For readers from the States, I wish you a happy Thanksgiving! A few months ago, I was thinking about all the individuals who have helped shape the course of my life and the person I am today. I’ve been extremely fortunate to have the guidance of some brilliant minds and to surround myself with motivated, creative, innovative people.

They say your character and your achievements are influenced most by the people you surround yourself with. There have even been studies that show your income bracket is likely to be equal to the average of that of your five closest friends. So who are you surrounding yourself with?

Today I wanted to share my gratitude to my many teachers, mentors, role models, and friends who have influenced my life and given me their support. It’s important to acknowledge those who help foster your abilities and empower you to pursue the life you want.

Alec Hodgins

A French Canadian who taught English in France for years and then migrated to the US to teach French! I was lucky to be in his class for three years in high school. Alec was the most influential teacher I ever had in school, always advocating the unconventional path. He was the one who inspired my fascination with world cultures, languages, and travel. My first travel abroad was on a class trip with him to Cannes & Paris, France, and he first got me drooling over photos of Thailand when he took his wife and son there in 2000.

Lesson learned: You don’t have to color inside the lines all the time.

Alan Haynes

My photography teacher in high school, again for three years. In another life, I was a professional photographer (now it’s mostly a hobby, but I have a travel photo site coming soon). Alan connected me with my very first job, working in a darkroom, and showed me that it was possible to earn a great living if you split your time as an artist and as a teacher, to pass on your craft to the next generation.

Lesson learned: It’s okay to pursue your creative passion professionally.

Nicole Pefley

I met Nicole in middle school and our paths have intertwined ever since. She’s been a two-time Coachellian with me, we have a shared love for travel, French, music, and other assorted weird experiences. After high school, she lived in Paris for many months, and then spent a year studying in Brazil, so she was a great example for me to follow when I chose to live abroad for a while. Recently, she’s followed in Alec Hodgins footsteps and began teaching French at our old high school.

Lesson learned: We’ve both found you really can be a drifter for a few years after school, explore your interests, and eventually land on your feet.

Ramit Sethi

I’ve mentioned Ramit a few times recently. He was the first big blogger I reached out to when I started building my online presence in 2006, and I found out we’re from the same town! He’s a perfect role model for gen-y bloggers and entrepreneurs—he’s a year older than me, a graduate of Stanford University, and a successful tech startup co-founder. He’s worked with bigshots like Seth Godin and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, and now he’s a New York Times bestselling author!

Lesson learned: Nobody’s going to give you handout. But there’s no harm in asking for what you want.

Jeffrey Skoll

Jeff Skoll was the first president of eBay and founder of movie production company Participant Media (responsible for bringing An Inconvenient Truth to the world). He’s been an active voice at Stanford’s Center for Social Innovation, and took his wealth from his success at eBay to become a philanthropist and support innovative entrepreneurship and social change with the Skoll Foundation. I’ve never spoken to Jeff, but he has always served as a great social entrepreneur role model for me.

Lesson learned: You can make a damn good living and make a difference at the same time.

Warren Buffett

The “Oracle of Omaha” is known around the world as one of the world’s most talented investors and money managers, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and the richest person in the world (up until 2008, worth about $62 billion). Buffett started out with the money he earned as a newspaper boy to buy his first assets, and despite his now immense fortune, he still lives in a home he purchased for $50K in the 1950s and embraces a frugal lifestyle. In 2006, I had the opportunity to meet him briefly, just weeks after his announcement that he’d be giving away 85 percent of his fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Lesson learned: If the wealthiest investor & philanthropist in the world grew his business from just a few dollars from his paper route, you can too.

Rajesh Setty

I connected with Raj through his blog Life Beyond Code in my early days of blogging. As a serial entrepreneur, he tends to be involved as a co-founder, investor, or board member in about eight companies at any given time. He shares his wealth of business experience and motivational wisdom through his blog, Twitter, speaking engagements, and his books, and he was a huge influence on me when I first started my freelance side business which later grew into Thrilling Heroics Consulting.

Lesson learned: Business isn’t about a product, it’s about the people you work with, the relationships you build, and the dedication you show to your customer.

Timothy Ferriss

My interest in coming to Southeast Asia was fueled by reading Tim Ferriss’ inspiring NYT Bestseller The 4 Hour Workweek. Ferriss noted that Thailand and Argentina were two of the world’s best remaining destinations where Americans can easily stretch their dollar, and that if you spend the time to build a business that you can run from anywhere, you can easily leverage the idea of geo-arbitrage—earning in a strong currency while you live somewhere with a low cost-of-living. Though I’ve never met Tim, his ideas and experiments have certainly influenced a lot of my business decisions since reading his book!

Lesson learned: You don’t have to wait until retirement to create the lifestyle of your dreams. Also, nobody ever said you have to follow the rules.

