Letters To Samuel

BRANDON MULL AND FABLEHAVEN

2006-12-08T22:24:00.001-06:00

Samuel,

Sorry it has been a while. I have seriously been buried at work since like, June. But since September it has gotten even worse. Thanksgiving was the only break, and other than that one project I was telling you about, I just kind of sat around and did nothing for the whole holiday. It was like a week full of Labor days. Labor day is my new favorite holiday because it is the holiday with no strings attached. You don't have to give anything away, or go somewhere, or dress up. You just hang out. That's what I did over Thanksgiving as much as possible. Anyway, I’m on a plane from Boston to Charlotte, then over to Dallas and I’ve decided that I’m going to pound out as many of these letters as possible to update this blog. I also have some stuff I really want to post about on the Texans for Mitt Romney blog but I haven’t had time to type it up. I’m burned out dude. It’s all the corporate hooey, it can really be a drag sometimes.

The other day I was reading Orson Scott Card’s weekly column in the Rhinoceros Times. I’ve mentioned it to you before, the name of the column is Uncle Orson Reviews Everything. Over the last couple of years that column has been one of my favorite things to read. It’s where I’ve learned about cool books (like Johnathan Strange) new foods to try out, movies to catch, movies to avoid and all sorts of things. This last week he mentioned some books to give as gifts for Christmas. A family friendly book he recommended was Fablehaven by Brandon Mull, which apparently has been selling quite well since it was published.

Immediately I launched an investigation, because it turns out that I know a Brandon Mull. I mean, obviously I don’t know him that well, but he would recognize me if we met, and he knows my name. And I know enough about him and his family to give them an unqualified vote of confidence. I’ve had enough glimpses up close to know that they’re the real deal. You know, good, solid, cool people. How many people can there really be out there named Brandon Mull anyway? As it turns out, the (maybe correct) answer to that question is:

HowManyOfMe.com

There are:
15
people with my name
in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

Anyway it is the Brandon Mull that I know, and I was very happy to hear the news of his successful book, but also a little bit envious. One of my goals to write a book that gets published and sells a ton of copies. But still, good for him, you know. That’s awesome. It was surprising to me what a flood of great memories the news brought back to me, and I figure while I’ve got all these good vibes in my head, I should get them down.

The last time I saw Brandon was outside the Tanner building at BYU. I had just received a root canal earlier that day. We exchanged a few brief words and parted ways. That was like, back in 1999. Not a good year for me. It seems like a long time ago. If I had to guess, I would have said Brandon had gone on to be an engineer or a doctor or something. I suppose I wouldn’t expect any of my acquaintances to produce art that makes it mainstream. (Except Hubbel Palmer – keep an eye on that guy)

I first met the Mull family when I was in a freshman at Westlake High. I was a freshman like you are now, and Brandon was a senior. We only lived in Westlake Village for one year; you don’t remember it because you were just first born. People used to joke that it was cute how we shaved your head, because none of us Bryners grow hair for the first 18 months. It turns out that my current home teacher Dave Simmons graduated from Westlake High the same year as Brandon. I don’t know if they knew each other though. I didn’t know Dave even though we were in the same ward. You know how there is kind of the barrier between freshmen, and seniors. There isn’t that big of an age difference, but when you’re a freshman you think everybody else in school is so much older than you. And cooler too, I thought Brandon was WAY cooler than I was. He used to hang out with this guy – Larry Bagby – who would do these performances in school assemblies. In fact, Westlake High was an awesome school. I remember one of the school assemblies some of the students who had a band performed ‘Enter Sandman’ before Christmas Break. “Do you guys like Metallica? – Well this is ‘Enter Santa’!”

Just in case you don’t recognize the song, here’s a video:

Maybe the biggest reason I knew Brandon is because of Boy Scouts. Brandon’s Uncle Tuck was the scout master. And I think Brandon even went to scout camp that summer when we moved in to that area. It was a 10 day summer camp, and it was very fun. It was the first time I ever played speed, hearts, spades, or BS with face cards. For a few short months there I could play speed like a zombie. On that campout we went exploring, canoeing, and had a great time. There were something like 10 scouts in our troop at the time. We had church on Sunday up on this big plateau with a great view. It was the first time I did church outside, and I really liked it. When I went through the Eagle board of review, in the interview I talked about having church that year up on the plateau.

When Mom was dropping me off for camp that year, Tuck showed up late. We had just moved in, so we didn’t know anybody. Mom commented to one of the men standing there that the scoutmaster seemed pretty flaky if he couldn’t even show up on time to take everyone to camp. The man replied that actually Tuck was an incredible person, and began to tell Mom about all sorts of cool things about him. Tuck was an attorney, he won this award and that award, and he volunteered to do such and such, so on and so forth, yada yada… The man kept going on and on about the cool things about Tuck when finally Mom asked how he knew so much and it turned out that Mom had been talking to Cy – Tuck’s father. I mean seriously Mom. If you’re going to criticize a person behind his back, at least have the sense to make sure you’re not talking to the guy’s father. But that’s how Brandon’s whole family is. They are kind and warm people who back each other up. At least ninety five percent about everyone you meet is good. My experience with Brandon’s family is that they pretty much choose to focus on the 95% good, and let the rest go. I’m sure everyone in their family has lumps and bumps, but I don’t know about any of that. By the way, I remember Tuck the way Cy described him. Maybe Tuck was late a lot, or kind of flaky, or something…but I definitely don’t remember anything like that. That guy was always good to me.

When I was a freshman at BYU, the cool comedy club was called ‘The Garrens’. The Garrens was an improv comedy troupe named after Deseret Towers’ (the dorms) Q Hall (where I lived) resident supervisor – Sister Garren. For the record, if you decide to go to BYU, don’t live in Deseret Towers unless they’ve been rebuilt. Now that I have more of a facilities background those buildings would not be safe to be in if there were ever an earthquake or something. Anyway the Garrens were really quite good, and I liked going to their shows. A lot of talented people were in the Garrens like Lincoln Hoppe, Katie Fillmore, and Eric Snider. Sometime between my freshman year in 1995, and when I got back from my mission in 1998 the Garrens had been eclipsed (in my opinion) by a group called Divine Comedy. My friend Anne had tried out for divine comedy and was in it. The Garrens did improv sketches, but Divine Comedy put together very funny skits, and they had great songs. Brandon Mull was in Divine Comedy, and almost every time I went to one of their shows, someone, or several people from their family were there to see the show! I saw Tuck, Kim (aunt), I think I saw Cy there once. Summer (sister) was pretty much always there.

I looked Brandon Mull up on myspace.com and there is a link to his siblings Summer and Bryson. I was in scouts with Bryson. He’s about a year younger than me. His myspace account says he is currently a police officer in Sandy Utah. I don’t know how Utah does it, but they do an awesome job of attracting talent to their police force compared to other states. I have never encountered a police officer in Utah that didn’t act in a professional manner, even when dealing with difficult people. They all behave in a way that you would expect public servants to behave. There is a huge contrast between police in Utah, and police in states like…oh… Kansas City, or St. Louis.

Don’t know what’s up with Summer. She and I are the same age, her birthday is either the same as mine, or one day away, and out of all the Mull kids, I probably know Summer the best. I had a huge crush on her back in the day. In 9^th grade I always wanted to go talk to her, but hardly ever did because she was ‘so cool’. It was a big mistake for me to assume that she wasn’t approachable back then, because she is an approachable person. And she really is that cool. She’s one of those people who not only is cool as an individual person, but she also increases the coolness of those around her. If she were a dungeons and dragons character she would increase the charisma, hit points, and magic in her whole group. My friend Kenny and I went over to her apartment one time and she had this study group going for her world religions class. Her whole crew was having a great time quizzing each other with flash cards, and joking about the professor’s Asian accent. He had told the whole class: “You are very blessed.” (but with an Asian accent) and they were all laughing about it. I think the last time I saw Summer, I was about to go work at Anasazi, and she was about to go on a mission. I think…

Things I gained from knowing the Mull siblings:

Make a sincere effort to focus on the positive in others – you’ll find it

Give people around you permission to be themselves

Don’t underestimate those around you – they’re better than you know

Well, I’m sure you would love for me to ramble on some more about people you don’t know. But I can’t; its time for me to turn off all electronic devices and put my seatback in an upright position.

Word to your Mother

Jay

HOW MANY PEOPLE WITH YOUR NAME?

2006-10-22T02:33:00.000-05:00

Samuel,

Have you ever wondered how many other people out of the 300,000,000 people in America have the same name as you? Well now there's a way for us to find out:

Here's the results for me -

HowManyOfMe.com

There is:
1
person with my name
in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

Here are the results for you:

HowManyOfMe.com

There are:
2
people with my name
in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

Word to your mother

Jay

SKILLS TO GET BY IN THE REAL WORLD

2006-10-22T01:55:00.000-05:00

Samuel,

I just read a great post when I was perusing through some homeschool blogs. I liked this one at O'Donnell Web.

Here's the list:

How to talk to your boss.
How to survive a meeting that’s poorly run.
How to run a meeting.
How to figure out anything on your own.
How to negotiate.
How to have a conversation.
How to explain something in thirty seconds.
How to write a one-page report.
How to write a five-sentence email.
How to get along with co-workers.

Jay

Winning The DARPA Grand Challenge

2006-10-17T22:36:00.000-05:00

Samuel,

I don't know if you've heard about this, but it is extremely cool. Watch this video and this guy will explain how his team at Stanford University designed a car that drives itself with no human intervention.

