On FACEBOOK - The Road Less Travelled Made All The Difference!

Early Days of Facebook, Inc

In the autumn of 2005, a 21 year-old Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, sat across from Michael Wolf, President of Viacom's MTV Networks in a plush Gulfstream V private jet and refused a $1.5 billion buyout offer saying, "You just saw my apartment, I don't really need any money. And anyway, I don't think I'm ever going to have an idea this good again". He did manage however to learn as much as he could from Wolf on how Viacom makes money from MTV over the course of the 5 hour flight from San Francisco to New York. This and an insightful history of the ubiquitous phenomenon that is ruling cyberspace is provided by David Kirkpatrick in his upcoming novel, "The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company that is Connecting the World”. In those heady days, there were quite a few people who advised the young chap to sell his creation and finish school, rich beyond his wildest dreams but this stubborn creature went against all conventional wisdom and still lacking adequate funds bootstrapped this venture all the way to the Dot.com Hall of Fame. He and his team managed to have fun running the company in its formative years; a bunch of tweens working through booze fueled parties and friendly camaraderie. However much the company and its founder have both matured, it still maintains a relatively easygoing working atmosphere in Palo Alto, California.

Zuckerberg launched Facebook from his Harvard dorm room with a bunch of his friends and associates in 2004 under, as some would claim 'controversial circumstances', but the viability and overwhelming success of his invention soon brought all manner of suitors clipping at his heels. Facebook was exponential in its growth, even from the early onset. Within 4 months of the sites launch, he was perched on the brighter side of a potential $10 million dollar handshake and he refused without even taking the offer seriously. He and his team of friends and associates have turned Facebook into such a global web juggernaut over the past 6 years that Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft was willing to pay $15 billion for Facebook outright, but after serious haggling succeeded in only purchasing 1.6% at $240 million, essentially giving Facebook an implied book value of $15 billion. From $10 million through an astronomical figure of $15 billion, Zuckerberg has been steadfastly stubborn in his refusal to completely sellout and Facebook now has almost 500 million users and is worth an estimated $24 billion and counting; its heavily anticipated IPO is bound to instigate the greatest investor frenzy since Google. As Fortune would put it, Zuckerberg has succeeded in creating "the worlds most-coveted web giant." His personal net worth is estimated at about  $5 billion (representing 24% of Facebook, Inc) and he still wears frazzled hoodies, baggy pants and open-toed adidas flip-flops. That lucky f^&%*$!!!!!!

Personally I have been on Facebook since September 2004 and was probably among the first 200,000 to sign up. It was then thefacebook.com, a static page with no chat, apps, games and even no privacy; everything was open so long as you were in the network. At the time Facebook was essentially the privilege of American college kids until it was opened up to high schools then the rest of the world to such an unprecedented and overwhelming response. I have observed with rapt attention as this toddler technology that was very much experimental has grown into a full fledged and mature product that has become indispensable to many millions, inspiring a cornucopia of applications and an easy way to connect, reconnect and stay in touch. There was even a period of about 2 years when I practically ignored Facebook as its exclusivity paved way for universal access above the age of 13 but even amidst such changes the social network still wound its way back onto my fingertips because it has given rise to several brilliant new ways to communicate and a platform for rabble rousers such as myself to State Our Plays. Now FB is omnipresent on WEB 2.0; thumbs up Recommend signs are everywhere and all manner of websites are vying for recognition on the social network and its colossal and constantly growing user base. Facebook will generate $500 million in advertising revenue this year and this figure is projected to be in the billions a few years hence.

WOW! From chugging mountain dew coding other people’s websites deep into the night, Mr. Zuckerberg has come a long way. The question I have is what would this story have sounded like if he took the first $10 million dollars and didn't take the risk of holding out to the very end? He would certainly be wearing his hoodies, and baggy pants today but I doubt he would have had the ability to change the world as he did. He took the road less travelled, and it has made all the difference.

For an excerpt from David Kirkpatrick's, "The Facebook Effect" please visit this link http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/06/technology/facebook_excerpt.fortune/index.htm

In Search of Sunrise (SUCCESS)....The Quest for Daylight in the Deep Dark Night!!