Jacqueline Novogratz

Founder & CEO of Acumen Fund, a nonprofit venture fund that invests philanthropic capital and trains the next generation of business leaders in South Asia and East Africa to build thriving businesses focused on delivering affordable healthcare, water, housing and energy to the poor. She delivers a few incredibly pursuasive TED Talks and is a shining example of some of the social entrepreneurs that are trying to lead social progress for the developing world. (Side note: Jacqueline is married to TED‘s founder Chris Anderson, another inspirational figure who has proven that that ideas can change the world. I’m excited to bring Chris’ vision to Thailand in Febraury with TEDx BKK!)

Lesson learned: Entrepreneurial approaches can be applied to solve the problems of global poverty.

Matt Mullenweg

At just 25-years-old, Matt Mullenweg has developed a company that is changing the way businesses interact with their clients online. His company created the WordPress blog platform, which makes it easy for anyone to get started publishing online, and which is what I have built my two businesses around—Thrilling Heroics Consulting and FreelanceWP—to help make online publishing more accessible to everyone and help innovators and changemakers spread their message to the world. Matt is a huge advocate of open-source development, which is making great software more quickly and easily possible, and transforming how we think about ownership.

Lesson learned: Share your best ideas with the world freely to empower the largest possible community, and it will come back to you many-fold.

Paul Dickey

Paul joined E*Trade after high school and became senior internal auditor, working around the world and overseeing a team of employees with advanced degrees. We met in college when he returned to get his own Bachelor’s degree, lived together for nearly a year, and traveled to Spain together with friends. Paul led a campaign to implement leadership studies at Sac State, was president of several student organizations, and together we attended many entrepreneurship conferences, organized monthly Saturday art walks in Sacramento, launched the U.S.’ fourth university Toastmasters chapter, and networked with tons of other entrepreneurs. He’s got a few business plans laid out, a submission with the patent office, and real estate property.

Lesson learned: Set your life goals and manage your time appropriately, and you can maximize your involvement in different entrepreneurial opportunities to guarantee your success.

Chris Guillebeau

After Tim Ferriss, Chris Guillebeau has perhaps been the most influential writer encouraging the masses to think differently and pursue unconventional, remarkable lifestyles. Chris is on a mission to travel to every country in the world (he’s already visited 122), and since starting his blog The Art of Nonconformity a little under 2 years ago, he has managed to create a full-time income for himself just from his writing projects. He even has great tips on how to travel to rogue states and “off-limits” places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Burma, Libya, Syria, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and North Korea. I got the chance to meet him on his way through Bangkok in February, and have often been inspired by his thoughts on entrepreneurship, success, and changing the world.

Lesson learned: You really can go anywhere you want, and create your own wealth along the way.

Dwight Turner

Dwight and I met briefly in college. When I learned he had taught for a year in Thailand, we became fast friends and eventually both ended up back in Bangkok together. Dwight’s In Search Of Sanuk is a grassroots charity organization that makes it easy for anyone to contribute their time or donations to make a difference for orphans and refugees here in Thailand. He housed me when I first moved out here, has supported me through a lot of the challenges of getting used to expat/entrepreneur life, and together we’ve done a lot of traveling, volunteering, and bringing cool people from different walks of life together for the monthly Bangkok Tweetup, charity mixers, and other social events.

Lesson learned: It’s easier than you might think to mobilize a community to create social change.

Vanessa Rubin

An incredible young woman I was lucky to meet this year here in Bangkok—Vanessa is an aid worker who has spent nearly a decade working on humanitarian projects (frequently as a food & hunger advisor) in places like Nepal, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, & Bangladesh—she’s full of life, an avid rock climber, and earlier this year she was filmed for the BBC’s TV series Extreme Dreams on an expedition to scale Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador. She came to Thailand to review progress made by Care International since the 2004 tsunami.

Lesson learned: Always reach for new heights and seek ways to improve the lives of others, but never neglect yourself either.

Larry McKibben

My dad has been the biggest supporter of my unconventional entrepreneur & digital nomad lifestyle. Though I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way, he has often been the one to encourage me and give me the pep-talk I need. Although he didn’t finish his college degree the first time around, he has had an extremely successful twenty-year career in retail sales and training and quickly worked his way to earning an envy-inducing salary. He’s always been dedicated to his family and a great example of a hard worker.

Lesson learned: With enough dedication, you don’t have to let perceived barriers-to-entry prevent you from being successful.

So who are the teachers that had the most impact on you? Who are your mentors? What supportive friends and role models are you thankful for?

“[Entrepreneurship is] the chance to turn ideas into viable enterprises that can change the world and to prosper in the process.”

Today I want to point your attention to Randy Komisar, a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in Silicon Valley, California. I spent the last two weeks reading through his book The Monk and the Riddle: The Art of Creating a Life While Making a Living.