Here is a summary:

Google TechTalks
August 2, 2006

Sebastian Thrun

ABSTRACT
The DARPA grand challenge, technical details enabling Sebastian Thrun's win, and an introduction to the next phase called "The Urban Grand Challenge".

YOU SHOULD START A MICROCREDIT CLUB

2006-10-17T22:29:00.000-05:00

Samuel,

We've talked before about the reasons why you should start up a club in your high school. It would take initiative, but it would be easy. I think a good club would be a microcredit awareness club. It's a great idea to make the world a better place, and it doesn't take much to get started. You could sell donuts in the cafeteria at lunchtime to raise money, and loan the money on kiva.org. Seriously, go to the kiva website and see for yourself. It doesn't take much money to change people's lives.

It would be EASY to get school permission for something like that.

I've also talked about Muhammed Yunus with you before. I'm not sure if you heard, but he recently won the Nobel Peace Prize!!! If you haven't read the book Banker to The Poor, you should, and use it for a research paper you have to write sometime.

Here's a short video of them announcing that Mr. Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize.

I was so happy to hear about this. Last year was the UN 'Year of Microcredit', and this year Muhammed Yunus wins the Nobel Peace Prize. It's about friggin time.

Word

Jay

THIS MAY COME IN HANDY - FOLDING A T-SHIRT

2006-10-04T21:52:00.000-05:00

Samuel,

Here is a pretty cool video for you. It shows you how to fold a t-shirt in like, 3 seconds.

You could fold the t-shirt in 10 seconds, but don't you have something better to do with your life?

Jay

ORSON SCOTT CARD ESSAY ON HOMEWORK

2006-09-26T02:19:00.000-05:00

Samuel,

I just read a great article by Orson Scott Card about homework. I know, I know, it sounds just totally interesting to you, and you can hardly wait to read it. Would it help if I told you he's kind of anti-homework?

Here's the link.

My favorite paragraph:

Here's another reason some teachers hate homework -- and stop assigning it: Their own kids reach school age and start having to spend hours a night doing meaningless assignments. Both books record this phenomenon. Teachers who are also parents become quite skeptical of the value of homework when they see how it steals time from and ruins their relationships with their children.

Anyway, if you've got time you should check it out

Jay

HOW TO MAKE A 'BUMP KEY'

2006-09-24T21:24:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel,

I originally saw this on Marshall Brain's blog. But since I'm going hog wild putting video up on this site I thought I'd just post the video here. You have to admit this is cool! This video shows how to make a key that will open any lock using that particular blank. I haven't gone to the effort to make one of these. One of these days...

Anyway here's the video.

Have a nice day

Jay

ONE REASON WHY VANILLA ICE WENT DOWN IN FLAMES

2006-09-24T21:19:00.000-05:00

Samuel,

I'm having a great time checking out youtube.com and finding cool videos to embed into this blog. Remember in a previous post I told you that the reason Vanilla Ice became uncool was because he was trying too hard to be cool. Vanilla! Just chill dude. Quit trying to convince everyone you're cool. We like you!

Well maybe Jim Carey also had something to do with it.

Favorite line:
What's your real name? Robert VanWinkle.. Why did you change it? Cause nothin rhymes with Winkle!

Later

Jay

ROBOTS

2006-09-24T10:30:00.000-05:00

Samuel,

Okay, I was going to post this last night, but I got sidelined. I figured out how to embed videos onto these posts, and I went back and found a bunch of videos and embedded them in previous posts.

Then I got sidetracked watching clips like this one from the greatest sitcom ever: "The Office"

I never claimed to be a perfect person Samuel. I don't have perfect focus. I can't raise or lower my cholesterol at will.

Anyway, I haven't forgotten about some of those links. Don't take this seriously, but when I read it I thought it was pretty cool.

http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm

You can find all the rest of the links from the link above.

Later

Jay

MORE REASONS TO GET GOOD GRADES

2006-09-21T20:35:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel,

Nice talking to you today, happy birthday by the way. Sorry we had to cut our conversation short. I was trying, unsuccessfully to get my boarding pass for a flight on AirTran airlines, and they had to help me out at the desk for like, 20 minutes and when I called back the line was busy.

Thanks for the feedback from this site. I was actually surprised that the post suggesting ways to study was your favorite one. I assumed that the business idea posts would have been your favorite ones. But that’s just me, I was so obsessive about money at your age. I don’t know why.

But I’m glad the study suggestions were interesting to you because good grades are important. A lot of people will tell you that they’re not so important, but those people are wrong. Only one person in my entire childhood communicated to me that I should get straight A’s. Uncle Lowell. He got out Barbara’s report card, and showed it to me. He pointed out that all her grades were A’s, and told me that Barbara always got straight A’s. “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t get grades like this.” One time I spent a week at their house when Mom and Dad went on a cruise and I was kind of surprised that they expected me to sit down and do my homework. When I was frustrated with doing my Algebra, one of the older cousins sat down and helped me through it. That rarely if ever happened to me as I grew up. Dad used to say that grades were a big joke and you pretty much have to jump through hoops to get them. He was right about that. Unfortunately I concluded that it wasn’t important to jump through the hoops. If I would have jumped through the hoops back then I would have it a lot easier in college. It is important to get good grades.

Why is it important for a person like yourself to make the extra effort to get good grades?

The same reason it is important for you to get your Eagle Scout. People constantly evaluate each other based on different criteria. One way adults (who rule the world) evaluate teenagers is by their grades. If you have straight A’s, it says that you are bright enough, and hard working enough, with enough initiative to successfully work within a system (like the school system). If you have really good grades it doesn’t mean you’re the smartest person in the school. It means you show up, you do a good job, and you’re consistent. If you can do those things you’ll be successful at pretty much everything you set your mind to doing.

I have some friends who I’ve invited to participate in this blog. All of them are more qualified than I am to describe what it takes to be successful academically in school. Of course they’re all very busy people. But one of these days one of them will chime in with a different point of view.

Anyway, I’ll talk to you later.

Jay

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY - CERAMIC BATTERIES

2006-09-21T09:07:00.000-05:00

Samuel,

In the next several years, our society has a lot of tough problems to tackle. One of those problems is the need for clean, sustainable energy. Probably the toughest energy sector is the transportation sector where individual cars dominate the landscape. Some people think it may turn into a big problem for us, some don't.

Here is a link describing a cool technology developed to tackle that problem (Hat tip to R-Squared):

http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/15/technology/disruptors_eestor.biz2/index.htm

These guys supposedly have developed a new kind of battery made out of ceramic materials that can hold huge amounts of electrical energy, and re-charge in just a few minutes. If this is a real technology there is little doubt that it would take over the market in a big way, very quickly.

Actually, technically it isn't a battery. It's an ultracapacitor. Whenever something new like this is announced, my first reaction is to be skeptical. But if it is real, it will change the world.

Jay

HOW TO SAVE MONEY ON A FUNERAL

2006-09-20T17:55:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel

Remember the 5 year rule? This post can go in the category of things you won't really need to know for years. But knowledge is power. Several times in your life you will make a purchase involving thousands of dollars. When you buy a car, a house, or go to college, those decisions will affect your wallet big time. If you have a few pieces of useful knowledge going in to each of these situations you will get ahead financially. Today I will show you how to save thousands of dollars when paying for a funeral.

We do a lot of things in society because we take the advice of experts who may or may not have our best interests at heart. This is definitely illustrated by our American funeral customs, which have been largely put together by people who need to make a living doing these particular jobs (morticians). Putting together your loved one’s funeral arrangements will be an emotionally-charged, difficult process, but for the funeral director it is literally "just business." Because it is such an emotionally charged time, people make emotionally based decisions that can cost a lot of money. According to this website, the average funeral costs between $6000 - $8000. Why so much?

To illustrate lets look at the single most expensive line item in the cost of a funeral - the casket. If you take a look at the different caskets with different price points you will notice that the less costly caskets are designed to look cheap. The interior cloth looks cheap, the paint looks cheap, notice the caskets have fixed handles that are so close to the side of the casket that the casket becomes difficult to carry. The cheap looking casket cost the mortician $400 and he sells it for $1200-$2000. But most people take one look at it and say to themselves - I don't want the brown casket; that casket looks cheap. Again, the less expensive caskets are designed to look cheap and ugly.

Well, the more expensive casket does look better. It has nicer paint, probably with a layer of clear coat. It might be thicker metal. The cloth isn't a cheap paper-mache, but an actual fabric, or even maybe a velvety cloth. The handles are swing style, so they are easier to pick up by the pall bearers. The "upgrades” cost the manufacturer another $150; the funeral director maybe pays $750 for the casket, and you pay $3850-$4500. But the only thing the consumer thinks of is: "I want the blue casket; Uncle Fred will look nicer in that one."

But if you ask 100 people, 90 of them won't be able to tell you what color the casket was at the last funeral they attended. Seriously, ask yourself that question. Do you remember what color the casket was at the last funeral you attended?

So people pay an extra $2000 for what? It’s an emotional decision. “I want the blue casket.”

Similar price hikes are built into every emotional decision made when arranging funerals. To avoid sunken graves, the cemetery requires something to protect the casket.

A grave liner ($200) does the job, but most people (with suggestion from mortician) want the casket to be ‘protected’ so they will buy the

Grave Vault ($450) that will completely surround the casket, but water might get in so they buy the Sealed Grave Vault ($750) but it looks so ugly I will upgrade to the stainless steel lined sealed grave vault ($1250), or the bronze sealed grave vault ($1950).

