In a surprising turn of events I have ordered a bunch of reading for fun. While it definitely seems like one of the last batches of actual paper books I am buying, they still worth the reading.

The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book – everything they say in this book is so obvious I’m almost positive you have never thought about it. And once you start thinking about it – you realize how much you have been missing. The book I linked to above is an older version (my professor recommended it), but there’s a newer version of the book available, called Emotional Intelligence 2.0. As far as I know they significantly overlap, but since I haven’t read the second I can’t really tell which one is better. From my point of view – as long as you get one of them you should be all set.

The book talks about Emotional Intelligence in all aspects of life – personal, career, family. Unlike other, more systematic books, this one doesn’t provide with any recipes or formulas “Do this umpteen times and you get a promotion”. It rather points to the reader himself in an attempt to stimulate observations and monitoring. Like in that story, where the patient says “Doctor, when I do this – it hurts”, and doctor responds “So don’t do this” – that’s the only recipe in the book, but what the book does good is it dissolves complicated cases to reveal what is it that you do that make you hurt. It’s an easy reading, so I highly recommend it. Also, including with the book is a code for online emotional intelligence EQ test, so if you want to know where you stand – give it a go.

Last week the Crunch gym that was conveniently located downstairs in the same building where I work suddenly moved. E-mail came in on Tuesday stating that starting Tuesday the gym is located within 15 minutes from the previous place, everybody’s welcome. Now, that’s what I call a good customer service (note: this is the case of heavy use of irony).

Crunch offered 3 months of free membership while at the same time upgrading the existing members of that location to all-locations membership at the previous discounted rate. However, a 20 minute travel eats out of workout time, not work time. I got concerned and started visiting other nearby gyms – to see if I have any alternative.

The closest one was NY Health & Racquet Club. Conveniently located within 3 minutes of walking time, it was an obvious choice. The drawbacks were a bit messy appearance, a bit too crowded cardio floor and narrow staircases between gym floors. However, nice sales reps, swimming pool with jacuzzi and attendants in the locker rooms made up for it.

Next on my list was the other Crunch location (where they actually moved to). I figured if I could work out after hours, it might be still better, plus I got a bit lower rate. However, lack of the pool, just the same amount of mess and cardio machines packed a little too tight made that a “NO”. Additionally, there was no guarantee that this new gym would not go yet another place overnight again.

Another one, within about 5 – 6 minute walking distance, was NYSC – New York’s sub-network of of a larger network of sports clubs. Being regarded as “Manhattan’s Bally’s” the gym truly stood out – in a bad way. I’ve spent about 10 minutes waiting for someone to come up to me and at least greet a potential client. Cleaning lady seemed to be the friendliest person to be found, as she was asking if I needed anything to dry out (I came in from the rainy outside without an umbrella). Ten minutes later the sales rep appeared, but figuring I am coming from corporate account he’s got nothing to sell me, he quickly vanished again, saying that another guy will take care of me and show me around. That another guy was, actually, a nice person, but having waited for him yet another 10 minutes while he was finishing the conversation with his colleague was in no way fun. I don’t know how traders react (the gym is located right on Wall Street), but I had enough patience to actually wait out till the end. He showed me around briefly, but I already disliked the place – because of the customer service. I don’t ask for much, but a simple courtesy of not wasting my 20 minutes on just waiting – that’s too much. Also, sales reps were boasting about having a pool as being a privilege of off-the-work gyms, rather than ones that are in the city. Too bad, as a sales person is such a dense area you should know your competition better. It really doesn’t cost a cent to send someone down the Broadway to check out three other gyms on the street. Takes one person less then 2 hours.

So there I was, left pretty much with only one choice on the list – New York Health & Racquet Club. The gym won without really trying, with their old-fashioned approach when sales woman talks to the guy and sales guy talks to female client definitely had added more positive influence (I liked that sweet girl that showed me around), the gym with the pool in Downtown Manhattan is definitely a plus and it’s the closest one I have found.

Now why all the trouble if I could’ve just went to NYHRC and not waste my time on gym visits? Well, for one – I am serious about my workout and I really do put a lot of time and effort into it. So I want a place where I would want to go to, with good atmosphere. Second – I workout during the day, so I need to spend on “other stuff” (like waiting for showers, equipment, lockers, etc.) as less time as possible, maximizing the workout time – this ruled out new Crunch location. Third – I want nice people around me. Most gyms in Manhattan keep a certain level of professionalism, where they treat the client as a decent human being. I haven’t seen that at NYSC.

Overall, I spent less than 2 hours on all three gyms, did my homework and made the best decision I could – based on what people who wanted to sell me a membership had showed me. What does your sales person actually show to your prospective clients?

This is part II of the series (read Part I of Self-Improvement for Small Business Owner).

When you talk or read that goal management is good – you are not making any real progress. Even more so – the more you talk, the more you waste your time. So if you really want to start going – here’s a first step at organizing your goals.