I have had a long time to think up what I want to tell you guys but I felt I would be cheating and lying if I continued spewing inspirational pieces when I myself am lacking in the required self-motivation. I was dealing with so much that I had to prioritize, and this side-project (BMIC) was not as important as finishing up school or looking for serious investors to bankroll my ideas. At least that was what I was trying to convince myself was the case but in actual fact I was not achieving much in terms of my so-called priorities either, school has and never will be a priority of mine no matter what I pretend; I mean I want to become a graduate but I honestly don't think a degree is a guarantee to success - its more of a safety net to fall back on. On the "serious" investor front, I really thought that I had found what I was looking for when the summer ended with the arrival of a new opportunity in the form of an investor I have codenamed the Business Consultant; but I have come to realize that he is not the "liberator" that I made him out to be initially. In the end, I will have to be the harbinger of my own success - and that realization spawned this particular blog. It is common for people to say something like, "I had an epiphany" but this is different in that I suspected before that nobody can help me succeed apart from myself so I must stop being lazy and making up excuses and just get down and dirty with the bloody war I declared against THE SYSTEM....remember. But this time I can't expect the help of any other ally but God; but then I am inconsistent in my relationship with Him so I can't expect favoritism (miraculous help) on His part.

It may sound trite to say this, but this year, 2010, is going to be my year; but then why not, so was last year and the year before that. So long as I have made it here alive and kicking at least I have achieved something. When the big material things you want are not available then the only way to make yourself happy is to appreciate the little things that are actually the most important; life, love, family, health and friends - the very things that we tend to take for granted. And this holiday season has seen me being much more sentimental and thoughtful than would normally be the case. Perhaps it is because of the striking difference between my life when I am home in Accra and when I am in school in Kumasi. Perhaps I owe this sentimentality to seeing so many old faces and reliving old memories of being a carefree, spoilt brat where now I am a hustling young Business Mind. And I don't need anybody to believe in my extremely lofty, and seemingly unachievable goals - I know how almost impossible it may seem but I firmly and fully believe in myself, my ideas and I WILL SUCCEED; I don't need to reaffirm this belief with anybody else. I recently had a conversation with the Business Consultant and it boiled down to a discussion of risk, money and motivation; in the end I guess I have realized one thing it will be foolish of me to expect anybody to look out for me but myself. Americans have this saying, "Always look out for Number One" and I have to ensure that I am no fool a second time around, trusting blindly and putting all my cards on the table when  the other party is not being as forthcoming, hiding behind a veil of insinuations while keeping their trump cards well hidden. But overall I have to say that I enjoyed dealing with the consultant, it gave me several insights into a certain type of mentality I will have to learn to deal with, as well as my own capabilities and limits. I certainly wish him well and I have to say that his business acumen is admirable, but I would hope that he does not forget that when the lion leaves the comfort of his pride to quench his thirst, even he has to be wary of the crocodiles lurking in the muddy reaches of the watering hole.

I am in search of sunrise, I am on a quest for daylight but all around me there is deep dark night. I am only plodding on in the belief that the night is always darkest just before the break of dawn. It will take time, even more tears, pain, sweat, disappointment, failure and the learning curve will be steep indeed. I am bound to trip and scrape myself hundreds of times, I am bound to bleed from several wounds, I am bound to slip down the hill and have only a branch for support. As I am nearing the top I am bound to be cold and be assaulted by freezing winds, I cannot look to anybody to guide me unselfishly, I will have to pay a price for advice. The experience will be nerve wracking, it will be involve a lot of nail biting but THERE IS NO OTHER WAY! There exists no shortcut, I MUST take this long and arduous road alone, but through the tears of blood and pain, and fears that will scar and stain, I WILL GET TO THE TOP. And when I do I will take a deep breath and cry for joy and pray with thanksgiving. Even If I don't make it, I will die knowing that I lived chasing my dreams with all my heart, and that in itself is victory! Have a great year folks, but fasten your seatbelts because its going to be a bumpy ride.