Who has been to a funeral and thought to themselves, "I wonder what kind of vault the person bought?" That would be tacky and tasteless, but sometimes people are sold the sealed grave vault for $750, or the copper lined sealed grave vault for $1950 as if it would be tacky and tasteless to NOT buy something nice for a deceased person whom we love. Where is the value here? The difference in value between the $200 grave liner, and the $1950 bronze vault resides entirely in the mind of the consumer. Both items do the exact same job (keep the dirt from crushing the casket) but one costs $1750 more. Wouldn’t you rather fund a Roth IRA with that money?

Speaking of grave vaults, some people are genuinely grossed out by the thought of water getting into their loved one's casket. This has led to a windfall of revenue for the funeral industry thanks to sealed "protective" caskets. Getting the gasket added to a casket will generally increase the cost of the casket by $800. Most consumers go for it. Casket manufacturers add in guarantees of just how protective the casket is. But wood caskets are inherently non-protective (for the record, wood caskets cost the funeral home $850-$1400, and sell for $4000-$9000) so if you buy a wood casket, chances are you'll be offered a protective "sealed" vault. The seal on the vault is much stronger than the seal on the casket and only costs an extra $300 usually. So if you get grossed out by the thought of water or bugs getting into the grave, the protective vault is the way to go; get a casket without a seal on it and save yourself the $500.

Basic services fee. Every funeral home charges a basic services fee, which is basically a signing bonus the funeral home gets when you do business with them. Everything else you buy has a cost next to it that you actually get something for. The basic services fee is a charge for nothing. But there is a huge disparity from mortuary to mortuary on how much is charged for this basic services fee. I've seen them as low as $400 and as high as $4000. Who has the time or the inclination to compare prices between funeral homes? Not very many people compare prices between funeral homes, but the ones that do can save $3500. How many hours would it take flipping burgers to come up with an extra $3500?

The bottom line is that your mortician, no matter how nice, has every incentive to increase the services he provides so that he or she makes more money. The mortician is NOT on your side. Repeat, the mortician is not on your side. During the particularly emotional time after a family member dies, even the most thrifty consumer who clips coupons, and drives an extra two miles to save a nickel per gallon of gas, will make emotional, expensive decisions in a few moments that will cost hundreds or thousands of dollars extra. It's as simple as saying "I want the blue casket."

What can be done about this? I will walk you through a scenario that I would consider.

My loved one is nearing death.

1. Buy a burial plot at the chosen cemetery. $800 (Might have to shop around some)

2. Discuss with my loved one how they want to be remembered by the living (incidentally, this is not a bad idea for family night every year in January. Go around and ask everyone in the family how they want everyone to remember them when they're gone - not a bad way to help a teenager see life with a longer perspective.)

3. Look around unhurriedly for a funeral home with a low basic services fee. Funeral homes are required by law to give out a copy of their itemized prices to anyone who asks.

4. Set aside $6000 - $8000 in a savings account like ING direct. No need to pre-arrange and let the mortician keep all the interest on YOUR money.

5. When the death occurs, call the funeral home, arrange for an immediate direct burial in the least costly casket, and the least costly burial vault or grave liner. No need for embalming, no need for a fancy song and dance in choosing the casket, or agonizing on what kind of flower arrangement Uncle Fred would have liked best. No need for limousines or a police escort etc... Direct burial is an absolutely no-frills burial service.

6. Before burial (which is going to happen almost immediately) close family members or friends will help dress the body in final resting clothes. Everyone I know who has done this considers it an almost sacred act of service for a loved one, compared to what is easy to imagine as a gross, creepy experience before actually doing it.

7. A week, two weeks, or a month later, after unhurriedly gathering family and friends together, after gathering the important artifacts of this person's life together, like the pictures, or videos or whatever. Everyone meets at the church, or some other gathering place, and we have a tribute to our loved one's life, their victories and defeats. For people we love, it takes a long time to really go through the grieving process, and putting together a true life tribute is extremely cathartic and healing. In my opinion it is unbelievably superior to the hurried, franchised way we traditionally do funerals in this country.

There is no need for limousines. No need to pay a mortician hundreds of dollars to wheel the casket in and out of the building. No need to use the funeral home's facilities. There is no need at any point in this process for anyone to feel any shame for not choosing the casket Aunt Janet ‘would have liked best’. All of those trappings are put there, for a handsome fee, by the funeral industry to increase their profits, rather than facilitate the grieving, healing process after losing a loved one.

8. At some point in the future a grave marker (or headstone) should be purchased. You want this to look good. If there is any place in this process to splurge monetarily, in my opinion this is it. Because we will go back to see this piece of ground, the headstone should look nice.

How much will all of this cost?

$800 for the cemetery lot

$1500 for the funeral

$1500 for the headstone

_______

$3800 for everything

What to do with the remaining thousands of dollars in saved funeral costs? Deploy it somehow in a way that my loved one would care about. Loan it out at Kiva.org, give it to your church, or some other cause you care about. Divide it equally among the surviving family with explicit instructions to accelerate debt payments. It really doesn't matter because most everyone would agree that anything is preferable to literally throwing our dollars in the ground. That’s what most people currently do. But now you know.

And knowing is half the battle.

WTYM

Jay

INDEX TO PREVIOUS BLOGS

2006-09-19T22:57:00.000-05:00

BLOG INTRO

Personal Finance Posts
23 YEAR OLD GIRL SAVES $60,000 - YOU CAN DO IT TOO
THE MCDONALDS TEST
THE ROTH IRA WAY
LISTEN TO THIS ATTORNEY
HOW TO SAVE MONEY ON A FUNERAL

JUST BUSINESS
UNCLE RICO'S GUIDE TO THE SWEET MOOLAH - SHOE SHINE BIZ
CUTE AS A BUTTON - SYNERGY IN BUSINESS

SUCCESS
THE 5 YEAR RULE
PREDICTABILITY AND CONSISTENCY
THE 80% RULE OF SUCCESS
THE 20% RULE
CHANGE THE WORLD WITH MICROCREDIT

TEENAGE LIFE ARTICLES
READ THIS ARTICLE BY PHIL GRAHAM
WHY NERDS ARE UNPOPULAR
EAGLES DON'T FLOCK

MUSIC AND MOVIES
SONGS THAT ROCK - TEENAGE WASTELAND
SONGS THAT ROCK - ICE ICE BABY
TOBY KEITH'S GREATEST HITS
FIRST OF THE GANG TO DIE
CLASSICAL MUSIC TO GET FAMILIAR WITH

COLLEGE PREP
SOMETHING TO DO NOW TO PREPARE FOR COLLEGE
EAGLE SCOUT
EAGLE PROJECT IDEAS
DO PHYSICS FIRST

23 YEAR OLD GIRL SAVES $60,000 - YOU CAN DO IT TOO

2006-09-18T15:41:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel,

You're what, 15 years old now? This week.

Check out this girl:

http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/07/pf/saver_nixon/index.htm?postversion=2006090711

Don't tell yourself it couldn't happen to you!

Jay

ATTORNEY SAYS YOU SHOULD PAY ATTENTION TO MY ADVICE

2006-09-09T18:33:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel,

Yesterday I was sitting next to an attorney on the plane from NY yesterday. I was jotting down some notes on a pad of paper, and he whipped out a sudoku puzzle. I asked him to teach me how to do it and he obliged. I'll probably be addicted so sudoku forever because of it. We ended up talking for the rest of the flight. It was a great conversation. We even talked about you!

He asked me what I was writing about on the pad of paper. I told him I was writing some notesfor a blog entry on how to convince you to fully fund a ROTH IRA while you're still young and not paying taxes.
"Hmm... Well he won't appreciate the good advice for a long long time probably. But that's good advice."

"Yeah, well he's just a freshman in high school. I figure that he can ignore 95% of what everybody says, but if he does a few things right he will avoide a lot of trouble for himself. For example, I really wish I hadn't blown off the PSAT back in the day, because that put me out of the running for being a national merit scholar."

"Yeah. The PSAT is probably more important than the SAT. For the purposes of getting a scholarship anyway. And if you do well on the PSAT you'll do fine on the SAT."

"So you're doing this high tech blog thing for your brother, who is going to type up your chicken scratch notes later to put it online?"

"Oh, I will. I've got a laptop right here, but sometimes it's just easier scratching out ideas on a notepad."

"Well, it's a good idea. I have a 13 year old son. I wouldn't have let him blow off the PSAT in a few years, but I hadn't thought of the ROTH IRA idea. That's a good idea."

"Yep, I'm full of good ideas."

later

Jay

DO PHYSICS FIRST

2006-09-09T18:22:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel,

There is little question that many of the career paths with a good future are in the hard sciences. Understanding higher math, logic, sciences, and being a good writer will qualify you for jobs you can't imagine now.

There is a bit of disagreement as to what sciences should be taught first. In my opinion this is the sequence to take science classes in high school. If possible for you.

Physics - where you learn about the 4 forces that make up the rules for the physical world, and the historical approaches taken to solving these problems.

Chemistry - How 2 of the 4 forces that rule the physical world specifically affect how atoms combine and recombine to form chemicals that we are familiar with.

Biology - How the combining of chemicals works inside our body to give us energy, and make our bodies work. How chemical reactions take place in other living things as well.

Physics is the gateway science that starts you on the path to learning the other ones better. By far, Biology is the discipline we understand the least, because it is basically physics and chemistry combined into very complicated problems to be solved. Of course you'll have to go back to physics later when you have more math under your belt, but the point is, that the other subjects will be more interesting if you have the basic rules of how the world works in your head, and you learn those basic rules in physics.

Here is an article that describes why you should take physics first.

Here is an article that talks about the dual nature of light we were talking about the other day.

Here is a series of articles on electricity.