Remember how I talked about dividing your goals into three categories? Hope you do, because, being a geek I have done half of the work for lazy you. The following link will open a Google Document in a new window (you can click on the picture as well for the same effect):

Goal Matrix with Color-Coding

This colored thingy is already broken down into 9 color-coded areas. Once you write your goals in each of the areas, you should start associating your goals with these colors. Now, I am not saying you should use these colors to brain wash yourself, however, if you feel certain colors would represent your goal/priorities better – feel free to copy this chart into Excel or Calc and change them around. The idea is to have three colors for each priority and distinguish between a long and short term by intensity (saturation, if you will) of the same color.

Why? Good question. Ideally, your short term goals must lead you to achieving your long term goals. So by coding short-term goals in the same color as your long terms you implicitly suggesting to yourself that that’s why you are doing this. As an example, take running 10K distance (that’s one of my long term goals for now). I know that I can’t just get up and run 10K, because somewhere around 3 – 4K distance I break down. So I set a short term goal to get an extra 5 minutes to run every week. During my workout yesterday I had a 30 minute run instead of 25 as of last week and I have successfully broken my dreaded 4K barrier. Maybe I stick to 30 minutes for the next week or maybe I will increase it to 35. In any case – running an extra 5 minutes makes a perfect deep-blue colored short term goal, at the same time reminding me that colored in sky blue goal of running a 10K run is getting closer every time I achieve my “+5 min run”.

Aside from that there is one more use for this matrix, which I will talk about in the next part of the series. Stay tuned.

Recently I had a chance to take couple of instructor-led courses. One was on time-management, the other was on managing your goals. Even though I had a pretty good idea on how to do both, I still heard a bunch new things and another bunch was definitely a welcome refreshment. I already wrote about my new strategy in this post, so it all falls into places steadily.

Let’s start with time management. One of the most important things about owning a business is knowing how to manage your own time. If you got to the point when you don’t have time to solve the problems that take all your time – you know you’re in trouble. Take it from the person who’s been there, done that and haven’t even got a T-shirt. And it’s a pretty obvious thing – no matter how hard you try there’s still same old 24 hours in each day, so you have to make do with what you got. Twice harder if you have a family. That’s when goal management kicks in.

Classic goal management approach is simple – you divide all your goals into short-term and long-term goals on a time scale and into “must-haves”, “should-haves” and “nice-to-haves” on priority scale. This matrix should give you an idea of where you must be, should be and rather would be in short and long term. As I’ve said – pretty simple.

Now comes the tricky part – you have to stick to it. If you have never done this before – it’s twice as hard, because you keep forgetting what you have to do because you’re doing something that you’d rather do and it’s much more fun. Again – I know because I’ve been there too.

All this brings us to a simple conclusion – any entrepreneur must have nerves of steel to impose a very strict time and goal discipline onto himself. There is plenty of tools to help you do that, but for me most of them didn’t work – I had to come up with my own way of doing things. More on that – in next posts.

Well, if you have followed my twitter you already know I am a married man now (applause, congratulations; gifts accepted too!). It happened in Vegas on November 27. Sorry for not posting for such a long time.

The trip was fun (I have never been to Vegas before) and it was a very interesting learning experience. Not many people would argue that Vegas knows how to make money. So it was very interesting to watch how to make money off the leisure activities in the time of world financial crisis.

Everything is over-blinged. I mean – we all know that extra bling don’t hurt, but boy – Vegas is one big bling all by itself. One thing that I found very amusing – all life happens in casinos. Food, shows, shops, restrooms – everything is in casino. In fact I was surprised there was a wall between McDonald’s and a casino. My thought was – why not create a McDonald’s casino – you throw in some money, pull lever or hit the Spin the Mac button – BLING! – and Chicken McNuggets fall down the tray. Or fries if you aren’t so lucky. Or, if you are lucky enough – a cheeseburger with soda. Or, as a jackpot – a Big Mac, extra fries and soda. Imagine the possibilities!

Out of all the annoyances – if you want to do anything you will have to pass through casino. Except for Bellagio, where I found a show entrance, their buffet and restrooms to be in direct visibility line from each other. Pretty much everywhere else, you have to pass through a casino to get anywhere. Or through a row of very expensive shops. One way or another – you are watching either a mandatory display of some expensive brands or stimulated to put your money into a one-armed bandit. Now, that’s an effective advertising.

A lot of things change in Vegas very quickly. Two hotels are standing right where was simple nothing just two years ago – Wynn and Encore. As we walked down the Las Vegas Strip I saw at least four other buildings being built. There’s your real-estate crisis, right there. Not.

Everyone – from last cleaner in the casino all the way to the security at the McCarran Airport – is very nice and polite. In fact the only rude person I’ve met was some 300 miles east, at the Grand Canyon tourist center. And even then – it was 7am, so it could be just the morning rust.

