These are some of my oveall notes from being at Harvard's McLean Hospital.
Saturday, May 3, 2014
Are Government's Determined by Happiness?
More sketch ideas. Are governments determined by the path to happiness? There seems to be a relationship between the type of government and the general well-being of the citizens. We tend to think that the government dictates the life of the citizens (capitalism leads to more freedom), but is it possible that the well-being of the citizens dictates which government they have (more freedom promotes capitalism)?
Many Paths to Happiness
More sketch ideas for Growing Happiness. There are many paths to happiness. Our personality seems to depend upon where we live and the state of the world around us. There are many paths to happiness, but they seem to share many characteristics.
Measuring Happiness: How do we do it?
More sketches and brainstorm for my book. How do we measure happiness in the world?
Friday, April 11, 2014
Becoming More Self-Aware: My Feelings
Increasing Self-Awareness
What can I do to become more self-aware? My notes from McLean, Buddhism, and Emotional IQ.
Links to Feelings
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
How to Raise Prices
Price Increase
I was recently faced with a situation in which I had to dramatically raise prices. I have had this problem and seen it many times, especially when starting a business, because it’s hard to know the exact value of your offering. Furthermore, there are other complications, like sales may not be what you dreamed up, and expenses can get out of control.
The Problem: Existing Customers
Assuming that the price is fair, the real problem with a price increase is not the price itself, but your existing customers or potential customers. Customers who don’t know about the old price won’t have the same reaction. It’s the existing customers who have expectations of value.
Years ago we decided to nearly double the price of our Internet banking solution. Our top sales person said it was impossible to sell at the new price. Ultimately this lead to our relationship with him ending. We replaced him with someone who didn’t know the old price. He ended up selling quite successfully without any problems.
Every once in a while when a customer asked “Wasn’t the price different before?” The sales person would say, “I’m not sure…I don’t really know. In any case this the current price,” and then he would seamlessly talk about other things simply because he didn’t see price as an issue. The customers were slightly confused yet quickly forgot and moved on.
Anchoring
Raising prices gets people upset is because of a psychological concept called anchoring. When people evaluate a number for something, they often remember the first number as the “fair” or “reasonable” point. If I say my product costs $200, but then raise my price to $400 people will see it as an outrage. My product could be worth $600, but once people hear $200, the increase to the higher but still reasonable $400 will make people unhappy even if it’s an amazing deal.
Discounts
Discounts are another great way to raise prices. The price can be raised but not at the same time. For example, if I am a web developer and my rate is $50/hr and I want to raise it to $100/hr, I could simply just raise it and then offer a discount to customers of $50 off per hour. For new customers or new projects (who haven’t been anchored), I can price them at $100/hr. Existing customers tend to see you as more valuable in light of the new price and will often use less of your time and promote you more.
Change your Offering
In marketing 101 we learn that we are offering is a product mix, not simply a product. This includes the 4 Ps: product, price, placement, and promotion. If the price is changing the product mix is changing and feel free to change other elements. My favorite approach to deal with prices is just to change your offering. If Apple needs to raise prices, they just launch a new product. People gladly accept it’s a different product and at a different price. People know in advance that the old offering is going to be discontinued. They know a new product is on it’s way. Don’t focus on the price, and instead focus on the advantage of the new offering, such as the retina display.
Be Confident
A big factor in how customers accept a price difference is my own confidence. It’s easy to feel guilty when your price goes up. However, I try to remember that I am raising prices for a very good reasons. I can accept that and communicate that. Ultimately you are trying to do a better job. That’s not a bad thing. We all know prices go up and times, and so do your customers. I am often surprised at how little customers know about my prices. When people do notice, I can acknowledge the price change if it comes up, accept responsibility and move forward.
Overall, what many customers want is empathy. They want to be acknowledged. Recognize that the price has changed, try to connect with your customers so that they feel heard and reflect their feelings.
As a customer I prefer honest bad news than not knowing a bad situation is continuing.
Blame
Price increases frequently have to do with factors beyond your control. Customers will take this better if something or someone else can be blamed. “It’s not me, it’s them!”
Airlines for example can blame rising fuel prices. Or grocers can blame seasonal variations in addition to fuel costs.
