Why Change?Written by Robert Brents
Why are most people tired at end of their workday? Not because they've had to do so much physically demanding work. Most jobs are not physically tiring. Running down a Mastodon -- that's tiring. In an "information" economy, most people's jobs are not hard physically. I had an inside sales job where I was on my feet much of day and, yes, at end of day my feet hurt. But I still went to gym after work at least three or four times a week. The reason most people are tired at end of average workday is because they are bored to death. They are bored! If you've ever had a job -- and some of you have one right now -- where you were bored most of time, you know, your job is a series of stupid emails, and pointless, interminable meetings (and if you haven't had a job like this yet, you probably will). Being bored is exhausting. People come home at end of day from jobs like this exhausted. They can barely lift fork to get food into their mouth. No wonder television is so popular -- programming is crappy, stupid, ridiculous, and insulting, but it's not boring. It's at least better than being bored. So business as usual is boring. Change is not boring. Changing is hard. Changing is work. Until you get train rolling. Think about a train in station, just leaving, just getting underway. What happens? Does it start off BOOM 70 miles an hour? Of course not. It starts off very slowly. At first, train's motion is barely perceptible. (Have you ever had experience, in a train or a car, where someone outside walks or drives by in opposite direction and makes you feel like you're moving when you're not?) It's hard to get something as big as a train moving. How much does your average 100-car freight train weigh? A lot. To get that mass moving at all takes a huge investment of energy. But you know what? Once it's moving, that huge mass moving at a high speed, it has acquired momentum. The Queen Mary, ocean liner, takes seven miles to stop. So if you're coming in to dock, you're not thinking about stopping when you enter port. You'd better be thinking about it much earlier. Way way out to sea, like seven miles out. (Captain: "I'm going to have to stop way over there, but I'd better start thinking about it NOW.")
| | An Odyssey We Never ExpectedWritten by Dave Barrett
The late, great Stanley Kubrick envisioned a futuristic 2001 with orbiting Hilton hotels, lunar colonies, and manned trips to Jupiter. But not even he could have imagined what first year of new millennium would actually bring.2001 was a year no one will ever forget. It started with a country divided by most controversial presidential election in history, and ended with a country united like never before. It was a year of outrage and sorrow, a year of terror and war. But it was also a year of hope and reaching out. It was year we fell into recession, after an unprecedented ten years of growth. Even after almost desperately slashing federal interest rate eleven times, nothing could stop economic plunge after September 11. Yet this past year also marked first time internet sales out-grossed retail sales, a trend that had been steadily rising for last decade. People everywhere are discovering power of internet. Thousands of people have started online businesses right from their homes, with steady growth expected in years ahead. These people are New Entrepreneurs. As we look ahead to new year, opportunities for success seem to be all around us. Even as we struggle through recession, much milder than experts feared, it turns out, Americans are still spending. That's not just good for economy, it's good for you too. If you don't already own your own internet business, now is perfect time to start one.
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