The Whole Shebang...Mental Malaria

          A lot has happened since I last posted a blog! I turned 23, I made up with some enemies, I made new friends, I slipped and fell and I picked myself back up. In fact I have been so preoccupied with my own internal and external battles for much of the past month or so to do much about BMIC but something has really crystallized for me today so I have been able to finally put down my thoughts on ‘paper’. I was writing everything down at a really furious pace until I just ran out of things to say – I got a mild case of “writers block” that robbed me of my ability to blog. I have sat down over and over staring at my computer screen not really knowing what to say. Even now I feel as though I am waking from a dream; a dream that was filled with much more of what I used to be and much less of what I am trying so hard to become. The question that I have been battling with is simply this; how do I motivate and inspire others when I am running out of steam, when things are not going right, when The System is succeeding against me in this endless struggle called life. After much melancholic deliberation one thing became crystal clear – I am up against insurmountable odds and at present I am inadequately resourced to fight the battle much less win the war. But forge on we must because once the ball has been set rolling things must be seen through to the end no matter what.

            One of my neighbors in my hostel is a member of BMIC, and for the past 4 weeks I have been rather ashamed whenever he asks me if the blog is up yet. I would immediately assure him that it was imminent, as I would assure myself and alas it would all be for naught. Nobody requested that I form BMIC on Facebook, register it or begin a blog. I took on this responsibility myself therefore I have only myself to report to, blame or congratulate. Truth is there is a certain pervading sense of pride I have in my work when it succeeds on the one hand and disappointment when I can’t meet my personal deadlines, or when deals keep falling through, or when bright business prospects just simply fade in the face of constant failure. My Godfather called me not too long ago asking about business and I found myself ranting about how terrible things were going so he listened, laughed and said that it is only when you are rewarded for your efforts that you feel motivated to continue; no matter how much you love what you do or are good at it. And perhaps it is this lack of any tangible extrinsic reward that has sapped me so much, and in the face of such a bleak reality I must concentrate on the intrinsic rewards I get from what I do to – and sometimes my personal satisfaction from writing seems trivial and unsatisfactory, a feeling akin to eating a lot of Fufu with little soup and having no meat to complete the experience.


            I feel as though my mind has been suffering from Mental Malaria: a situation where one’s mental, emotional and physical reserves are almost completely depleted. I dug incredibly deep, far more than I have ever done in my short life so far but it is just not enough. Sometimes I feel as though I have taken a load heavier than I can carry – but how else are my ‘mental muscles’ going to be stronger if I don’t keep surpassing the comfort of those responsibilities that I can do easily. That I am up against incredible odds is a fact, that I don’t have adequate resources is a given but if I want to achieve my goals I must face these odds and locate the necessary resources, be they internal or external. The only other option is utter failure and I decided a long time ago that failure is not an option so now I must bear my load with grace and resolve. We all have our very own loads to carry, but the question is never how heavy the load is but rather how well you carry it. So I will continue to eat my raw fufu chaperoned by puny soup and entertain a temporary proclivity for vegetarianism, for now. It shall be joyless, it shall be unsatisfactory but it is necessary in the meantime because there is always hope for the future, a future filled with the whole shebang; an incredible assortment of exotic meats. The cure for this Mental Malaria is self-evident, I need to take some Mental Chloroquin, and that my friends is a bitter pill indeed! 

The Otherwise Wasted Reserves....On Motivation

Whenever I go on a jog it is always easier at the very beginning but after about 15 minutes it becomes difficult as the lactic acid begins to build up in the muscles that are active. And then its downhill from there; every single step, every breath, even the cadence of tapping feet on the ground and swinging arms demand more and more effort. Each strained breath and drenched attire attest to the effort being employed to move the body closer and closer to the finish line, the final lap – the end of the road. Sometimes I have to run against a hindering breeze that feels like invisible strands slowing me down or sometimes I have the wind behind me pushing, urging me forward like a yacht with a gale filling up its sails. But through all this one fact remains, an hour into the jog I have used up all my energy and consequently I am tired, smelly, aching, my throat feels parched and sometimes I am even blinded by the sweat constantly dripping into my eyes because my arms are too tired to even mop them up quick enough. This is when I feel like quitting; stopping for a breath, or a sip of water – my heart is racing furiously and my ankles may be reluctantly obedient but my knees are on the verge of mutiny. Almost without fail this happens approximately an hour my jogging session (my target is 2 hours at 2 or 3 miles per hour) – and I am always faced with the same quandary, should I go on, should I rest a while or should I just stop? This is when I have to dig deep into my Reserves, that 95% of my mind that is just being not utilized and wasting away until such a moment when it becomes critical to the achievement of the goal at hand.