I like emphasize how my own plans might be changed in relation to the plan and that I am feeling the pain too. If you are an airline you could say “In order to deal with increase fuel prices, our executives have taken a pay cut” or “We have considered ways to reduce our costs in light of rising fuel prices, but we have been able to do so if we want to maintain our quality of service that we believe is important to you.”
Add Something
You can also choose to give customers something extra. Add something. Virgin airlines in response to rising fuel prices said“Prices are increasing and so we’re giving you an extra pillow.” This goes a long way and also ended up giving Virgin tons of free publicity as the media picked up on it.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
The Basics of Happiness
Happiness
What does it take to be happy? This is a question I like to ask over and over. I certainly don’t know the answer, but I like to try to create mental models of the basic ideas, if only to increase my understanding of the subject and to keep my mind sharp. It’s kind of a weird sport for me. How succinctly can I express what happiness is for me?
I have spent a lot of time Harvard’s McLean hospital and love studying buddhism. There are few things that I have learned that I find useful. The first is that we can’t be happy all the time. Sometimes I hear people talk about Nirvana or that happiness is a choice. These are ideas I have a hard time subscribing too. The Buddha himself was sad on many occasions. If happiness were a choice, then I wish knew how to snap my fingers and be happy. That philosophy seems unfair to people who have real challenges in life.
Happiness seems to be like health itself and I cannot be healthy all the time. Healthy is not about never being sick, but about minimizing illness, increasing my bodies defenses, and to be able to return to health as quickly as possible. Unlike health however, happiness, at least according to Harvard’s Daniel Gilbert seems to increase over time. As odd as it might sound at first, apparently, older people are generally happier than younger ones. It seems a key to happiness might just be to live longer. Daniel Gilbert argues that mortality itself tends to help people put life in perspective.
At least from my experience, especially at McLean, it seems pretty clear that avoiding negative feelings seems to be one of the greatest causes of suffering. That sounds counter intuitive, but there are a few reasons for this. The first is that avoiding negative feelings involves shutting down all feelings. Second, according to CBT, negative feelings increase when they are avoided because they are seen as dangerous. The antidote is to pay attention to them, and like facing other fears in my life, that weakens their power and also instills confidence in facing future problems. Avoiding negative feelings tends to ignore real problems.
This is also very consistent with Buddhist theory which argues that a reason we have negative feelings is that we inaccurately perceive the world. Buddhists argue that we perceive things as bad or dangerous without really questioning it. When we challenge the thoughts that give rise to our negative feelings we often realize they are insubstantial.
Monday, March 17, 2014
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Solid Books on Improving Your Diet, Weight Loss, and a Happier Life
A friend recently asked for advice on diet and lifestyle. Here are some of my recommendations. Despite what the media tells you there is surprising consistently among scientists about the optimal and most healthful diets and lifestyle. Remember the goal is happiness, and happiness actually leads to a healthier lifestyle as well. After all, who wants to be healthy at the sake of happiness?
Ending The Food Fight
Dr. Ludwig's book is revolutionary and may be the first plan for a sustainable diet. He developed his current plan out of extensive research but actually through results. He is a lead in the Children's Hospital weight loss clinic. Though his research was born out of helping children, his plan is simple and has been show effective in adults and treating many conditions including cardiovascular disease and diabetes. If you want to keep it simple, read this book.
One of his most interesting finds is that caloric restriction diets actually increase weight gain in the long run by raising the bodies set point, and restriction also promote depression because of hormonal changes that occur during weight loss that focus on keeping the weight on.
Does Dr. Ludwig have credibility? He's a lead at Children's hospital, and loved by Dr. Oz and Dr. Weil.
Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease: The Only System Scientifically Proven to Reverse Heart Disease Without Drugs or Surgery
Dr. Ornish was the first to show that Heart Disease is reversible. His book is amazing. He's been endorsed by just about everyone in the health field and government it seems. This includes Dr. Oz and both political parties. It's really hard to imagine why the book is not more popular than it actually is. Can you imagine if we found a cure for cancer? Cardiovascular disease kills more people than all other diseases combined throughout the world. When this book and research was released people thought it was ridiculous, but decades have continue to support Dr. Ornish's research.
Triva: Did you know that there is not a single medication that treats cardiovascular disease that helps you live longer or happier? All of them shorten your life and make you less happy. Don't take my word, take the pharmaceutical companies. There is a reason they say "Proven to help XYZ", rather than "Proven to help you live longer or happier." If you find an exception, please let me know!