Okay, talk to you later

Jay

CHANGE THE WORLD WITH MICROCREDIT

2006-09-09T00:12:00.000-05:00

Samuel,

Here's a link to a website called 'Kiva'. Whoever is putting this together is a smart dude. It's a website that matches up lenders to borrowers of microcredit loans. I don't know that it's possible to make this a truly large scale project, but it's a great website to go to if you're interested in learning what kind of things people need for microcredit loans.

I've checked out this site. It's great. Have you seen those commercials about how you can feed a child for as little as 29 cents per day? This is kind of like that. You can actually make a micro-loan to a third world entrepreneur, and get paid back! This site has effectively removed the barrier to entry of changing the world. I hope you check it out.

I've added a link to KIVA link on the right hand side bar. At this point I can't figure out how to put a banner on this post. But here's a picture of Muhammed Yunus, the founder of Microcredit. He is the man.

Also, here is a video introducing a microcredit accelerator called Unitus.

Word.

Jay

SOME MUSIC THAT I LOVE

2006-09-08T16:07:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel,

I don’t know if you’ve spent much time listening to classical music. But here is a selection worth listening to.

Vivaldi – The Four Seasons

Bach – The Brandenberg Concertos

Mozart – Symphony 100, Requiem

Beethoven – All symphonies – especially 5, 6, and 9. The Eggmont Overture, and his Piano Sonatas

Dvorak – Cello Concerto, New World Symphony

Felix Mendelsson – Violin Concerto in E minor

Aaron Copland – everything, but especially Rodeo (The beef song)

Gershwin – Rhapsody in Blue

Some of the best that has come out of Western culture is our fine music.

WTYM

Jay

HOW TO GET GOOD GRADES WITHOUT SPENDING A LOT OF TIME

2006-09-08T15:59:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel,

I thought I’d take some time today to jot down some suggestions for succeeding in school without spending more time than is necessary.

Although, talking about the public education system is something I struggle with for several reasons. First of all, I never really got particularly outstanding grades. I got decent grades. Sometimes I got good grades. But my grades never set me apart from the crowd. Some people, including Dad, told me as I was growing up that grades weren’t that important. Those people were wrong. Grades aren’t everything but they mean something, and sometimes they can mean a lot. People judge us by all sorts of criteria, and grades will be one of the things you get judged on for the foreseeable future. I struggle giving advice in this area because for varying reasons I never got outstanding grades.

Second. I am not a teacher. Some of my friends (who I respect a great deal) have gone into public education as teachers. I don’t want to say something that would be interpreted as cynical toward this profession.

With that said, I do have some suggestions that might help you.

Suggestion 1

Don’t wait until you get home to do your homework. The best possible place to do the majority of your homework is AT school. I know for a fact that most courses won’t assign so much homework that you need to be swamped with hours of homework to do at home. What do you do during lunch? Find someone who is smart and has some of the same classes as you and spend 15 minutes of intense thought at lunch banging out your algebra homework. What are you doing during your down time? A lot of kids spend this null space torturing each other. Don’t participate in that nonsense. Sit by some smart kid and knock out your social studies homework. You get the picture. Extra credit for making your math buddy one of the cute girls in class. I got an A in Geometry because I sat in front of Kristina K in that class. We made it our life’s mission never to take home a single geometry assignment, and to always finish it at school. For the most part we did, and we were always friends after that. And she was one fine babe. (whistle)

Suggestion 2

What do you do when you’re typing up something in Microsoft Word and you have to call it quits for a while? You push on the save button right? Otherwise you’ll have to type it up again later, and that’s not for you. You need to have a mental ‘save’ button that you use at the end of every class period in school. Everybody else puts their books in their book bag 2 minutes before class ends. You aren’t going to do that. You’ll spend that 2 minutes mentally reviewing what you just went over in class. Put it on a shelf in your brain in some organized way. When you arrive to that same class the next day you open your book and boot up your brain to learn the subject matter by mentally reviewing AGAIN what you reviewed when you hit the save button at the end of class the day before. Don’t be a nazi about taking notes. Take good notes, but focus on paying attention and organizing the material in your brain in some sort of recognizable pattern as you’re learning it during the class period. To summarize, each class period should go like this:

Boot up

Pay attention in class

Save and close

Go to the next class

If you follow the process, then studying will be a lot more natural, fast, and easy. You’ll find you don’t have to cram when it is time for a test. You’ll also notice that you remember the material for a lot longer.

Suggestion 3

Assemble a study team. For me, this was especially important for math classes. You need to get in a position where you are with people working on the same problem, and you know the material well enough to explain it to someone else in the group. A rule of thumb is you don’t understand the material if you can’t explain it successfully to somebody else who is trying to learn it. You’ll also find that if you teach the material to somebody else, you can remember it a lot better. But it also helps to have somebody nearby who understands just in case you don’t understand how to work through the problem.

Suggestion 4

It is hard to overstate the importance of becoming good at writing when you’re in school. There is only one way for this to happen. You need to practice putting your ideas down on paper, and you need to practice re-writing. Here’s a fact. There aren’t that many good writers out there. Most anyone who’s writing approaches half decent is actually a good re-writer. In order to improve your writing you have to write, and re-write as much as possible. If you want to get good grades on writing assignments you have to re-write your material at least a couple of times. Don’t despair, it takes work, but you will get better. Anytime you get a writing assignment you need to bang out the writing assignment as early as possible. Just get it down on paper. Then depending on how much time you have before the assignment is due, you re-write it as many times as possible. If you have more time, you do more re-writes.

The way re-writes work is this. You get your ideas down on paper. Then you put some space between you and the writing. You go play basketball, or sleep on it. Then come back and read it out loud. Write in any corrections and re-type it. Repeat the process of creating space, then revisiting it and reading it aloud as many times as possible.

The bar is unbelievably low, so if you’re even kind of good you’ll find that you get okay grades. But don’t be surprised to see red ink on your paper taking off points and giving ideas for improvement. Think of the red ink as ways you can do better, but don’t take it personally. Anytime you are ready to turn something in, take your writing to an adult to correct it first. Go back and re-write one more time and incorporate the adult’s suggestions. I don’t claim to be a great writer, but you can feel free to email me, and I will email you back with any corrections or suggestions.

Suggestion 5

Build your own curriculum. Your teacher might be awesome but maybe he isn’t interesting to you. It’s your job to make the subject matter interesting. Go find a magazine article, or an interesting book, or a NOVA documentary on the subject you’re learning about. Don’t go overboard and neglect your homework. Remember that grades do matter. But it’s a wide world out there. There is a lot of cool stuff and you don’t need to be confined to some educator’s curriculum. If somebody suggests a good book to read, go check it out from the library. Just give it a try, you’ll be surprised at how much cool stuff there is out there.

Well that’s all there is for now. And my plane is about to land. So I’m signing off…

Jay

EAGLES DON'T FLOCK

2006-09-07T19:50:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel,

Ross Perot is one of my favorite Americans. I actually met him in person a few months ago. I was in the lunch line at a food establishment where Ross was eating and Ross cut in front of me in the lunch line. I stood there just staring at him thinking “Wow, that’s Ross Perot! Right in front of me!” He looked over at me, waved and said: “Sorry.” Then got his lunch.

To be fair I was eating lunch at Perot Systems, and Ross basically owns the company. He can cut in line anytime he wants and I honestly didn’t mind.

When Ross started his first company – EDS – he had a slogan he used to inspire the Human Resources people to attract talent. He didn’t want them just going to Harvard and hiring any old person in the top 5% of the class. He wanted them to find qualified candidates who would deliver top notch service day in and day out. Mr. Perot came up with a slogan he used and repeated often. “Eagles don’t flock. You have to find them one at a time.” You can’t go far at Perot Systems without seeing that slogan somewhere plastered onto a statue of an Eagle flying majestically. There are pictures of eagles flying majestically, and statues of eagles flying majestically throughout the building.

There’s this one HUGE statue of an eagle. It is mounted to a base the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. The Eagle probably has a wing span of 8-10 feet. On it there is a plaque that says the statue was given to Ross Perot on his 75^th birthday by his son Ross Jr. The slogan on this particular statue says “Eagles don’t flock. They team.”

Before I die I want to know what that slogan means. Do eagles really team? Is it just some sort of dumb slogan vacuous of meaning? Or is it a real slogan rife with meaning that I just can’t understand?

I’d like to know.

Jay

EAGLE PROJECT IDEAS

2006-09-06T17:30:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel,

Hope you had a good long weekend. I know I did. Now all I need to do is get a job with the federal government so I can get even more holidays off from work, as well as a sweet defined benefit pension plan.

In a previous post I mentioned that you should strive to get your Eagle Scout badge sooner than later. It is definitely a good idea to get this out of the way before you get your drivers license.

I don’t know if I ever told this to you, but here’s a true story. Grandma and Grandpa had a celebration / get together for their fiftieth wedding anniversary. All the cousins got together, the Aunts, and Uncles and everyone was gathered together in a church gymnasium. Grandpa was making the rounds, came up to Shawn and Me, put his hands on our shoulders, asked us how we were doing, and told us he wanted us to get our Eagle Scout badge. Grandpa had been heavily involved in Boy Scouts for years, and had even won the Silver Beaver award. I don’t know what the Silver Beaver award is, but it must have been important because scout guys talk about it like it’s a big deal. Anyway we had the fiftieth anniversary banquet, and in the middle of a slide show showing pictures of the family going way, way back Grandpa had a heart attack, went to the hospital and died; so technically Grandpa’s dying wish for me was for me to get the Eagle Scout award. I was one of those Eagle Scout recipients who earned the Eagle badge a matter of days before my 18^th birthday. I speak from experience that it is a big hassle earning your Eagle Scout badge after age 16. I had to make it a priority, which was why I decided my Senior year not to run track, and instead focus my extra time on earning the final 3 some odd merit badges. My track coach was extremely upset with me, and even called Mom on the phone to get her to talk me out of it.