Any experienced athlete, especially long distance runners will tell you that once you begin to run you must never stop until you reach the end of the race, or you achieve your target. They will also tell you not to either run too fast or to slow but to maintain an even pace from the beginning to the end, whether going up a hill, down a ravine, against the wind or riding in front of a breeze. They will also tell you to regulate your breathing and to endeavor to take long deep breaths instead of short shallow breaths that are tempting and almost unavoidable but with training can be overcome. When I begun to jog a few months ago I couldn’t do any of these things and it has been an incredible [and ongoing] struggle to become disciplined enough to jog constantly and correctly. In the very beginning I could not even jog for 10 minutes straight without stopping 4 times; I used to take water breaks constantly, I used to wheeze, run out of breath, cough and generally do more walking than jogging. But I dug deep into my normally wasted reserves – that part of the mind that is just kept tucked away until a mother’s baby is trapped underneath a car and she is suddenly strong enough to lift the heavy car to save her child, or a fellow soldier is shot and wounded and needs a brave soul to run into danger to the rescue. Human beings are constantly outstripping their perceived limits to achieve impossibilities especially in the face of insurmountable odds. For me its every time I defy 5 years of heavy smoking and jog for 2 hours non-stop; its every time I take 10 – 15 hours of my week to write and correct this blog (YES! It sometimes takes that long to craft these 3 paragraphs or so); its every time I wake up and stare depression and unhappiness in the face and smile regardless; its every time a business deal goes awry, I am cheated, circumvented, unpaid, disappointed or things just don’t work out and I still press on with essential lessons and more experience; its every time I work out when I wake up, and every time I refuse to regress and smoke another cigarette.

For though my victories may be small, my realization is that digging into my Reserves for these minor things on a constant basis has begun to transform me into a more motivated and disciplined individual than I have ever been. I can still remember clearly the first day I jogged for a full 2 hours and almost 5 miles; that night I couldn’t sleep because my knees and ankles felt like lead weights and my whole body was undergoing fierce agony. To top it off, my morning was even worse! But I dug into my reserves, even deeper than before and got some Deep Heat medication liberally soothing all the ‘trouble spots’, bandaged my knees and wore double socks and went running again. I did this for a week by the end of which all the pain was gone, and I could push myself for 2 and a half hours, sometimes three hours even and I didn’t have to do so with trepidation because it was becoming easier and easier to reach deep into and utilize my innate Reserves. I spent my whole summer jogging, pushing up, crunching, lifting weights and there were times that I slacked, I injured myself a few times and even now I just don’t have enough time to work out as much and also take care of all my responsibilities. But I can say one thing for myself – I have learnt one of the most important lessons in my short life so far: I can do anything if I put my mind to it. If does not matter how impossible it seems, how difficult it will be, how much effort, time, energy and sacrifice that will be required but so long as I can dig deep within myself, within those reserves that God put in each and every one of us, I CAN AND WILL ACHIEVE ANY GOAL! If you don’t use your reserves, then they will just waste away and you will just not fully achieve your true potential. Dig deep into your reserves and Success will be inevitable.

Cheers and God richly bless you all!

            

The Lucky Percent’s 10,000 Hours...The Truth About Talent!