Komisar has been an influential collaborator in at least a dozen innovative Valley companies like Claris, LucasArts, Crystal Dynamics, WebTV, GlobalGiving, TiVo, GO Corporation and Apple. The Monk and the Riddle is an eye-opening look into the mind of a Valley venture capitalist, but it also serves as an unconventional philosophy about the motivation behind work and integrating what you do with what you truly believe.

“I admire people who are willing to bet everything on a belief. Some of these risk takers…have a profound impact on what happens in the world. They place bets on the future, often against fantastic odds.”

The fact is a lot of entrepreneurs want to build something that will make them rich. But to be truly successful at what you do, you must make it about something you’re truly passionate about—something that you’ll get out of bed excited to do each day. Komisar asks the question, “What would you be willing to do for the rest of your life?”

“…business isn’t primarily a financial institution. It’s a creative institution. Like painting and sculpting, business can be a venue for personal expression and artistry, at its heart more like a canvas than a spreadsheet. Why? Because business is about change.”

Komisar also introduces readers to what he calls the “Deferred Life Plan,” which is what most people mold their lives around. Step 1) Do what you have to do, then, eventually, Step 2) Do what you want to do. You build a career, build a business, and hope to earn enough so that finally, one day, you can retire and do what you really want to do with your time—whether that’s spending more time with friends and family, traveling, focusing on your hobbies, or giving back through some sort of charitable work. We sacrifice our time and energy now in the hopes that we’ll get a big payoff and have more freedom to do what we’re passionate about in retirement.

But why not just start doing what you really want to do with your life? Why waste 30 or 40 years doing something mediocre, something that pays the bills but doesn’t get you excited? Something that isn’t fun?

“It’s the romance, not the finance that makes business worth pursuing.”

What would make you willing to stick with your current business for the rest of your life? What changes would you need to make it a real mission business? Or if you’re just starting, how can you build a legacy project from the beginning?

This is a fantastic book if you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or want a peek into the mind of a hugely successful investor and “virtual CEO” about how to transform an average business into something that will truly fulfill people’s needs and become a huge success. Komisar explains the necessity of being a leader who can “develop a compelling vision worth following.” (Steve Spalding wrote about sharing your story in another great recent article.) If you need to re-orient the way you look at work and transform the focus of your life and your business into something you’re passionate about, grab this book.

Randy is also a lecturer at Stanford University, and you can watch some great discussions on entrepreneurship, innovation, philanthropy and more at the Stanford Entrepreneurship Corner. (If you’re interested on his take on applying an entrepreneurial discipline to social missions, also check out this discussion with Stanford Social Innovation Review.)

How can you turn your passion into something that will also earn you a living? How can you build a legacy with your business?

Feature photo by Dwight Turner

From the beginning, Dan has partnered up with big names like Chris Brogan, Neil Patel, J.D. Roth, Jim Wang, Carmine Gallo, and many other valuable contributors, and his team has scored interviews with the likes of Donald Trump, Guy Kawasaki, Om Malik and Gina Trapani. Each issue offers some great interviews and profiles of a few big names, tips for career development, personal branding, and social media.

This month’s edition—titled “The Personal Branding Gold Rush”—has a feature interview with Gary Vaynerchuk, the social marketing guru behind Wine Library TV, and discussions with David Allen (author of GTD), Keith Ferrazzi (master of networking & author of Never Eat Alone) and Robert Cialdini (author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion). From Dan:

“Now is the time for building your personal eBrand. Laggards will be lost in a Google cloud of dust, while early adopters will rank #1 for their name.  Stop watching everyone else steal your gold (your THUNDER) and get involved today.  Many people are scared to develop an online presence, yet it’s the only way you can safeguard your brand and have “job security.”  This issue will highlight Gary Vaynerchuk, who will passionately force you to get involved in the GOLD RUSH.  As you read each page, you will gather the knowledge needed to not let these opportunities pass you by.”

Dan Schawbel’s own successful branding and his relentless work ethic have earned him recognition around the web and print media for his efforts. He’s recently been interviewed at Entrepreneur.com and Business Week (check out Thrilling Heroics’ interview with him in 2007).

If you’re interested to try out Personal Branding Magazine, a free sample issue is available here. The full issue will be available for subscribers on November 1st. If you’re an entrepreneur or freelancer of any sort, distinguishing yourself from the crowd is a top priority in today’s business world. Dan has been kind enough to include me as a lifetime VIP subscriber, so I can say from experience that every issue is a great investment. And if you needed any more excuse, 50% of the subscription proceeds get donated to the American Cancer Society.

[source: Personal Branding Magazine - Dan Schawbel]

I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!

Howard Beale’s “mad as hell” speech in the film Network is a famous one. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend this movie. Many of the themes in director Sydney Lumet’s 1976 film, about a fictional news network struggling with ratings, are surprisingly relevant today:

That was written over 32 years ago, and we’re still worrying about the banks, inflation, the Russians, and the oil crisis. What the hell has the government done for us in 32 years! What have they accomplished?!