The key to a good Eagle project is organizing people. The Eagle board of review wants you to come up with some sort of project that will do some good in the world, organize people to do it, and execute the project. That’s what they want you to do.

What is sets an Eagle Scout apart from other teenagers? I think it comes down to initiative and diligence. Two things most teenagers have in common is they have no initiative, and they don’t have any follow through. There’s nothing particularly wrong with this common trait of teenagers but eventually you all will need to grow out of it. Getting your Eagle Scout sets you apart from the riff-raff. It means you’ve set your sights on a goal (the Eagle Scout award) and you followed through the required multi-step process of getting multiple merit badges, and you’ve organized yourself and others to bring about real change in the real world with your Eagle project. So as mundane as getting your Eagle Scout award may seem to you right now, let me assure you that it does mean something from an adult perspective and how you are perceived as a teenager.

I haven’t really talked to you about what merit badges you have left before you’re finished with your Eagle Scout. That’s a conversation for another day. This post is intended to suggest a couple of possible Eagle project ideas. Take them or leave them.

Organize a Red Cross Blood Drive

This is an Eagle Project I’ve seen done that I have mixed feelings about. All you have to do is find some group of adults who can donate blood, and organize the adults and the Red Cross to get together somewhere so the adults can donate blood. This is an example of a very easy Eagle project. You basically just have to contact the Red Cross, obtain a building for the blood drive – like a church building, or a school, or some other location. Then you just ask a group of adults (it could be adults in your neighborhood) to come and donate blood. The Red Cross will do most of the work. You mainly need to organize the details.

The Eagle board of review will want to know how many man hours went into organizing this project. You’ll need to keep track of all the hours you spend organizing it, as well as the time spent by your volunteers. Then you need to write a summary of your project, put it all into a binder and submit it for review. At that point they’ll call you in and you’ll be interviewed by some high level Scout guys. They’ll either tell you that you did a good enough job, or they’ll ask you to go back and do something else (usually they’ll have you change something in the binder you submitted). And bada bing. You’ve earned yourself an Eagle. I like this idea because the Red Cross does most of the logistical work. There’s nothing wrong with easy. What I don’t like about this idea is it somehow seems like a cop-out to me. Like you you’re outsourcing the project to the Red Cross.

Organize a Hunger Banquet

This is my favorite idea for an Eagle project that I’ve run across. What you do is you organize a banquet that raises money for some humanitarian project. My personal opinion is that any money raised should go to Unitus. But money raised could go to a local food bank, or to the Red Cross, or the United Way, or whatever. You secure a venue (a church, school, somebody’s backyard, or some other place to have the banquet). You come up with some educational material for a presentation at the banquet. You put together some sort of flyer to advertise for the event. Make sure the flyer includes the fact that this is your Eagle Scout project. Get volunteers to sell tickets, and get publicity. Invite whoever will be judging you at the Eagle board of review. You sell tickets for ~$10. When people show up to the banquet they receive a random number. Most of the guests will sit on blankets and eat beans and rice. A very few people will get a McDonalds extra value meal, and one percent of the guests will eat something like outback steakhouse take out, or chili’s or something. The idea is that we Americans are amazingly well off compared to most of the rest of the world.

While everyone is eating you give a presentation (make sure to keep track of the hours you spent practicing for this presentation, and putting it together) on microcredit, or the benefits of the local food bank or whatever. Then invite the attendees to donate money at a website. Here is a cool tool I found to make it easy for people to donate. Then you make sure the money gets into the organization you were raising money for. Write up your report, put it in a binder, go to the Eagle Review, and you’re done.

Public Works

You might try checking with a local city official to see if there are any planned projects at local parks. There usually is something planned. Sometimes it is possible to co-opt one of these public improvement projects as your Eagle project. How it works is the city will supply the building materials for the park benches, or the park gazebo or whatever, and you organize the expertise, and the labor to put it together. You organize the labor, execute the assignment and build the park benches (or whatever) and write up the project and put it in a binder.

These are all 3 good ideas for an Eagle project. I’m sure there are other good ideas, but nothing is coming to mind right now.

Jay

SONGS THAT ROCK - FIRST OF THE GANG TO DIE

2006-09-01T16:34:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel,

I don't know why I like Morrissey so much but I do. His songs all seem to have the same sort of general attitude under the surface that is hard to describe. It's something like the melancholy attitude you would imagine to be in the air at a convention full of high school trench coat guys.

Dude, life sucks, I hate it.
Yeah

On the other hand the music has so much energy that it carries the music up to a cool level. Morrisey was the driving force behind the band "The Smiths" which brought us the cool theme song to 'Charmed'. -How Soon Is Now - an awesome song. Listen to the guitar on this song. It's got an industrial, 'you're just a cog in a giant machine' British kind of feel. And yet, there is so much energy in the music. And yet 20 years later it still sounds as cool as it did when it came out. That's the difference between good music, and crapola. Notice how lame the video is, that's because it was made back in the eighties before anyone made decent music videos.

Morrissey is also responsible for bringing the band 'The New York Dolls' back together, before their bass guitar player died of leukemia. That story is found in a great documentary 'New York Doll' which my friend N told me I needed to see. And N was right, it was a teriffic documentary. On the DVD there is a 20 minute interview with Morrissey where his the raw emotion underlying a lot of his songs.

In that interview Morrissey talks about how he decided that being a rock star was for him when he was 13 years old. He went to a New York Dolls concert, and he was totally excited. But he never got to see the concert because somebody came and announced that the concert was cancelled because the drummer had just died. The drummer had taken drugs, and two groupies put him in a bathtub full of cold water and poured coffee down his throat. The coffee suffocated him and he died. From there the Dolls just kind of broke apart as a band. You'd have thought a successful popular band wouldn't break up just because the drummer died. But the band members were basically victims of their bad behavior, were all addicted to alcohol or other drugs and just couldn't get it together. The band broke up and none of the band members really had as much success again. When Morrissey got the band back together, they had all pretty much gotten their act together. After their reunion the bass player Arthur Kane died of leukemia. In the interview I saw, Morrissey called the band a cursed band. That kind of view of the world seems to be underneath all of the melancholy music put out by this guy.

First of the gang to die is still my favorite song by Morrissey because it lacks a lot of the melancholy tone, (its still there though) and has more of the energy.

I had it on MP3 on the computer I gave to you, but it got wiped out two summers ago when it got fried and I had to replace the motherboard and hard drive.

WTYM,

Jay

WHAT IS THE MCDONALDS TEST?

2006-09-01T16:09:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel,

In a previous post, I said that being a shoe shine guy easily passes the McDonalds test. But I never explained what that is.

The McDonalds test is my way of explaining to network marketing people why their system is a waste of time. At least once per year I am approached by somebody who wants me to join their network marketing scheme. It's either amway, or primerica, or prepaid legal, or blue green algae, or xango, or whatever. I say that for the most part network marketing doesn't pass the McDonalds test, and I have applied the McDonalds test to any possible money making idea.

To apply the McDonalds test I ask myself one simple question. "Would I make more money in the same period of time gathering recruits for Amway (or Primerica, or Xango, or Morinda, or whatever) or flipping burgers at McDonalds. Almost always the answer is flipping burgers at McDonalds.

I learned this bitter, bitter lesson the summer Dad convinced me to come home from my job as a trail guide and do Primerica. The kind way of describing this summer is that it didn't pass the McDonalds test. But every time I think of it I have to censor a stream of profanity that reaches to the moon.I know people who make money in these projects. I know people who make a TON of money doing stuff like the network marketing schemes described above. The vast majority of people who participate in these ventures waste a huge amount of time, and money. And that's a fact. Would you make more money working for Primerica, or flipping burgers? No contest, you'll make more money flipping burgers. If you really are interested in financial services, or insurance, or refinancing people's mortgages you'll make a lot more money working with an insurance agency, or a loan broker, or a securities dealer. All of those things are within your grasp, why would you need to do it with a network marketing company? Network marketing companies by and large are rapacious, pitiful, stupid and hollow.

On the other hand, if you ever are in the right position it might be a good idea to start a network marketing company. Life at the top of those things is SWEET.

So, here's a short quiz.
Does joining Amway pass the McDonalds test? - NO
Does shining shoes in an office tower pass the McDonalds test? - If you do it right - Yes

When you get older and have better opportunities the McDonalds test will become kind of irrelevant. The McDonalds test is a way of expressing the economic concept of opportunity cost. The cost of what you're doing is that you won't be able to do the best possible alternative to what you're now doing. For my friend who is a civil engineer, he has to weigh whether he should keep on drawing salary as an engineer or do something else with his time. So far he has decided that he wants to continue being a civil engineer for his day job.

Hope that helps,

Jay

THE ROTH IRA WAY

2006-09-01T15:01:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel,

I'm in the airport, and I have time for a more lengthy post, so here goes.

I don't know if you know cousin P. I'm sure you've met him before but I doubt his face comes to your mind. P has no college degree, there is a good chance he never will. He'll be stuck doing certain jobs his whole life that a lot of people wouldn't want to do. P is younger than me by a couple of years.

And guess what, P has more assets than I do, by a good margin. Do you know why? Because his parents basically forced him into fully funding a Roth IRA each year.