THE BIZMIC himself is back! It has been a while since I laid bare some of my roaming thoughts and opinions because I have been battling against a great many business priorities as well as personal and emotional issues. Yes, even the motivational and inspiring Bizmic is sometimes unmotivated, uninspired or simply has little time to write. But then BMIC must live on; and I must be disciplined and focused to educate, motivate and inspire others with my gift; my writing; My Talent! My question for you today is are you also one of the so called ‘lucky ones’ who are talented in something like art, sports, music, dancing, cooking, inventing, or in a particular area such as mathematics or comedy. Are you one amongst the fortunate few, the extremely blessed, the exceptions to the rule – The Lucky Percent? Is your gift as simple as being ‘beautiful’ or ‘handsome’, being remarkably intelligent, or easily learning languages? Have you identified your innate talent or are you a one of the vast majority I call the Other Percent: unremarkable and seemingly normal in every way. During my ‘intermission’ from writing I have dedicated a lot of thought to why I write and always seem to be musing over philosophical subjects, reading, writing and pursuing profit-making business ventures. I was beginning to think that I am simply one of those lucky people who are naturally talented at writing, and also one of the lucky few with an uncanny ability to monetize my time and energy. It appears that I am just plain lucky, that I was simply born this way, right? I begun to harbor a rather elitist view that I was an esteemed member of The Fortunate Few and thus I was better off than most other people and would naturally succeed no matter what. Thanks to a YouTube Video a friend posted on my Facebook page I have done some further research and come to the conclusion that Talent is not necessarily equal to Success.

Being talented at something is not a guarantee that one will excel in that area. According to bestselling author, Malcolm Gladwell in an interview promoting his recent book, “The Outliers”, talent is not simply about being naturally good at doing something but rather gaining proficiency at that task over constant and ‘deliberate practice’. He stresses the “10,000 Hour Rule” which he uses to illustrate the point that to be truly great at doing something you need 10,000 hours of practice, which is also equal to about 4 hours of practice everyday for 10 years. Gladwell asserts that achieving greatness requires enormous amounts of time spent practicing; he used the musical talents of the greatest and most successful rock band in history, The Beatles, as well as the programming talent of the world’s richest man, Bill Gates, as examples. The Beatles performed live in a strip club in Hamburg, Germany over 1,200 times, doing 8 hour daily sessions from 1960 to 1964, amassing more than 10,000 hours of playing time and Gladwell deduces that this incredible amount of time performing was critical to shaping their talent, “so by the time they returned to England from Hamburg, Germany, they sounded like no one else. It was the making of them.” Bill Gates gained access to a computer in his high school in 1968 at the tender age of 13 – he then spent way more than 10,000 hours programming it and any other computer he could lay his hands on. Gladwell interviews Gates, who says that unique access to a computer at a time when they were not commonplace helped him to succeed. Without that access and subsequent constant practice, Gladwell states that Gates would still be “a highly intelligent, driven, charming person and a successful professional”, but that he might not be worth US$50 billion or so he is worth today.

These and many other examples reveal the real truth about talent: Talent consists of a profound Love for something that is transformed into a Desire to succeed in turn inducing Constant and Deliberate Practice. I mean what if Bill Gates had not spent copious amounts of time programming, or The Beatles gave up playing long 8-hour stints at the German strip club, or I didn’t spend thousands upon thousands of hours reading everything I got my hands on. Would Gates be the wealthy computer genius he is today; would The Beatles be the greatest rock band; would my vocabulary be as polished and erudite as it is? People always ask me why I read so much and my response is always that love reading and I desire to improve my vocabulary and sentence construction and I am not quite at 10,000 hours of writing yet but I’m getting there, day by day, blog by blog. I have been involved in one kind of formal business or another for more than 3 years now and I gain more proficiency and experience in my various businesses as I spend more time deliberately practicing proposal writing, drafting of contracts, deal negotiations, understanding financial information and implementing ideas to create value so in another 7 years of continuing on this path I can guarantee that I will be a Business Guru who is wealthy and quite successful. It appears that the whole point of going to school from Kindergarten through to University, Internships, Apprenticeships and the like is just to equip a young inexperienced individual with their 10,000 hours of practice. It is important to note that it is only something that you love and are willing to work hard at, patiently and with resilience that you will become extremely skilled at doing – in other words your talent is equal to what you desire to constantly and deliberately practice. Robert Iger, the CEO of Disney said in reference to his job that, “You can’t get to places like this without working really hard, loving what you do...and having enormous amounts of energy, patience and resilience”. Note that he was with Disney for almost 30 years before becoming CEO. To reiterate, you may be lucky to have your talent but you will succeed only if you hone that talent with constant and deliberate practice because it takes a long time and massive amounts of effort and toil to succeed at anything so get to work amassing your 10,000 hours at the end of which you are warmly welcome to the much vaunted ranks of The Lucky Percent.

Cheers and may God bless you all!