As the economic crisis unfolds and especially as this presidential campaign plays out, I’ve struggled with a lot of disappointment in some of the people of this great country, and although I try not to be too political on this blog, it’s well past time for me to school some of you. As November approaches, I actually have plans to move abroad for a year, and in this post I’ll share some thoughts on why I’m eager to hightail it out of the U.S. for a while at this moment in history. I won’t even dance around the issue: this post is certain to be divisive and get some of your panties in a bunch, and I promise to offend! If you can stand it, please stick with me through the end of the post, where I’ll try to share some solutions to the questions I raise in this article.

First, This Bailout Business

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson have been hard at work spending your tax dollars for the last several months. Not only my tax dollars and your tax dollars, but they’ve been spending future generations’ tax dollars, and spending Monopoly money we don’t even have! First it was AIG, then Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, now most recently a nearly $807 billion package to bail out nine of the largest banks in the country—including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, State Street, and Bank of New York Mellon Corp.

Wall Street has been making poor decisions for a while now, foremost with the subprime mortgage mess, and now it should be paying the consequences. But a free market doesn’t exist in this country and never truly has. If the market were allowed to function freely, the banks would suffer and in some cases even go bankrupt through the forces of free competition. (If you or I were going bankrupt, or your friendly neighborhood small business, you wouldn’t see Congress running around trying to help bail us out.)

Instead, the deregulatory, so-called “free-market conservatives” have turned us all into socialists to keep the banks afloat. And somehow they want to do all of this while at the same time lowering your taxes! Erica Douglass wrote a great summary of the banks’ poor moves in the long history leading up to this credit crisis. She quotes Henry Hazlitt on the economics of a bailout: ‘“The taxpayers must lose precisely as much as the people in X industry gained.” $700 billion is a little over $2000 for every taxpayer in the United States. That $2000 must come out of your pocket at some point. That is $2000 less than you had before, to spend, save, or invest.’ Meanwhile the Fed also flooded the market with another $620 billion in U.S. dollars worldwide, on top of the Congress-approved bailout package. So seriously, where does all this funny-money come from?! As Larry Edelson said: “The biggest cost is going to be the sheer destruction of the purchasing power of your money, an outright devaluation of the dollar that’s going to occur, no matter what.”

Boston Gal says it will discourage consumer saving, pointing out that the government is forcing individual workers pay for their retirement twice, “first by saving what [they] can in the individual accounts, then again as a tax payer by bailing out these companies. A horrible deal for the individual worker.”

Now let’s look at what we’re actually making this sacrifice for. At first it was a $700 billion plan, but to pass the House of Representatives, the legislation grew from three pages to 452, and over $100 billion in special interest earmarks were added to the bill:

• $109 million for Nascar race track builders.
• $200,000 a year for the manufacturers of wooden arrows for children.
• $192 million for rum producers in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
• $19 billion over two years for companies who do research.
• $478 million for film and television producers over 10 years.
• $62 billion for 24 million households excluded from the alternative minimum tax this year.
• $17 billion for alternative energy producers.
• $8 billion for Americans affected by hurricanes and floods.

All of this was enough to make hedge fund manager Andrew Lahde leave the business, with his own finger-wagging resignation letter: “[L]egislation was repeatedly brought forth to Congress over the past eight years, which would have reigned in the predatory lending practices of now mostly defunct institutions. These institutions regularly filled the coffers of both parties in return for voting down all of this legislation designed to protect the common citizen. This is an outrage, yet no one seems to know or care about it. […] Capitalism worked for two hundred years, but times change, and systems become corrupt.”

Lies, Rhetoric, and Incompetence

Now who was there to lead the charge, heroically suspending his campaign and seeking to postpone presidential debates to go back to Washington and “save the nation” from economic crisis? Senator John McCain, just two weeks after being quoted as saying that he didn’t think U.S. taxpayers should be on the hook for bailing out AIG or anyone else!

The McCain campaign publicized on the Wall Street Journal online that he had won the first debate before it even took place (let alone before he had even clarified whether or not he would be there). Then McCain himself prematurely claimed responsibility for the bailout plan’s success, saying he had helped “bring everyone to the table” and agree on legislation, when it later turned out he couldn’t even secure the votes of his own Republican colleagues. McCain is quick to take credit, but his empty words mean nothing.

Then again, when you’re on TV, if you say something often enough and loud enough, people will believe it. McCain positions himself as a “maverick” who wants to end our oil addiction and clean up Wall Street. He loves to say what people want to hear, and he will pander to any audience you put him in front of (watch John Cafferty give a good summary of his flip-flops on oil taxes, offshore drilling, the Bush tax cuts, Guantanamo Bay, and torture).