What is an IRA? - It stands for Individual Retirement Account. There are several kinds of retirement accounts. The biggest difference is between the traditional IRA (which people just refer to as an IRA), and the Roth IRA (which was more recently introduced in the nineties).

Why would anybody want to start an IRA? To answer that question I want you to imagine your life as if it were a movie and you can play with the movie as if you were watching it on video and you have the remote control to the VCR. You're watching the movie, you hit the rewind button and see your life for the last week or so. Now imagine you hit the fast forward button and watch yourself live in superfast motion as you blow through your teens, your twenties, your thirties, and keep on watching yourself until you're in your eighties. Now slow down the movie to play. You'll notice that you're walking slower, you've got some gray hair. If you look really closely you'll notice that you don't have a job, and you still have bills to pay.

Eventually all our human assets will become worthless, and we have to live off the reserve capital we've set aside along the way. That's why people save for retirement. That's where IRA's, and Roth IRA's come in. There is one simple difference between the traditional and Roth IRA's.

You put pre-tax money into a traditional IRA, and you put after-tax money into a Roth IRA. So let's say that you're a fifty year old plumber making $45,000 per year. If you put $2000 into an IRA then you would only have to pay taxes on the remaining $43,000 because the IRA donation would act as a tax deduction. If you had put that $2000 into a Roth IRA you would have to pay taxes on the whole $45,000.

There is one more difference. When you retire and start taking your money out of your traditional IRA you have to pay taxes on that money. Why? Because you didn't pay taxes on it before you put it into the IRA. So if you put your $2000 into and it grew at 8% per year for forty years it would be $43,000. With the traditional IRA you have to pay taxes on whatever money you take out of your IRA as if it were income.

When you retire and start taking money out of a Roth IRA you don't have to pay any taxes on that money. Why? Because you already paid taxes on that money. Remember you couldn't take a tax deduction. So forty years from now you get to spend all of those $43,000 without paying any income taxes on it.

That is what makes P's strategy so awesome. As long as you make less than like $10,000 per year you pay no income taxes at all. So if you have some job -say McDonalds - while you're in high school, and you make $10,000 over the course of the year you won't be paying taxes on it anyway. If you take $2000 of that $10,000 and put it into a Roth IRA, then leave it there for 40 years and it grows to $43,000, you just got away with making $41,000 and you don't ever have to pay taxes on that money! That is HUGE!!!

So let's consider a possible scenario together. When you're 16 years old you work a summer job at McDonalds. You sock away $2000 into a Roth IRA account. It would be easy. Minimum wage minus FICA would make $2000 in 10 weeks. That's flipping burgers for June, July, and half of August. You change jobs when you're 17 and work at Arby's the following summer and manage to sock away $2000 that year. That's slicing roast beef for June, July, and half of August. Do that until you're 22 years old and all you have to do is sit on your rear end until you're sixty five years old, and assuming you get an average return of 10% on that money you will have something like 1.25 million dollars tax free.

It's beyond the scope of this post, but suffice to say that it isn't particularly hard to have a passive income of $10,000 per month if you've got 1.25 million dollars to your name.

Cousin P is on his way. As young as you are, all you need to do is make a couple of smart decisions and you can seriously set yourself up to be in a good situation.

I had a job from starting as a 10 year old throwing newspapers. If I had saved half of my money and put it in an interest bearing account, then when Roth IRA's became available put my money into one.... (Jay shakes his head slowly)

But do you know what I did with that money? I used to finish my paper route and ride my bike over to the grocery store and buy an ice cream cone. Then I rode over to the gas station and threw quarters down a video game machine playing 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' so I could put my name in 1st place. They re-set it every day so I always wanted to go back to show the world who was the bomb diggity at TMNT.

What was I thinking? I was thinking the same thing every 10 or 11 year old kid would have been thinking. "Hey, I could really use an ice cream cone right now." "Better head over and show who's boss at the video arcade."

Lame!

The race does not always go to the swift. Don't do it like I did it. That was stupid. Set yourself up for success.

Later,

Jay

CUTE AS A BUTTON

2006-08-31T10:57:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel,

I ran into a business last week that embodies synergy, or mutually reinforcing business ideas. A neighbor had invited us to her son’s birthday party. It was at this little store in a strip mall called ‘Cute As A Button’ – (CAAB)

CAAB is a thrift store similar to salvation army thrift stores, but with a focus on baby and toddler clothes. When I went through the door there were bags of donated items off to the side in the room. One major difference is that CAAB works very hard to show their merchandise in a way that normal retailers do. You aren’t going to see stained shirts, or anything smelly on the racks. Just quality, gently used merchandise, that any reasonable soccer mom would be willing to buy and clothe her kids with.

This is a good business model. I’ve seen this elsewhere, like in St. Louis where they have ‘The Scholar Shop” which is a thrift store that donates all its profits to scholarships for local high school kids. You’ve been to these kinds of stores before, and the fact that they’re around means that the business model actually works. I assume.

But I probably confused you a little bit at the beginning of this narrative. I didn’t start out talking about thrift stores. I was going to a birthday party. Well the back half of this retail space was decorated little city for small people where CAAB hosts birthday parties. We walked in and there were all these little shops with costumes. My 3 year old immediately dressed up as a fireman and walked around. Then he dressed up as an astronaut, then as a race car driver. There was a doctors office where my daughter gave little toy shots to dolls, and listened to my heart beat on a toy stethoscope. There were chairs for the adults to sit down and talk to each other while the kids basically entertained themselves. There was even a flat screen TV with the football game on so the non-attentive fathers could do something they enjoyed. After about 90 minutes we were shepherded into the back room which had wall decorations and tables set up where we ate birthday cake. The food was provided by the party hostess, not CAAB, and I don’t know if CAAB even offers to supply food for these parties. As soon as we were moved into the birthday cake area another party started in the play area. We ate cake, and opened presents. One of the CAAB employees wrote down the list of presents and who gave the present so the Moms and Dads could take pictures and whatever. Then we went home. Compared to the fairly stressful experience hosting a birthday party for my 3 year old, this was an extremely good party. I don’t know how much my neighbor paid CAAB but it was probably worth every penny.

So imagine yourself as the owner of CAAB. You’ve got a good business model of a thrift store. You can make decent money running a thrift store, but there are some drawbacks. Everybody knows what Salvation Army is, so there’s a name recognition that they have but CAAB doesn’t have. If you’re the owner of CAAB you’ve got to figure out a way to get people walking around inside your store. You’ve also got to pay rent every month so any way of increasing revenue will only help. Combining a thrift store for kids clothes, with a birthday party venue is a great idea! The birthday party revenue alone probably covers the fixed costs overhead for the operation each month. Think about it. If they charge $100 to host a birthday (they probably charge more) and have 3 birthday parties each Saturday that equals $1200 in revenue each month. And don’t forget that every invitee to each birthday party is one more potential customer on the thrift store side.

I’ve got another idea for CAAB. Sell personalized room decoration. The birthday party area was totally decorated with paint on the walls. The city had to be painted with a doctors office, a restaurant, fire station etc… The cake room had a peter pan theme (or something) going on.

In college I had a friend who painted people’s rooms like that. She was going to school out west, and would fly home to Raleigh North Carolina on the weekends. She would work all weekend painting somebody’s rooms then fly back to school. That was her job. To justify a 1500 mile round trip flight she had to be making pretty good money back home.

Well CAAB should get together with whoever painted the birthday area and work out an arrangement. Put some kind of display together showcasing the possible room designs and sell them for the room painter. Anytime CAAB sends the painter a client, the painter will pay CAAB a commission. I am one hundred percent positive that in my community there are hundreds if not thousands of people who would be interested buying in a custom painted room for their spoiled spouse or 10 year old.

You probably aren’t going to open up a thrift store, but it’s a good idea to train your mind to recognize instances where somebody is doing something smart. Over time you’ll get better at coming up with smart things on your own.

Later,

Jay

WHY NERDS ARE UNPOPULAR

2006-08-30T22:02:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel,

Here's another Paul Graham essay. The title is 'Why Nerds Are Unpopular". I'm not saying you're a nerd or anything. It's just a good read if you get a chance. Here's a quote from about halfway through the essay:

If I could go back and give my thirteen year old self some advice, the main thing I'd tell him would be to stick his head up and look around. I didn't really grasp it at the time, but the whole world we lived in was as fake as a Twinkie....

And as for the schools, they were just holding pens within this fake world. Officially the purpose of schools is to teach kids. In fact their primary purpose is to keep kids locked up in one place for a big chunk of the day so adults can get things done. And I have no problem with this: in a specialized industrial society, it would be a disaster to have kids running around loose.

It's a wide world out there grasshopper.

Jay

EAGLE SCOUT

2006-08-29T20:33:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel,

You're almost 15. Now is the time to be serious about getting your Eagle Scout. I'm totally serious. How much longer to you have be finished with it?

You will have much more fun in scouts if you get past the Eagle Scout milestone before you get your drivers license. Why will you have more fun? Because you can focus on the fun things about scouting - camping, eating marshmallows, building fires, and telling people what to do, and you won't have to worry about all the merit badges.

But you'll probably want to get some more merit badges. Because out of the something like 200 merit badges there will be a few that are interesting to you. Getting your Eagle Scout earlier rather than later will be more valuable to you anyway. It will be more valuable to you for several reasons, but the biggest reason I can think of is you will have been exposed to all those ideas earlier and will have plenty of time to use them.

There are other, cooler things in store for you that are coming right up in the next couple of years. You will want to be spending your time doing those things and not having to worry about getting your environmental science merit badge.