The Spectrum: A Scientifically Proven Program to Feel Better, Live Longer, Lose Weight, and Gain Health
Dr. Ornish's updated version of the latest in research on health, cardiovascular disease, and weight loss.
8 Weeks to Optimum Health: A Proven Program for Taking Full Advantage of Your Body's Natural Healing Power
Dr. Weil's book 8 Weeks to Optimum Health: A Proven Program for Taking Full Advantage of Your Body's Natural Healing Power is great if you want a plan to follow. This is great if you like a more structured plan and he also has a video for people who don't like to read.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Cancer Decreasing
I am always surprised by the news, which is why I don't watch it or read it, because it's not news. People forget that news media companies and organizations are financially driven. Their goal is not to inform, but to sell advertisements, or raise donations (NPR). Part of the reason that many things make the news is because they provoke anxiety. Anxiety promotes people reading or watching the news and this sells advertisements. A friend once remarked to me that most news stations have a breaking news segment. They first decide they have breaking news, and then they decide what to fill in that slot.
One way to look at the true state of the world is to look at our goals and agenda. Overall we want to be healthy and happy. We hear so much about the fear of cancer and may fear it is overcoming us, but the reality is that survival rates due to cancer are improving, and death rates are decreasing.
According to the National Cancer Institute, deaths due to cancer have dropped 12% over the last 60 years. The biggest change is a drop of 81% in children under 4. See the Report
Survival rates for cancer have increased from 35% to 69.2% See the Report
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
I Love Walt Disney
I am a huge fan of Walt Disney and I often think people really don't appreciate the marvel that he was. Here are some interesting points about someone who is the biggest oscar winner, parent, visionary, and somehow who helped create the animal rights movement.
The Impact of Snow White
According to Neal Gabler, author of the leading Walt Disney biography, Snow White may be the most watched film of all time. For nearly 80 years, generations have watched Snow White all around the world. Do you know anyone who hasn't? What movie can say that?
It's hard to imagine today what an impact Snow White made when it was released. Normally when a film is amazing it gets nominated for an Oscar. Not so with Snow White. The film was so original and so amazing the Academy actually created a one time Oscar for the movie along with seven little oscars.
Clark Gable, someone proud of being a man who never cried, was apparently sobbing during the movie.
The Princess Story
I often feel bad when I hear people accusing Disney of promoting the princess agenda. This is because Walt's point of view had to do more with escaping abuse and neglect through having a kind heart and good character than being saved by a prince. Walt himself grew up in a abusive and neglectful household. The idea of escaping from that was a story that always appealed to him.
Walt in general was not a fan of princess films, but sadly it was what made the studio the most money, while his more artistic pieces, like Fantasia didn't. The success of movies like Sleeping Beauty actually lead to Walt being disenfranchised with movies and encouraged him the direction of his theme parks.
The princess battle is one the studio has continued to wrestle with, because audiences seem to crave it, but the message is not always the best. The Disney Studio has worked hard to undermine the princess theme over and over again, the most recent and creative attempt in Frozen.
The Birth of Animal Rights
It was because of Walt's background of abuse and neglect he allowed himself to escape into the fantasy world. Growing up on a farm, he gravitated towards connecting with animals. Walt's animation personified animals in a way that people had not seen before. It's so common today it's hard to imagine it otherwise. Walt showed people that animals have feelings. Bambi is often sited as an anti-hunting film.
Or consider the nature documentary that is so popular today. Those did not always exist and people would have thought they were boring. Walt however saw it differently. In 1947, Walt shot a movie about seals. It is now considered perhaps the first nature documentary. Many people laughed at him and told him the idea was boring and silly. RKO refused to even show it in theaters. Nonetheless Walt moved forward on the film against everyone's judgment. It was so entertaining that it won an Oscar and set the stage for nature documentaries as a genre.
How Many Oscars?
Katherine Hepburn was one of the most successful actresses and has won more oscars than anyone else: four. Walt Disney won 26. In 1953 alone he won 4, the most ever in a single year.
Hello Julie Andrews
Walt selected Julie Andrews for Mary Poppins. This doesn't sound too remarkable until you understand the story. Prior to Poppins, Julie Andrews was the lead in My Fair Lady on Broadway. When the film was made into a movie, Julie Andrews was one of the only cast members not to be selected to play in the Hollywood version of the movie because she was considered unattractive. Audrey Hepburn was selected instead. During the Oscars, My Fair Lady swept winning 8 oscars, except for Best Actress which went to Julie Andrews for Mary Poppins. This cemented her Andrew's role in future movies such as the Sound of Music.