Then there’s the Palin pick. It was as if John McCain turned this entire presidential race into a joke, at all of our expense, when he chose an inexperienced crony cheerleader from a backwater Alaskan town to be his VP. Time columnist Joe Klein summed up what a lot of people have been thinking—conservative and liberal alike—when he said “It was a gimmick. It was one of the most disastrous decisions I have seen in a presidential campaign since I’ve begun covering them.”

Palin sounds like a teenager who didn’t study the night before the big essay test, stringing together extraneous topics and peppering her answers with buzzwords, pretending as best she can like she read last night’s assignment. But there’s no substance. In her interviews with Charlie Gibson, Katie Couric, and even with Sean Hannity, as well as her performance at the Vice Presidential debate, it is clear that the woman is not fit for the job. She doesn’t know what the Bush Doctrine is! She claims Alaska’s proximity to Russia gives her foreign relations experience. She thinks the bailout plan is about healthcare and job creation. She can’t name a single news source she reads regularly. She had never been outside of the country before 2007! (Here are a few more interview clips that should confuse and/or frighten the hell out of you.) The campaign claims that her “executive experience” as a mayor and a governor qualify her for the second highest seat in the government—though Wasilla is a town of only 6,000, and the Alaskan constituency is only about 680,000 [source]. That’s smaller than population of the city I’ve grown up in, just one moderately-sized city in California.

Michael J. Cecchin is calling November 4th a national IQ test, citing that the folks in charge of running our federal government should be the cream of the crop:

“[W]ith the introduction of  hick-ish religious zealot and uninformed hockey mom Sarah Palin as the VP candidate, the rules have changed.  The prospect of having a future Vice-President with so many  fundamental cognitive loop holes and personality defects sends a terrifying shudder through most thinking Americans. It leads us to believe that if selecting Palin is the McCain administration’s first major decision its likely just the start in a line-up of future disasters.”

McCain has shown poor judgment with his selection of Palin as his running mate, and when he stalled presidential debates during the bailout talks. I admire McCain’s service to this country, but he’s quick to take sole credit for Congress’ successes, and he has demonstrated a strong tendency to be reactionary, aggressive, divisive, and out of touch—with the internet generation, with the majority of the American public, and with his own Republican colleagues in Congress. His ideas are old and exhausted: when he talks about foreign relations, he boils it down to military bullying. When he talks about energy policy, the only solution he can offer is to give big oil even more subsidy money and less regulation. When John McCain talks about “change,” he’s not talking about progress. He’s talking about maintaining the status quo, and giving even more power to the people who already have it.

The Politics of Hate

Together, McCain and Palin have been playing on the fears and hatred of American voters. The campaign has repeatedly incited racial, religious, and nationalistic hatred among supporters, at times accusing Barack Obama of fraternizing with terrorists. When General Colin Powell appeared on Meet the Press, he spoke of how McCain supporters have been allowed to call Obama a Muslim and link him with radical Islam and gone unchallenged by the candidates:

“Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, ‘He’s a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.’ This is not the way we should be doing it in America.”

He then goes on to tell the story of 20-year-old Kareem Rashad Sultan Kahn, an American Muslim who went to fight in the Iraq war after 9/11 and gave his life for the American people, making an appeal for religious equality and respect.

“Those kinds of images going out on al-Jazeera are killing us around the world… we have got to say to the world, it doesn’t matter who you are—if you’re American, you’re an American.”

A similar issue on the California ballot this year is Proposition 8. Prop 8 would change the California Constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California, and provide that only marriage between a man and a woman would be valid or recognized in California. Ben Casnocha did a very thorough evaluation of both sides of the argument and comes to the conclusion that we should act to “keep out actively homophobic and discriminatory language from our constitution and keep in the state the people and culture which make this place so great.”

So, why is there such a strong push to repeal the decision that was made just months ago to award equal rights to gays and lesbians? I may disagree, but I can respect and understand other people’s individual moral and spiritual beliefs. I have no problem with a person’s right to feel however they choose about homosexuality and their right to define marriage as they see fit, but religious and spiritual beliefs of that nature are a very private domain. It’s time we stop allowing the conservative Right to determine civil rights for the Left and the Middle. Nobody should force others to adopt their religious ethics—biblical teachings are to be kept by the believer, not enforced upon the non-believer. And except in cases where someone’s well-being is in danger, I don’t think the government is suited to enforce a moral code, because there are as many different ideas about morality as there are people on this planet. When it comes to one’s rights in the eyes of the law, it’s well past time for everyone to be on the same playing field. This is no different than the civil rights or women’s rights movements.

Rick Jacobs, a homosexual columnist who grew up in the Orthodox Jewish tradition, says that “those speaking in the name of their God and prophets, led principally by out-of-state Mormons and joined by evangelical Christians, have made the removal of my rights a holy war for the new century.” He continues:

“I feel laid bare that people I do not know can vote secretly to remove my rights. This is, unfortunately, reminiscent of Nazi Germany’s Nuremberg Laws that led to Kristallnacht, that horrible event 70 years ago next month that resulted in the burning of over 200 synagogues and countless other Jewish-owned establishments. The Nazis stripped rights from Jews piecemeal until finally Jews lost the right to eat and then to live.”

