THE SUBWAY PERFORMER

Chicago’s subways (like New York’s) are famous for their starving musicians looking to make a buck by performing for the commuters and more for the tourists. They know the tourists are the ones who they’ll get more money from.

On a particular stop under the Wicker Park area there was a black man with a guitar and the voice of a drunk Jimmy Hendrix on a bad day. Though his sound was off, he still had some soul in his music, beating out tunes from Clapton and The Temptations. When he finished his second solo, he looked around to see most of the train station ignoring him.

So, what did he do? He got peoples attention, yelling, “Excuse me. I don’t care if you like what I play, I don’t care if you give me money, but I demand that you clap when I am done.”

What a guy.

Now, what do you think happened after he was done with his next song? Not only did people clap but also now he had their attention so more and more people were giving him money in his guitar case.

He was the most aggressive businessman. He demanded attention and got it. He did not say give me money (even denouncing it). Instead he said he just wanted to be acknowledged and that made all the difference.

THE WHEEL CHAIR VETERAN

This guy has to be one of the most interesting fellows I have ever met. He was an old black man in a wheel chair wearing a tattered army coat. He had a salt and pepper beard and a southern farm hat with the front flipped up. On his hat was a button that said, “God’s hand controls all.” On his lap was a sketchbook.

Intriguing.

Just his persona made him stand out in the subway tunnel. It was great. And he clearly used this to attract people. He did not have to say anything, just his appearance was enough. Then when my friends and I did approach him he did not pitch us right away. He talked to us, asking what we were out doing today. He got to know us a little and then, as it happened, we asked him to draw us.

Again, we asked him to draw us. It was as simple as that. The man did not have to speak a word for us to know what he did. His image was enough. He could talk pleasantries and really seemed like a decent human being. Business came to him because of this.

Then he just named a price when asked. Bingo. His price. He knew he had us hooked and he kept control over the entire situation without pitching us at all.

THE DANCING SUBWAY GUY

This was my favorite of the three. He wasn’t selling anything. He wasn’t trying to pitch an idea. He was just being himself. As I rode the subway, approximately under Madison Ave., a big white man in a blue parka sat adjacent to me in the train car wearing headphones. The music was loud enough to faintly hear throughout the car. It was clearly techno.

At one point the man got up, with a grin on his face, not looking to see if anyone was watching and started dancing to the music. Being a big man it was very funny to see him flailing about while not disturbing anyone else’s’ personal space. When the song finished, he just sat down, smiling. I could tell he really enjoyed himself.

I want to be the Dancing Subway Guy.

Not literally of course, but he was clearly doing what he did for the love of it and not for attention. Quite the contrary, he dismissed other’s possible presumptions about him and did what he wanted.

In creating a venture that will change the world this is, I think, how an entrepreneur should act. Not necessarily be ridiculous, but be themselves and do things how they think is best regardless of the inevitable criticism. The Dancing Subway Guy could be an inspiration to all entrepreneurs because he is simply doing what he loves.

Now imagine if he had a hat to put money into and did it on the railway. I guarantee I would have put in some money.

// Warren Greeley is an Entrepreneur and writer at Zen Problog where he writes about professional lifestyle.

Imagine that you spent an entire year building a beautiful home in the woods. Your dream home. Each day you woke-up early, chopped down some trees, shaped your wood, and laid piece by piece to build your home. It wasn’t easy work, but you enjoyed it. All day long, you built and built, slowly putting together your dream home and at the end of the year you’re finally finished!

But, all of a sudden, you take another look and you realize that this isn’t your dream home. You have an entirely new idea for an even better, bigger, and stronger home… even though you know that you can “get by” with the current home.

So what do you do? Do you say “ahh.. oh well.. let me just keep this home since it took me a year to build, even though I’m not 100% satisfied” OR do you say “let me destroy this current home and build the one that I really want! So what if it took me a year to build, the new home will be worth it!”

These are the decisions any creative, innovative, and disruptive person has to make throughout their journey. Will you have the guts to totally destroy one of your concepts for an even better one when the time comes? Will you have the courage to turn your back on something that is only “okay and decent” for something that is “magnificent and amazing” ? Will you be willing to risk it all to pursue what your heart is telling you to do?

Don’t be scared to destroy. A forest fire is natures way of promoting new — greener — growth. A fever is a way of purging your body of a virus. When you break a bone it comes back stronger. You see, advancements and creativity come from destruction in so many ways.

Can you dig that?