Paying for Disney Land as a Passionate Father
It was Walt's love of his children that inspired Disney Land. He loved playing with his children but found traditional parks a bit boring for adults. So he dreamed up Disney Land a place to support the family being together and having fun together. It was the first of it's kind.
Paying for Disney Land was a problem, but he found a creative way. He signed a contract with ABC to produce the Wonderful World of Disney as a regular TV series. Rather than using the money to create a show, he funneled it into the making of Disney Land. The show was basically a behind the scenes of building the park and the Disney studio, and as also a tool to generating publicity for the park and movies. In essence ABC paid for the building of Disneyland and promoting Disney.
Disney World: A City Not An Amusement Park
Have you ever seen the original plans for Disney World? You should. Watch it here.
Neal Gabler
Do you want to learn more? Read more from Neal Gabler's biography Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Flip and Tumble Produce Bags
I love saving the environment and I a big proponent of having your cake and eating it too. Flip and Tumble produce bags are a great example of this. I've been using them for years. They eliminate the waste of plastic disposable bags. They look good. They feel good. They store well in your refrigerator. They reduce your waste so you don't have to take your trash out so often. I buy mine on Amazon. Flip and Tumble.
Monday, January 13, 2014
Macroni and Cheese Italian Style Sketchnote Style
I was getting into a discussion with someone about using the process of Sketch Notes to deal with recipes. I like to sketch recipes before I follow them. This is an example of Macaroni and Cheese Italian Style from Cook's Illustrated own Jack Bishop and his cookbook a Year in the Vegetarian Kitchen.
Basically the recipe involves mixing the cheeses, cooked pasta, and a béchamel sauce. I like to sketch recipes and start with the core concept at the center. In this case, the core is mixing the three major components together.
Above the core, I like to put the prepare work, and below the finish work. I hope it helps or inspires. It certainly is tasty!
Why Do We Need to Receive Empathy?
I have come from a very abusive and neglectful background that resembled slavery and so many simple things that are obvious to others are not to me. One of those is "why do we need to receive empathy?" I'm so used to paying attention the needs of others over my own, I often find myself unwittingly having people in my life that our not empathetic or caring. They tend to not like when I seek their input on feelings or are dismissive.
I have searched the internet and am well read, but I have not found anything on why do need to receive empathy.
I have had a tendency to feel guilty about expecting empathy from others. I think that needing others to care about me or pay attention to me somehow makes me "needy" or "too sensitive." It also implies that I depend upon others for their approval. All these are bad things or are they?
As humans, why do we seek empathy from others? Clearly we are social creatures, and we need others. It is easy to believe that needing others is a sign of weakness because needing others makes us vulnerable and we can get hurt when we are rejected. It's easier to say "We should take responsibility for our feelings" rather than admit we need others.
Wanting empathy for others, I have discovered, is a good thing for them. We want empathy most when we are experiencing strong emotions, and we tend to want it from people we trust and care about. When we have strong emotions we struggle to understand what exactly it is that we are feeling and how do we want to deal with that in the context ourselves and the world at large. We want to clarify our feelings and gain perspective so that we can behave wisely.
If I am angry at an employee because I believe they are not respecting me, that's important. How I deal with that affects a lot of people: my company, the finances, the employee and their family, and my own family. I want empathy because it helps me act responsibly. When others can relate to my feelings and enter my emotional world, what they are doing is helping me better understand what is going on within me and how that affects both myself and the world at large. This is in society's best interest.
In fact what I have learned, is that expecting empathy from others is actually respectful to others.
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Starting a Business without Financing
I've never liked the idea of financing a business. Why does a business need financing? I mean money's not free and it has to get paid back eventually, and with interest. It's always lurking over your shoulder. It's a balance sheet liability that makes it hard to sell the company or even give it to your children. Plus, finding money is hard work that takes away from what the business is really trying to do.
At the end of the day if the business is so good it has to solve the problems of not enough sales and too many expenses. Financing makes it easy to avoid the real problems.