A young woman I know has to deal with the hard fact that her own father would vote to deny his daughter equal rights, because she is a lesbian. What does that say about our society?

It is funny in this country how many people claim that a vote for Barack Obama will lead to socialism. The media and Republican talking heads throw that word around a lot. But in fact, this nation is much further to the right than many people are willing to admit, and for some reason no one is comfortable to use the word “Fascism” when they speak about the Neoconservative agenda or the many constitutional trespasses of the current administration. I fear a move from the Right towards Fascism much more so than I fear a move to socialism from the Left in this country. When I look at how this government has chipped away at the Constitution in the last eight years, I see things aligning similarly to how they did just before Germany’s Third Reich—extreme social conservatism, civil rights abuses, a surveillance state, propaganda in the media, the looming threat of hyperinflation, imprisonment without charge, institutionalized torture, even internment camps!

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not a huge supporter of Barack Obama either. On the FISA bill in June, Obama went from opposing warrantless domestic wiretapping to giving President Bush and the telecoms full retroactive immunity for the administration’s illegal wiretapping program. He also supported the $807 billion bailout mess just like McCain did. Nobody’s very fiscally conservative, no matter what they tell you. It’s business as usual, and Obama really is the lesser of two evils.

Both political parties offer us the same mediocre results. This two-party system has utterly failed us. It has devolved into a mindless back-and-forth popularity contest. They keep any third-party contenders out—intelligent folks like Ron Paul who actually want to discuss real change and restore our Constitution to its former supremacy. Big government and big business strive to keep the masses ignorant, because the rich prosper off of a large, stupid populace. As long as we have our flatscreen TVs and our gas-guzzling Escalades, the American people won’t ask questions. They fill our heads with myths about a “liberal media” and the necessity to stay involved in a war that costs us many, many lives and billions of dollars each month with no clear end goals. They frame everything as black and white, good versus evil, red states versus blue states, and you buy it. The political climate we live in is no different than the medieval Crusades. We still buy into an “us versus them” mentality, but it’s just not true. The world is not that simple.

I would have hoped that the human race would have evolved by now. I would have hoped that we would could get beyond wars as the solution to our problems. I would have hoped that we’d be a bit more intelligent, and realize that, like Colin Powell so eloquently said, “We have got to stop this nonsense, pull ourselves together, and remember that our great strength is in our unity, in our diversity.”

Really Nation?

Must we learn the same lessons over and over again? Must we really revisit a woman’s right to choose? Gay rights? Freedom of religion? Must we really let the Democratic and Republican parties distract us as usual with issues that were decided upon 30 years ago, while our young men and women are dying overseas and the value of the dollar is freefalling? It’s all a bait-and-switch. They are keeping us distracted from the issues that really matter.

As the election draws near, I have this growing fear that all of our worst qualities will become blatantly clear to the world on November 4th—the fear, ignorance, racism, hatred, bigotry—and the United States will show itself for what it really is: an uneducated, divided, fearful nation. I fear that if John McCain is elected President, it will seal our fate for another four years of poor judgment, gross mismanagement, poor international relations, economic recession, and perhaps much worse.

America was supposed to be the Great Experiment. This was supposed to be the most democratic, progressive, tolerant nation in the world. We pride ourselves on being the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. But we’re acting like the Land of the Fearful and the Home of the Bigots. Who did this to my country? Who’s responsible?

Every one of us is responsible. I’m not asking you to vote for Obama. Vote for Bob Barr. Or better yet, write in Ron Paul. Vote for Stephen Colbert. Or vote for me! I don’t care who you vote for. (Click here for the full list of candidates.) All that is clear, in this writer’s opinion, is which candidate you should NOT vote for. Smart Republicans are walking away. Take my advice or don’t, but whatever you do, don’t bury your head in the goddamn sand! Don’t ignore the issues. These topics will affect your life, and the lives of your children and your childrens’ children. Please make your voice heard, and please use your vote wisely.

If you agree with my sentiments, pass this article along to friends and family or vote for it on Digg or StumbleUpon. If you disagree, then call me names in the comments! But whatever you do, get fuckin’ angry, and get yourself to the polls on November 4th.