It seems a bad thing and detrimental to the creative work of the mind if Reason makes too close an examination of the ideas as they come pouring in—at the very gateway, as it were. Looked at in isolation, a thought may seem very trivial or very fantastic; but it may be made important by another thought that comes after it, and, in conjunction with other thoughts that may seem equally absurd, it may turn out to form a most effective link.

–Sigmund Freud

Why are we so quick to kill our thoughts? Why are we afraid to think about things that “don’t make sense” or seem “trivial”? I think it’s because we’ve become so conditioned — especially as business-oriented people — to think about the immediate cause and effect of our thoughts. Something like:

• “This idea won’t work because it won’t bring in X amount of dollars.”
• “This idea is no good because it may upset a few customers.”
• “This idea is just too radical and absurd — it’ll only hurt my company”
• “This idea makes absolutely no sense — there’s no way I’m going to even attempt it!”
• “This idea is so avant-garde that the world isn’t ready for it.”

Banish that thought! You need to learn how to accept all of your ideas. So what if you don’t implement them — you still need to let them flow and properly register in your mind. Let them do some connecting behind the scene. That’s were true creativity is formed.

As Freud states, we shouldn’t try to apply reason to our ideas — we shouldn’t attempt to examine them too closely. Because when you do that, you are disrupting their formation.

From physics we know that the mere act of observing something will change and affect it. For instance, for one to actually see a proton or electron you have to interact with it first. And when you interact with it, you change it’s path and course of action.

I theorize that people are changing the path of their ideas by spending too much time trying to examine and interact with them — trying to make them make sense and apply tangible, real-life outcomes / applications with their ideas.

And when we do that, the idea isn’t allowed to fully form, gain structure, and gain complexity (deep in the mind). It’s like the idea never gets there because we put up our own roadblocks that say: “STOP — BAD IDEA!”

I say no…no…no… to that! Let the ideas. Let ‘em GO! Don’t restrict. Never push them away. No matter how weird and crazy they are, just let ‘em be! Let them marinate. Let them be free. That, my friends, is the true essence of entrepreneurship.

Adventure

Change

Wisdom

Inspiration

Future

Innovation

Riches

No Fear

Paradise

*** The following posters were derived from the All Posters gallery. If this has inspired you, please help us spread the inspiration by digging it.

Sir Richard Branson

Branson has taught me to always have fun no matter what. Entrepreneurship isn’t all about pain, it’s about feeling good and basking in the moment — the present. You have to enjoy yourself on your journey to success. Be happy every day that you are able to push forward with your business and have a blast!

Bill Gates

I admire Gate’s zombie-like intelligence. He is, without a doubt, one of the smartest leaders in the computer industry. And it’s ironic, because his brilliance lies in his ability to surround himself with people smarter than him. He’s always been hungry and willing to do anything to see his dreams of Microsoft realized. Gate is definitely a powerful nerd.

Oprah Winfrey

It’s funny because Oprah doesn’t consider herself an entrepreneur at all, but I think that we can all agree that she is. I respect Oprah so much for having such a big heart! She truly cares about those less fortunate than her. Her charity and causes to help the poor and impoverished have changed the world. And not to mention her ability to shine light on real issues that matter — that spark positive change.

Sam Walton

Sam is the man! When nobody believed in his dream to open up Walmarts in small, no-name, towns, he pushed forward anyway and relied on his gut. He saw an opportunity that everyone else thought was a business pitfall. He took a risk and made it happen. Now look at what he’s created, the Walton’s are one of the richest families in the country and Walmart is deeply engrained throughout the world.

Steve Jobs

I love Job’s energy. Yes he’s an ass and he is what some would call a despot…but therein lies his brilliance. He fights so hard to push his ideas unto Apple, because he truly believes in himself. And guess what? He’s proven himself to be right most of the time. Jobs is — hands down — one of the most creative people in the industry. That’s why we love him.

Thomas Edison

From Edison, I learn that failure isn’t “failure,” it’s just a way to get closer to success. Edison didn’t fail 10,000 times before creating the light bulb, he “ just found 10,000 ways that didn’t work.” Entrepreneurship is all about experimentation, and you have to be willing to keep on trying new things — new techniques — before you find something that works…. even if it takes 10,000 tries. You only have to be right once.

Howard Hughes

Hughes was one of the weirdest but one of the most innovation entrepreneurs in history. At a young age he acquired his father’s tool company and quickly turned it into the top aviation company on the planet. Without a formal education in engineering, Hughes was able to dream up and help develop some of the most sophisticated aircrafts at the time. His company, Hughes Aircraft provided the government with countless aircrafts and vessels that helped shape the course of combat and travel in America. However reclusive he was, Hughes was simply one of a kind!

