enjoyed reading her posts. I has been 25 years since I graduated from college to enter the business world at IBM. Working with Katherine reminds me how different things are now and how they are exactly the same.

The first time I learned that experience was the best confidence builder was my first real assignment for Barry. I had to make 300 cold calls and try to get them interested in having Barry speak at their organization. To say that I was terrified is an understatement. I had no idea what to say (having had zero experience in sales), and I was uncomfortable with the idea phoning strangers. I was afraid of being chewed up and spit out by those with experience who would be able to tell that I was a rookie. There were scenarios in my head eerily reminiscent of the hazing rumors that floated around my college campus, only in a business setting. (I’ve never lacked for imagination or a sense of melodrama.)

I stared at the list for nearly a full day before I built up the courage to pick up the phone. My first call went to voicemail, and I was unbelievably relieved. For some reason it had never occurred to me that I would get someone’s voicemail. With each subsequent call I would pray that it would go to voicemail, making myself progressively more nervous. At one point I was so nervous that I tripped over my words and then burst out laughing on another person’s voicemail before I repeated my message (although I think they might have been one of my callbacks). After that I started loosening up, but I hung up the phone red faced and stammering.

Every day I would increase the number of phone calls I made as I became more comfortable with the prospect of speaking to total strangers and making Barry look good at the same time. Three hundred phone calls later and I could do it in my sleep. Occasionally I still stumble over my words, but it’s no longer the "I have to take 10 minutes and wallow in humiliation" ordeal that it used to be.

The important lesson learned: if you don’t bite the bullet and just do it, you’re going to be uncertain, nervous, or afraid whenever a similar situation arises. There is no substitute for experience.

~Katherine

Based on a comment to my first post, I thought I’d talk a little about the differences and similarities of the worlds of business and chemistry research.

In both business and chemistry, you quickly find out what works and what doesn’t–at least in the marketing work that I do. Then you tweak or completely change your method until you find something that does–or, in chemistry, you do it until you find something that works even better. The problem-solving aspect of chemistry is something that I’ve applied over and over to my work for Barry.

The most fundamental difference between chemistry and business–especially marketing–is the lack or need of people skills. In order to be a research chemist, you need to be able to communicate your ideas and your projects, but most of that is done in papers with the occasional supplemental seminar (and, if you’re a grad student, oral and written defenses of your doctoral project). However, these research papers and seminars are very technical–even as an undergraduate I had a hard time understanding some of the seminars, especially if the material was something that was fairly specialized. Although chemists can talk chemistry to each other, they will have a difficult time communicating their idea to a biologist who has only a rudimentary background in chemistry. Even if both participants in the conversation have a strong chemistry background, they may have specialized in different areas, and they may still have difficulty understanding one another (example: a chemical biologist–a division of organic chemistry–talking to someone in proteomics–a division of analytical [instrumental] chemistry). Chemistry is just one of those subjects that is difficult to water down for someone who isn’t familiar with it. Even when I’ve thought that something was clear, it wasn’t. Occasionally I’d get a phone call while in the research lab.

"I can’t talk right now, I’m collecting fractions."

"You’re WHAT?"

"I’m running a column."

"A what?"

"It’s a purification technique where I have this big glass thing called a column and it’s filled with this stuff called silica gel and I dissolved my product in solvent and now I’m running it through the column and then my product separates and while it’s doing that…do you understand what I’m saying?"

"Um…you’re doing chemistry?"

"Yeah I’m in lab, I’ll call you back later."

In business, if you don’t have people skills–if you can’t  talk to people and communicate your ideas verbally, no matter what they are–then you won’t get very far. You have to be able to quickly condense ideas into an easily understood form that someone can understand and relate to instantly. If they have to ask too many questions, or listen to a too long response, you lose their attention. Eventually my phone conversations went like this:

"Where are you?"

"I’m in lab."

"Oh, I’ll talk to you later." Click.

Although, to be fair, I have met some scientists who have excellent people skills.

~Katherine

My name is Katherine, and I will be posting on Barry’s blog as a guest author while he is out of the country (and away from all communication devices).

I began working for Barry part-time a little over two years ago. I met him through my mother, whose business utilized Barry’s capabilities as a business consultant. He had mentioned that he needed someone to help him with organization, and I was recommended as one of the most organized people my mother knew.

Barry gave me a small assignment–to find contact names and email addresses for some organizations. He told me not to spend more than two hours on it.

"Sounds great," I smiled. Oh my God, I’m never going to be able to finish it and I’m going to be broke all summer, I thought.

I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but luckily my Google search skills were sharp from years of using search engines for school projects, and I was able to complete the assignment. I assured Barry I could do more of the same–there was no way that I was going to let this job go: I got to work out of my home, I could sleep until 10, and I could work in my pajamas. What more could a college student want?

Well, if said college student is a chemistry major working for a man who specializes in entrepreneurship, a little background in marketing or small business would be nice. I was soon to find out that while knowledge isn’t necessary to be successful–although I wouldn’t recommend attempting to do any sort of chemistry experiment without some paper research–it definitely helps to give a sense of confidence. This is probably one of the most important lessons I’ve learned while working with Barry–along with the fact that there is no substitute for experience.

Being a Cubs fan, I am familiar with adversity and strange happenings. None is stranger than the case of outfielder, Adam Greenberg. ("Adam Greenberg’s grandfather was indeed Hank Greenberg — Abraham Hank Greenberg, no relation to the Hall of Fame slugger.") I have an especially close affinity to Greenberg since he is one of the few Jewish baseball players currently in the system.

He was called up from the Chicago Cubs minor league system and faced his first major league at bat last year on July 9, 2006 against Florida Marlins pitcher Valerio de los Santos. On the first pitch of his major league career at bat, he was hit by de los Santos. He went down immediately and suffered a concussion. He never returned to the Chicago Cubs. In fact, on Friday, he was released from Class AA West Tennessee affiliate. It seems that his baseball career is over.

Strangely enough, his career on base percentage is a perfect 1.000 despite having zero official at bats (since hit by a pitch sends you to a base for those not understanding baseball).

I talk alot about the role that luck and timing play in business and life. How else do you describe this incident as bad luck and timing; Greenberg has been preparing his whole life for a chance to play in the majors and with his first pitch, he gets hit by it. It will be interesting to see where Greenberg goes from here. I would love to interview him for the next book!

ABC’s 20/20 is getting into the act, giving 3 people $1,000 to make money in 20 days.

"How easy is it to make money? If someone handed you $1,000 and gave you 20 days to turn a profit, would you have any idea where to start? "20/20" challenged three would-be entrepreneurs to find out. To give them guidance we brought in famous get-rich guru Robert Kiyosaki to offer them his secrets for money-making success."

Although these types of stunts do raise the awareness of entrepreneurship, they are mostly ridiculous because businesses take 7 to 10 years to build. The true entrepreneur is one that has the resiliency to ride it out.

One of my favorite movies of all time is Jerry Maguire. I quote the movie at every presentation (Show Me the Customers, I say instead of Show Me the Money). Here is the full Jerry Maguire "Mission Statement" over which the character loses his job. Until recently, I never knew it even existed!