So what can you do? Well here are a few great articles by other writers (to get you thinking) and a few resources to make the most of this election and rough economic times ahead:

• Learn why many Republicans and Conservatives are voting for Obama at ConservativesForChange.com
• Read and share Ben Casnocha’s thorough evaluation of Prop 8 on the California Ballot
• Why I’m voting Obama by Andrea Zak
• Why You Should Vote for Obama, Even If You Don’t Agree on the Issues by Holly Hoffman
• Maximize Your Influence in the Election – Lifehacker
  
• How Do I Help Fight Prop 8 and Keep Same-Sex Marriage Legal in California? – Huffington Post
  
• What Can You Do To Help Solve The Credit Crisis? by Erica Douglass
• Stash your cash in an ING DIRECT Orange Savings or Emigrant Direct American Dream Savings account
• AARP’s Divided We Fail site
• DeclareYourself.com, where you can get state-by-state ballot info

There will be a keynote address by Steve Sabol, President of NFL Films, discussions on the growing network culture among businesses, and some appealing showcases on the High Technology and Internet/New Media Industries. The summit will also have sessions focused on cleantech, manufacturing, consumer products, healthcare, land development, and more.

• The event is designed to bring together the top 100 companies in the 19-county area that stretches from Redding to Bakersfield through the Central Valley
• The economy in this area is different than in San Francisco, LA, San Diego or other coastal counties
• The goal is to bring together the leaders of these companies, along with several early stage companies from the region, and hope to stimulate ongoing dialog and business activity among them to benefit the area
• The primary producer of the event is Golden Capital Networks, based in Chico, and the producer of several regional venture capital events (Venture Vineyard in Napa, Silver & Gold in Reno and Angel & VC Investment Summit in El Dorado Hills)

The New California 100 summit should offer many opportunities for CEOs, entrepreneurs, VCs, development professionals and professional services providers, but Josh Morgan, principle of Morgan/Dorado Public Relations, also wants to draw a younger crowd out to the leadership event this year. I know that there are special rates for students and free press passes available for a select few business- and entrepreneurship-oriented bloggers. Follow me on Twitter and send me a direct message to get connected to Josh for student/blogger passes. Or you can contact Josh directly via Twitter.

Tim’s business, Grand Dynamics, is based out of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, but he was in Sacramento yesterday, so Paul and I met up with him for a bike ride and a great salmon dinner (thanks Holly!), and I finally got my hands on a signed print copy of the book. I helped Tim and Rick design the new STN blog and user forums, so I’ve had the opportunity to read through much of the material. The book tells the story of two characters who learn many personal development lessons (lessons Rick and Tim learned on the mountainside and in training exercises with thousands of professionals across the world). Seeking True North goes on to explain these personal and business development models and tools in detail and how to apply them in your own life.

Tim and Rick both do corporate retreats across the globe that focus on organizational development, experiential education, and leadership studies. Check out the new blog at SeekingTrueNorth.com. Congratulations on the book launch guys!

“If you have a really great business that makes money hand over fist, you could probably have lousy values. You know, somebody who just fell into the right place at the right time. But it really helps to have values. Like Google, today’s darlings. They didn’t have a clue how they were gonna make money for quite a long time. But what they had was a powerful set of values that made them able to attract believers in the form of venture capitalists, believers in the form of brilliant early employees.”

—Tim O’Reilly, multimillionaire founder of O’Reilly Media, in a July interview with Success Magazine

You need people that understand the power of different perspectives across cultures and domains. …I often say that the single most important leadership skill for the next couple of decades, at least for those that wish to advance new ideas, will be how to recruit, manage and leverage diversity.

—Frans Johansson, author of The Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation [via Rebecca Thorman]

I LOVE Peters’ writing style. Very motivational, awesome design…. The book is what he calls a “50 List” of actionable steps you can take to build your personal brand. Your personal brand is your “packaging,” your “product” you offer…your reputation, what you are known for.

Peters speaks powerfully to the “Dilbert nation” of cubicle slaves and employees about establishing themselves as Free Agents, with a more vendor-like approach to your jobs and projects. He talks about the loss of job security, the monotony of office work, etc. Tom believes we will see a transformation within the next ten years–the “INESCAPABLE WHITE COLLAR REVOLUTION” as he calls it–and we have to be ready to adapt. This is an INVALUABLE read if you are interested in entrepreneurship, a side business, or just being damned excellent at what you do. It is geared mostly toward a business crowd, and those in management, but he is fond of lists and bullet points and BrandYou50 is a non-traditional book full of actionable items that are applicable for almost anyone who wants to stand out.

Brand You is about breaking bonds and creating unmistakable value-added “products” (projects!) for identifiable “customers.” The products/projects become “braggables.” The customers become Clients/Co-conspirators-for-Cool/Raving Fans/Word-of-Mouth Cheerleading References.

It took me some time, but I wanted to go through the book a second time to put together my own “take-aways.” It’s a shortened version, but what I came up with is basically a cheat sheet that boils it down from 200 pages to eleven. You’re welcome to take a look at the BrandYou50 cheat sheet if you think you might be interested in the book.