Everything is aligned in such a way to help you effectively spend your money in the most convenient and pleasurable way. If there’s a line – it’s almost never to pay for something, it’s usually to get what you’ve paid for already. Sometimes cashiers are slow, it happens mostly because of all the language niceties they have to go through (sometimes I wondered if there are scripts they have to follow), but in large numbers they take care of that anyway.

If there is any luxury that will be in demand – expect to pay a premium price for it. If this is a “necessary” luxury – it would be complimentary. For example – parking in any casino on the strip is free. At the same time a single ride in monorail from one casino to another is a whopping $5.

And speaking of wedding itself – we found the chapel on the internet and the deciding factor was that right there on the first page there was a little video presentation with thorough explanation of all the chapel’s benefits. Plus – they have a live broadcast of the wedding ceremony over the internet, so I had friends all over the world watch it live. People who I could not afford to invite were there with me. It was amazing experience.

For those really interested – I will post a video on YouTube once I catch some sleep after this vacation.

Last issue of Fortune magazine features Melinda Gates (yes, wife of most richest American businessman) on its cover. The article is very interesting reading, as it uncovers not only how she became his wife, but also how and why the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has emerged. It is a very interesting reading available here and it made me ponder on a lot of things.

For example – how such decisions are made. It isn’t easy for a person who still remembers what’s it like to live from paycheck to paycheck to understand how people can throw billions of dollars away. Or on some process, the results of which they may never see. Generally speaking, it allows you to see (just a little, though) how rich people feel towards their richness. And that is indeed a good reading.

Not sure if I got to tell it on this blog, but I still go to school. I am a part-time student at Baruch College which is part of CUNY system. My major is Entrepreneurial Management. I am an average performer at school. Learning in academic environment things that I was supposed to know from running my own business is a tricky thing.That’s why I always preferred to learn on my own, even if that results in lower grades.Any self-learning tool, including online courses, computer based training, manuals, forums and FAQ lists are only as good as the person who’s reading them. That’s why whenever I make another mistake – there is no one else to blame except for me. No matter how good CBT course of manual has been compiled.

While looking at this web site stats (and I can see many web sites stats) I can’t help but notice – the top search keyword turns out to have absolutely nothing to do with this blog. The search term is – SITCOMTV.COM. Apparently, the first result leads to the post on this very blog describing the work on sitcom community. This was my own personal idea and initiative, that people who like sitcoms (especially discontinued ones, like Cheers, Three’s Company, Married… With Children) would gather around the forum and share their experiences. The idea was mostly inspired by the work that fans of the Friends sitcom have done – there are numerous fanfic episodes with names ranging from mimicking originals (like The One With Ross And Rachel) to absolutely fantastic (The One Where Aliens Visit The Earth or something like that).

The initiative have failed so miserably, I didn’t even park the domain anywhere until today. I’d be lying to myself if I would say I have time to start-up the community again. After all, the Zealus’s own community is underway for way too long. I am, however, willing to sell the domain name (possibly with some hosting space on Netfirms, if you don’t know any better) for some considerable amount. Alternatively, I may consider some offer of investment to make me want to free up some time to start the community.

There’s a confession I would like to make: I love reading paper magazines and books. So much so that I, on occasion, go out and buy those outrageously expensive magazines from UK on web design, computer arts and photography.

Now, I am not sure if there are any decent magazines on web design in USA, but judging by photography magazines, UK publishing wins hands down. Their magazines are just… tastier. Not in a sense of good and bad taste, but in a sense how gourmet food looks and tastes better then your average Brooklyn McDonald’s. Don’t know how they get to do it, but for me it’s a proven fact.

Unless you are one of those “I know everything already” gurus – I would like to suggest a Web Designer magazine by Imagine Publishing. And while you are at it – their Photoshop magazines are quite helpful, too.

In addition to that, last week at Barnes and Noble I picked up an interesting magazine, called hakin9 – hardcore IT security magazine. It is a bi-monthly Polish publication, specifically targeted at security professionals. Some reviews of popular anti-virus software, some hard-core Linux breaching techniques, even some commercial software included with magazine’s CD. However, the most interesting article in the picked issue was one on rootkit deployment techniques. That’s right, not how to protect yourself or how to recover from security breach, but how to break into someone else’s system – in plain English with screenshots and commentary.

So far, I enjoy my reading. Keep ‘em coming!

Yesterday the lock on my apartment door broke. I went to a hardware store and got myself one of the new Mul-T-Lock locks. Then I asked my father to team up with me and install the lock.

Not so much to my amazement, but just to prove the point, the 3.5 hour installation (including steel plate on the exterior of the door and other minor parts) went exactly the way any web project goes – with tests, beta versions and live releases. We measured the holes and distance between them, we put the lock on the door to see how it would look like (created a mash-up), we drilled the holes and installed parts of the lock without fully tightening screws (there’s your beta version) to see if key is able to rotate and the lock is, indeed functioning, then we tightened the screws and moved on to a next part of installation (there is your milestone).

The point I am trying to make here is no matter what you do – there is always a little project management going on.