I'm not going to let this rest. The eagle scout badge isn't that hard, but it requires you to be proactive and go out and get it. In the future some posts on this blog will be idea for possible eagle projects that you can do.

Okay. I've got that off my chest. Talk to you later

WTYM

Jay

UNCLE RICO'S GUIDE TO THE SWEET MOOLAH

2006-08-29T20:26:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel,

If you're interested in making some sweet moolah I've got an idea for you. Be a shoe shine guy.

Today I was setting up a mail room for a gigantic corporation up in Connecticut. I was working with the mail room staff to get the route books, policies and procedures together and I ran across these shoe shine guys.

The shoe shine guys travel around the business districts and shine people's shoes. I saw them up on the 7th floor, and they just worked their way down the building floors. They charge $5 per pair of shoes. They come by every Tuesday and Wednesday to this particular building. All they've got to do is shine 10 pairs of shoes and they've made fifty bucks. They moved through the building fairly quickly, but you could tell by the number of shoes they were polishing that they were making decent money. At this particular office park I'm in there are nine buildings right next to each other.

I'm telling you it's a great idea. It's pretty easy and definitely passes the McDonalds test.

Anyway, it's just an idea to kick around.

WTYM

Jay

GREATEST HITS ALBUM TO BUY - TOBY KEITH

2006-08-29T20:21:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel,

I'm a rock and roll consumer. For the most part I don't listen to country music. But if you want to be a well rounded consumer of music you've got to know some country. It's one of those facts of life.

For people like me there is Toby Keith. His songs have enough good guitar, combined with his manly man voice that I can stomach it. But do yourself a favor and don't watch any of his music videos. If you do, you'll see that he's got some of the Vanilla syndrome. He's trying just a little bit too hard to be cool. Pick any video of his and you'll see what I mean.

WTYM

Jay

SONGS THAT ROCK - ICE ICE BABY

2006-08-29T20:12:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel,

Here's a song that you need to learn the lyrics to:

Ice Ice Baby - Vanilla Ice

Basically this song is the only cool song ever performed by Vanilla Ice. Everything else by him has sunk into mediocrity and if you were to play any other song by Vanilla Ice, nobody would recognize it.

Apparently Vanilla is a pretty normal guy now. I've seen him on VH1 and he seems to be a likeable person, who is in a stable marriage with a reasonable woman. That makes me happy for him. The Ice man will always be sort of cool, but he'll never have totally cool status. If you want to know some of the many reasons why, you need look no further than this book.

My theory is that Ice burned out early because he was this totally popular person, who was never quite convinced of his own coolness. Seriously, read the book and you'll see. He's constantly trying to convince the reader how cool he is. Trying to convince somebody else you're cool is one of the most un-cool things possible.

So take my advice. Memorize the lyrics to one of the coolest rap songs ever. Then soak up the pages of 'Ice By Ice' - autobiography of Vanilla Ice, and learn some great lessons of what not to do.

Word to your mother

Jay

SONGS THAT ROCK - TEENAGE WASTELAND

2006-08-29T20:09:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel,

Here's a good song to put in a mix tape sometime. Oh wait, I forgot, people don't make mix tapes anymore unless they're walking fossils. Here's a good song to put on your mp3 player, or a CD you burn sometime.

Teenage Wasteland by 'The Who'

It starts out with this funky electronic computer generated tune, followed up by some heavy bass chord progressions. Don't bother learning the lyrics. This is a music only song. That goes for pretty much every song by The Who.

Rock on grasshopper

Jay

READ THIS ARTICLE BY PHIL GRAHAM

2006-08-25T16:26:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel,

I found a cool website:

http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html

This link is to an essay titled "What You'll Wish You'd Known". Paul Graham wrote it in preparation to give at a high school graduation but never did. I think you'll like it. I've quoted some text below to whet your appetite:

In the graduation-speech approach, you decide where you want to be in twenty years, and then ask: what should I do now to get there? I propose instead that you don't commit to anything in the future, but just look at the options available now, and choose those that will give you the most promising range of options afterward.

It's not so important what you work on, so long as you're not wasting your time. Work on things that interest you and increase your options, and worry later about which you'll take.

----

Most people like to be good at what they do. In the so-called real world this need is a powerful force. But high school students rarely benefit from it, because they're given a fake thing to do. When I was in high school, I let myself believe that my job was to be a high school student. And so I let my need to be good at what I did be satisfied by merely doing well in school.

If you'd asked me in high school what the difference was between high school kids and adults, I'd have said it was that adults had to earn a living. Wrong. It's that adults take responsibility for themselves. Making a living is only a small part of it. Far more important is to take intellectual responsibility for oneself.

If I had to go through high school again, I'd treat it like a day job. I don't mean that I'd slack in school. Working at something as a day job doesn't mean doing it badly. It means not being defined by it. I mean I wouldn't think of myself as a high school student, just as a musician with a day job as a waiter doesn't think of himself as a waiter. [3] And when I wasn't working at my day job I'd start trying to do real work.

When I ask people what they regret most about high school, they nearly all say the same thing: that they wasted so much time. If you're wondering what you're doing now that you'll regret most later, that's probably it. [4]

Anyway, I'll talk to you later

Jay

A GREAT BOOK - TEENAGERS GUIDE TO THE REAL WORLD

2006-08-21T10:32:00.000-05:00

Samuel,

I know you perceive that you're far from needing / wanting to know about this stuff, but I was thinking about making a regular habit of telling you ways you can make money while you're a teenager, when you're in college, and after you graduate. It'll be a smattering of career profiles, business ideas, and low tech small capital teenager business ideas.

I actually googled 'teenager money making ideas' the other day and ran across this site: The Teenagers Guide To The Real World - By Marshall Brain. A great book that I'll probably buy. You can read about half of the chapters online. The funny thing is, I had planned out and outlined a similar book last week. I've got some different things to say than he does, but he brings an interesting, well informed perspective that you ought to check out.

Marshall Brain is best known for starting the website www.howstuffworks.com - you've seen that site right? Anyway you'll see that he also has a cool alternative energy blog, and cool blog about robots in the future, in addition to the book for teens.

I don't know if you have online access at anytime while you're actually at school, but if you're interested in checking out the teenagers guide to the real world, doing so at school would probably be a good idea.

Talk to you later,

Jay

SOMETHING TO DO NOW TO PREPARE FOR COLLEGE

2006-08-16T20:42:00.000-05:00

Samuel,

You know, it's the first week of high school. I don't really expect you to do jack while you're there other than get acclimated.

But right off the bat, it's good to have somewhat of a roadmap to show how to move past the situation you're in right now - high school.

Obviously you're going to go to college, but it would be nice if someone else paid for you to go. Well, there is one easy way to make that happen... Become a national merit scholar. If you can do that, your chances for getting a scholarship are radically improved.

How do you become a national merit scholar? Easy. Just score in the top 2% on the PSAT.

Don't do what I did. I thought the PSAT was a 'practice SAT' test so I totally blew it off. It was a big mistake for me to blow it off because I was left out of the scholarship pool when the time came. I was in all the same classes, doing all the same assignments with the national merit scholars, but they took the test seriously, and I blew it off.

The PSAT is the most important way you will distinguish yourself from other scholarship applicants. The score you're looking to beat is 1500. Get that score and people will beat down your door to give you money for college. You can do it.

But the PSAT isn't until October in your junior year. Why am I telling you this now? Actually I told you this for the first time 2 years ago. The same summer you were living with me in Idaho. I also told Spencer R not to blow off the PSAT that year. The reason I'm telling you so far in advance is the 5 year rule. You see, the first time you are exposed to new knowledge, it goes over your head. You could be hearing the most amazing piece of information, but if its the first time you're hearing it, and your mind isn't prepped, it will go in one ear and out the other.

What can you do about it now? Here's what I reccomend. Go out and buy a PSAT prep book. Take one of the practice tests, and see how you do. Don't worry about what score you get, just take the test and note your score. Think about the one thing you need to focus on to improve your test score, and work on that issue for a few months. Within six to eight months, take the second practice test in the book. Again, you're not even close to actually taking the test, but it's a good idea to get acclimated to the kinds of questions asked on the test. Then when you're in class doing the usual schoolwork thing, and the teacher starts talking about something you've seen on the PSAT, your ears will perk up and you'll know that you need to pay attention.

What I'm suggesting will take a couple of hours every six months or so, but those hours will definitely pay off when its time to apply for scholarships.

Anyway, this is just an FYI,

Jay

THE 5 YEAR RULE

2006-08-16T20:29:00.000-05:00

Samuel,

The previous posts weren't written in an effort to bore you. I'm just trying to lay a groundwork of fundamentals so that in the future when I explain something you'll have somewhere to put it in your brain and organize it.

At this point in your life you are doing just great. But life is kind of like a video game. Later on the game is harder than at the beginning. My logic for starting this blog stems from something I learned when I worked for this guy on the left:

That's Zeke Sanchez and one of his sons. He's one of the founders of the Anasazi Foundation. I think you already know this was my favorite job I've ever had. That's largely because Ezekiel Sanchez was the best boss EVER.

One of the things I learned when I worked at the Anasazi foundation was the 5 year rule. Here is the rule:

"Start teaching a concept 5 years before the person really needs to know it."

Its also something you can do with yourself. Go somewhere quiet, and visualize yourself 5 years from now. Where will you be living? What kind of food will you eat? How tall will you be? What is a typical day going to look like? What do you know then that you don't know now? Spend a little time, and get a list together of the things you think you'll need to know in 5 years and pick two things you can start on now and work on them for a few months.

If you do the 5 year visualization exercise every 6 months, you'll be amazed at how much you can accomplish.