Consider JSA Technologies an Internet banking company that works with colleges and universities. It was financed by customers. They wanted to be on the Internet so badly that they were willing to pay upfront. Big name clients too. The first product was not so hot, but it was good enough and they keep building on it. Now they are growing faster than ever.
In regards to financing, we are talking about debt with no revenue attached. Having customers pay you upfront is fine, even desirable, because assuming that you didn't over promise, then at least you have guaranteed revenues at the end, as well as references.
I tend to look at financing this way, if someone had a cure for cancer would financing be a problem? People would probably be in line and pay upfront, even just for the hope. A company's product or sales technique should be so good, that it can sell before it's completed. If that's not possible, then maybe it's not that great.
One of the main allures of financing is that it gives you the money to build your product. Unfortunately until you sell the product you'll never really know if the market wants it. Even with the best products, it often just takes time, or there are other weird market forces at play. I know I tend to drift into fantasies like Kevin Costner, "if I build it they will come." I imagine being done and everyone coming rushing, and me being rich and throwing money in the air. Then I wake up.
Financing can also play into our insecurities and psychology. We are afraid to admit that we are good enough as we are. We are afraid to release the less than perfect product. Sometimes though, it's actually our openness and vulnerability which makes us trustable and builds clients. Being good enough doesn't mean sacrificing quality, but accepting that we are okay as we are, and it's because we respect ourselves we keep trying to do better.
Every time I go onto Facebook I am always reminded that despite all their money the site often doesn't work properly for me. I'm sure you can find plenty of successful products that fall short.
In some sense this ties into sales. I don't like sales, although I can do it. It's not that I don't like people or that I am trying to be someone I am not, but it's hard. It's hard to put yourself out there.
Financing can make it easy to turn a blind eye to sales. We can justify our lack of sales by saying our website is not ready, the brochure is not good enough, we don't have a sales person, or we don't have business cards. You don't really need any of these things.
I had a friend teach me this lesson. For one of my first clients I was so desperate for business that I sold myself too cheap. I didn't have a website. I didn't have business cards. I didn't have a brochure. I did have a signed contract for $15K with a Fortune 500 company. Proud of myself, I told my friend. He said "What?" He immediately picked up the phone and called the company, without my permission, and said "This contract is worth at least $75K. Why are you paying him $15K? You're taking advantage of him. Seriously?" The customer ended up paying me $75K, even though they didn't have to. The quality of sales.
In the most complex circumstances I find there is a way to get money. Sometimes there is a great deal of money required upfront particularly when dealing with heaving machinery or very complex technology.
I have a friend who started a company selling extremely complex machines used in extracting natural resources (I'm keeping his details private). There was huge upfront R&D required but he did it without financing. How? He tried to put together a board of directors. The directors started to get a little competitive and one of them went all in. This may sound like financing, but the investor needed this technology to grow his business. There was a built-in revenue source. After two years the company was bought for deep figures.
When I started my first company without financing, everyone laughed at me. I don't tend to be a confident or charismatic person, and they were like "you?" Instead they counseled me on "get bigger or go home," and how VC was mandatory. Today, they are all gone with the exception of one, and he conceded that getting investment had been a bad choice for him. He became a slave to his investors and could never really invest in making the company what he wanted. He did end up doing quite well, but not without his share of stress that he said he would have rather done without.
Not having money can be scary, but it can also be a good thing because you can use it to build exclusivity. Do you really need to be as big as possible? Is it better to limit what you offer and have people waiting in demand? Are the other advantages to not having money? Like perhaps getting a job and increasing your opportunities, financial security, and thinking more clearly?
Poor pricing is another way in which financing can get muddled. It's easy to sell too cheap because you have the cash, or too high because you are over confident. Or perhaps you're scared and you compromise and lose sight of the real value of your product. Eventually these things can catch up to you.
In some sense, I know I may be tending to dogmatic in my view on financing, because clearly there are companies that can make it with financing, but for me, that's too hard and too much stress. Perhaps that's the heart of it for me. Why do I want to do this in the first place? What do I expect to achieve? While the fantasy of fame and fortune is nice, I would rather have a modest business that is profitable, low stress, and allows me to invest in having fun and spending time with my family, and having deep meaningful relationships. Maybe no one will recognize me. I don't care. In this way I agree with Timothy Ferris of the Four Hour Work Week.
At the end of the day I rarely find a compelling reason for financing. Maybe others do, but it doesn't work for me.
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