Let me know if you guys get any value out of this, or what changes Peters’ work has inspired you to make in your life. Please share in the comments…

Rajesh Setty is president of Foresight Plus, where he helps give his professional clients the unfair business advantage. He also blogs at Life Beyond Code, where he coaches the rest of us on how to have the unfair life advantage! Rajesh has written numerous books (he had his first one published at age 13!) and founded several successful companies, and he shares his experience and knowledge with us in his Distinguish Yourself series, an invaluable resource on productivity, efficiency, and plain old good tips to raise your likability in the workplace and beyond! In an October 2006 interview with Little India magazine, he shared his top ten life tips:

1. Focus on ROII (Return on Investment for an Interaction)
Time is precious for everyone. Ensure that you provide the highest value for anyone investing time in an interaction with you.

2. Keep the promises you make to yourself
Making promises to yourself is easy. Keeping them is very hard!

3. Set right expectations
The first step in trying to exceed the expectations is to set them right in the first place.

4. Set higher standards
Raise your standards higher than the general norm and watch miracles unfold!

5. Avoid complacency at all costs!
There is nothing like maintaining the status quo. You are either falling or rising.

6. Commodotize your work at regular intervals
You don’t have to wait for someone else to commoditize your work.

7. Balance home runs with small wins
Home runs are great. But small wins are important too!

8. Think!
Set aside time to “Think.” Most often thinking is done in parallel to other activities.

9. Never take people for granted
Would it be any fun if someone took you for granted?

10. Ask the right questions
Answers help. But, it’s not always the answers that matter.

————

Rajesh is one of a few individuals whose success and generosity with his gifts is inspiring me to aim high, continue learning, and hopefully become an entrepreneur one day. So, thank you for your continued generosity and your painstaking work to share meaningful information and lessons with us all here in the online community, Raj!

[via: Top Ten Life Tips From a Tech Wiz]

Communications coach Carmine Gallo recently wrote up a great critique of Jobs’ presentation, packed with some useful tips for the rest of us to improve our public speaking skills:

1. Build Tension. A good novelist doesn’t lay out the entire plot and conclusion on the first page of the book. He builds up to it. Jobs begins his presentation by reviewing the “revolutionary” products Apple has introduced. According to Jobs, “every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything…Apple has been fortunate to introduce a few things into the world.” Jobs continues by describing the 1984 launch of the Macintosh as an event that “changed the entire computer industry.”
2. Stick to One Theme Per Slide. A brilliant designer once told me that effective presentation slides only have one message per slide. One slide, one key point. When Jobs introduced the “three revolutionary products” in the description above, he didn’t show one slide with three devices. When he spoke about each feature (a widescreen iPod, a mobile phone, and an Internet communicator), a slide would appear with an image of each feature.
3. Add Pizzazz to Your Delivery. Jobs modulates his vocal delivery to build up the excitement. When he opens his presentation by describing the revolutionary products Apple created in the past, his volume is low and he speaks slowly, almost in a reverential tone. His volume continues to build until his line, “Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone.” Be an electrifying speaker by varying the speed at which you speak and by raising and lowering your voice at the appropriate times.
4. Practice. Jobs makes presentations look effortless because he takes nothing for granted. Jobs is known to rehearse demonstrations for hours prior to launch events. I can name many high-profile chief executives who decide to wing it. It shows. It always amazes me that many business leaders spend tens of thousands of dollars on designing presentations, but next to no time actually rehearsing. I usually get the call after the speaker bombs. Don’t lose your audience. Rehearse a presentation out loud until you’ve nailed it.
5. Be Honest and Show Enthusiasm. If you believe that your particular product or service will change the world, then say so. Have fun with the content. During the iPhone launch, Jobs uses many adjectives to describe the new product, including “remarkable,” “revolutionary,” and “cool.” He jokes that the touch-screen features of the phone “work like magic…and boy have we patented it.”

[via: Steve Jobs' Greatest Presentation]

Cardinal Sin #1: The Know-It-All Boss

The first and perhaps most frustrating way that some people blow leadership is by being know-it-alls. They can tell you how the world works, what corporate is thinking, how it will backfire if you try this or that, and why you can’t change the product one iota. They even know what kind of car you should be driving…. They don’t listen, and that “deafness” makes it very hard for new ideas to get heard, debated, expanded, or improved. No single person, no matter how smart, can take a business to its apex. For that, you need every voice heard.

Cardinal Sin #2: The Emotionally-Distant Boss

…Emotionally distant bosses are more comfortable behind closed doors than mucking it out with the team…. If possible, all the messy, sweaty people stuff would be delegated to HR managers on another floor…. They don’t engage, which means they can’t inspire. That’s a big problem. Leaders, after all, need followers to get anything done. And followers need passion for their fuel.

And a few other major infractions include bosses who are just plain jerks, bosses who are too afraid of rocking the boat to make real decisions without everyone’s consensus, and those who are unwilling to prioritize projects and give real performance reviews, cutting projects and, if need be, people, when they are not delivering on their intended purpose.

Watch the Welches’ “Bosses Who Get It All Wrong” for more.