Remember the 5 year rule grasshopper,

Jay

PREDICTABILITY & CONSISTENCY

2006-08-16T20:20:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel,

We’ve been through the 80% law of success, as well as the 20% rule of attracting success. I want to discuss another piece of the success formula. I want to write about the geysers in Yellowstone Park to emphasize the concept of consistency, or predictability.

You may already be able to tell where I’m headed with this. That’s a good thing. If not, well just keep reading.

The Old Faithful geyser is easily the most popular geyser in the world, if you measure it by people who come to see it every year. Roughly 2.5 million people each year watch Old Faithful erupt. No other geyser even comes close in terms of visitors.

OLD FAITHFUL

Old Faithful shows up, every 90 minutes or so – which is 80% of success. Old Faithful does a great job. It’s a classic geyser and it looks spectacular. What really sets Old Faithful apart, however, is the fact that it is predictable and consistent. The park employees can predict within 20 minutes or so when it is going to go off next. There is an inn close enough to the geyser so if you’re there, you can tell if you have time for lunch, or just a snack before it erupts.

You probably won’t be surprised to know that Old Faithful is not the biggest geyser in Yellowstone. That distinction belongs to Steamboat geyser. Steamboat geyser can erupt for hours at a time, and shoot as high as 380 feet in the air. That’s taller than a football field. Steamboat is not only Yellowstone’s tallest, but it is the world’s tallest geyser. Unfortunately it has periods of dormancy that are unpredictable, sometimes even lasting decades. It’s not a mystery as to why more tourists go out of their way to see Old Faithful when they go to Yellowstone, but don’t bother going to see Steamboat.

STEAMBOAT GEYSER - THE BIGGEST GEYSER IN THE WORLD

This lack of predictability gives Steamboat geyser a lot of disadvantages. Nobody can plan around it. You might show up wanting to see it erupt, then have to wait for days or weeks until it erupts again. If you wait around you miss all the other cool stuff in the park.

Hasta La Vista Hombre,

Jay

THE 20% RULE

2006-08-15T19:04:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel,

I actually just spoke with Mom on the phone. I'm glad to hear that at scouts today the whole troop ran 3 miles. That makes me laugh. A lot of good it will do. Now if you ran 3 miles every day...then you'd have one heck of a cardiovascular system.

You know that club idea we've talked about? I still think you should start your own club, but you may be able to join an existing club and do something similar. Is there a service club in your school? In my school it was the Key club, but it's probably got a different name for yours. Look into it.

Also, Mom told me that you just went through a 4 hour ordeal with a neighbor lady who gave you a battery of standardized tests. That is awesome dude, I have been thinking about sending you a PSAT prep book, for reasons to be explained in a future post. Anyway, Mom said the lady is going to tutor you for a couple of weeks on how to do better.

I really want you to write up a summary of what you've learned from her about doing well on standardized tests, and post it on this blog.

Anyway, did you like the last post? The one about the 80% rule. Did you wonder about the other 20 percent? That's what I wanted to talk about today.

This is something I've basically made up in response to the Woody Allen quote. Again, I'm going to use all caps.

THE OTHER 20% OF SUCCESS IS DOING A GREAT JOB. DO A GREAT JOB AND SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE WILL SHOW UP FOR YOU.

Let me try to elaborate. Showing up will take you most of the way there. You can gradate from high school by just doing the minimum, and coasting along. But when you get to college it will be progressively harder. Showing up will still get you most of the way toward success, but it will be harder to show up. If you show up at high school, it's free, and you don't have to pay rent at Mom and Dad's house anyway, and besides, you're basically legally required to attend high school at this point. Showing up is a foregone conclusion. But college is different. You have to pay tuition, you have to pay your own rent, and buy your own books. It takes work. Eighty percent of success is still showing up in college, but it's harder to show up. A lot of people end up dropping out, or don't even go. It was a lot of work for me to graduate from college, because I was always short on money, and consequently had to get a job the entire time I was in school.

Contrast my college experience with my friend N. He did a great job in high school. He did a great job of getting good grades. He had plenty of extracurricular activities. He did great on the appropriate standardized tests. When it came time for him to pay for college, a lot of successful people showed up and offered to pay his tuition for him. This situation continued throughout college. He made the extra effort in college to get good grades, and continue to do well on the appropriate standardized tests. When the time came for him to go to Law School, successful people showed up and offered him money to go to their law school. Up until Law School, N hadn't paid a dime in tuition costs. I don't know if you noticed this, but N finished Law school before I finished my undergraduate degree, even though we started college at the same time. N consistently does a great job, at whatever he is working on, and successful people continue to show up for him.

The twenty percent rule applies everywhere. Do a great job and successful people will show up for you.

Talk to you later,

I hope you liked your 3 mile run,

Jay

THE 80% RULE OF SUCCESS

2006-08-13T10:52:00.000-05:00

“Success with women is a function of personality and guts. You have a good personality. I’d say 9 out of 10. But you have zero guts. Zero times anything is still zero. That puts you right there with some chump who has zero personality and lots of nerve.”- N

Dear Samuel,

Today I want to tell you about one of the coolest success principles that I know of. This rule has given me the mental freedom to accopmlish all sorts of things that I probably would have given up on if I didn't know it. I call it the 80% rule of success. But I didn't think of it. I totally ripped off the 80% rule from someone famous.

I don't know if you've ever heard of Pareto's law - which some people call the 80/20 rule. Pareto's law states that for many phenomena, 80% of the consequences, stem from 20% of the causes. It was named after the Italian economist Vilfreid Pareto who observed that 80% of income in Italy was received by 20% of the Italian population. The assumption is that most of the results in any situation are determined by a small number of causes. This idea is often applied to data such as sales figures: "20% of clients are responsible for 80% of sales volume."

Pareto's law is probably valid, and can be applied to many situations. I'm not actually talking about Pareto's law when I want you to think about the 80% rule.

Here is the 80% rule. I'm going to write it in all caps for emphasis. Oh, and just for the record, this is a Woody Allen quote.

"EIGHTY PERCENT OF SUCCESS IS SHOWING UP."

The 80% rule of success is more relevent than you can possibly know as a high school student. But just to give you an example. You know a guy with the initials JSB. When he went to high school back in the day he decided he was going to drop out. He went in to the office and announced that he was dropping out of high school. They pulled him into the principal's office and gave him this offer:

'If you come to school, don't miss more than the maximum number of school days, and sit in your seat in every class, we promise you that you will graduate.' - All JSB had to do for another year was show up! Of course you and I both know that he didn't show up, and he didn't succeed in high school.

But for practically anything else, the 80% rule of success applies.
Want to succeed at _______? Show up and you're 80% of the way toward success!

One career path that I always thought would be awesome, but I never did anything about was becoming an Airline Pilot. I never knew the steps I needed to take to become an airline pilot. I always wondered what you had to do to go from high school (or college) graduation, to get a job as an airline pilot. I obviously went on to a different sort of professional job.

One day I had the opportunity to have a one on one conversation with an airline pilot. "How did you do it? If I could go back in time and do my academic training what would I have to do to become a pilot like you?"

"You could start on a path to becoming an airline pilot right now." He replied. "Just go down to your nearest airport and take a flying class. Then just keep taking classes, and keep flying and pretty soon you'll have your license to become a commercial airline pilot."

All I had to do was show up at the local airport and I was 80% of the way there!

That's an oversimplification of course, but there is more than a particle of truth to it. Name me one thing that you want to do, and 80% of success to actually doing it is showing up somewhere.
Say it every day, whenever you doubt yourself. "Eighty percent of success is showing up." Think about the things you actually do successfully. Marching band - most of success in marching band is showing up to practice! Church - somebody could in actuality be a slime ball, but if they show up to church every week they look like a good church going person. (Not 100% - 80%) I'm here to tell you that 80% of success at whatever university you choose to attend is showing up to class every time. If you get a job at McDonalds, eighty percent of success is showing up.

You're capable of doing pretty much anything. When you have doubts, just remember the 80% rule.

Eighty percent of success is showing up.

Word,

Jay

INTRODUCTION TO THIS BLOG

2006-08-12T15:16:00.000-05:00

Dear Samuel,

I had a great time in High School. I felt like I had plenty of friends, got decent grades, and I eventually moved on to College, and graduated. Now, as you know I have two kids, a beautiful wife, live in a decent place, and have a decent job.

But I look back on some of the things I missed out on and I shake my head. There are a lot of things in the world that I have become aware of over the years, but never took advantage of, because I wasn't aware of them.

This blog is meant to introduce you to some of those things early enough so that if you're interested, you can take advantage of the opportunities that are there for you if you're interested. Or you can just keep doing what you're doing. No pressure. I'm under no delusions that these letters are going to change your life or something like that. This is just a forum where I can put the ideas out there so when I'm visiting Mom and Dad, I don't waste your time cornering you with things like "You know what sport you should play? Football!" Or "This is why you should run for student government." Or whatever. You're the captain of your own ship, and I want you to live your own life. So don't interpret any of what is to come as me telling you what to do.

I went to Yellowstone National Park a few years back. The guy who I went with had been to Yellowstone a lot of times before. The inexperienced Yellowstone attendees (us) all basically wanted to see Old Faithful, and a buffalo or an elk. Our guide took us to those places but he also took us to several other, cooler places in the park that we wouldn't have gone to on our own. He knew where the cool spots were, and where to stay away from, and it totally enhanced the time we spent up there.

I see myself in the same role. I'm like a guide on your ship. I don't tell you where to go, but I definitely want to make you aware of certain opportunities or pitfalls along the way.

Anyway, I'll talk to you later.

Jay