Her experience got me thinking about entrepreneurship and getting different perspectives from different people. Now, I’m not saying get out there and talk to every homeless person on that street (unless you’re comfortable with doing that). Obviously, depending on where you live, that may not be safe.

But, I think that — as an entrepreneur running startup — you should aim to get advice and opinions from as many people as possible; even if those people don’t know a thing about business, entrepreneurship, and your particular company.

The objective here is to tap into as many minds as possible and see what they think about what you are doing. Ask your mom. Ask your teacher. Ask your brother. Ask your girlfriend. Ask your enemy. Ask your mailman. Ask your doctor. Ask your professor.

It doesn’t matter. Just see what they think and attempt to spark their mind about something that may be of value to your business. You’d be surprised how much we miss out on in life — how much information we let slip out of our hands — because we don’t take the time to share our thoughts with certain people.

We need to destroy that notion and get out there and talk to as many people as possible. It’s like painting a picture with a palette of only 8 colors — your picture may come out looking nice, but imagine if you had a palette of 1,000 colors. Various opinions and unique insights from other people are the other colors that you can add to your startup.

Especially seek out people who aren’t jaded in some way or another (as hard as that sounds). People who aren’t too extreme or too passive about a particular matter. Even someone like your younger brother or sister may be good people to ask. Children are known for stimulating creativity in people.

So get out there and start speaking to people about what you are doing. No one is out of bounds! Have fun with it. What do you have to lose?

Ok, so what? Soo…. we are capable of producing brilliant ideas but without — for lack of a better word — an onslaught or attack on our ideas, they’ll never get stronger and they’ll never improve.

Really? Yes, you need to surround yourself with groups of people who will give you genuine critical feedback of your idea. People who will tell you — straight up — that your idea is weak and how to make it stronger. People who won’t be afraid to completely bash your idea and then work with you to make it brilliant. People who will help you tweak, modify, and alter your idea into a masterpiece even if it’s already a great idea.

You absolutely need people like this in your corner as an entrepreneur. You need their support. You need their critical point of view. This is crucial to your success.

I know… I know… many of us walk around with these super egos and think to ourselves “my idea is brilliant! Period! I don’t need to improve it and I don’t need anyone to help me make it even stronger” Think like that and you’ll only be able to go so far with your idea.

It’s a cliché but it’s so true: “two minds are better than one.” If your idea is truly disruptive, truly innovative, and truly unique, then you better hope and pray that not everyone thinks that it’s a “good” idea. Ideas that are accepted by everyone are “weak” ideas.

The ideas that really change the world are the ideas that have been challenged over and over again. If your idea isn’t challenging anyone, then you better get back to the table and start thinking.

You see, the only way for you to test your idea and to see how it affects the minds of others, you need to share it with your mastermind group. Napoleon Hill coined the term Mastermind in his book Think and Grow Rich.

The concept of a mastermind group is simple: a group of people who all focus their minds on one goal. A group of people who will be critical, fill in the blanks, and rip your idea asunder in order to rebuild it. Every great entrepreneur had a mastermind group. You need one as well.

And be careful of who you let in your mastermind group — it can’t be just anyone. Everyone in your group should have a unique insight and really be a forward-thinker in some respect. Quite frankly, everyone in your group should be brilliant in your mind. If you let a negative thinker or someone who just doesn’t “have it” in your mastermind group, it’ll get poisoned. Don’t do it. Keep it quality.

Think of you idea as a root. When a root rips it’ll grow back even stronger and thicker. Your idea “needs” to be ripped — it needs to be torn at. In doing so, it’ll grow stronger.

I’ll end with this quote:

“If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.”

– Einstein

”Ok this might be a dumb question but how do websites make money?”

This was an opportunity to sound halfway intelligent for once so I pounced right on it with an answer that a casual Internet user would hopefully understand. Casual indicates that you don’t check your email, Myspace, or blog 20 times a day and you also don’t know what CPM stands for or what a 728×90 is. Knowing this makes you a Web Addict. I smugly replied…

“Well there are essentially 3 ways. One way is that a business has a website to promote their main brick and mortar entity by having a presence on the Web. The second way is that the main source of revenue for a website is by offering an e-commerce solution where buyers and sellers can do some type of business with each other (remember casual user). And finally, the third way is when a website, otherwise known as a publisher, creates interesting content that attract users to their site. The site is then monetized by advertising revenue is the way of banner ads, text ads, pop up ads, or even video ads.

She happens to be very industrious, so I’m pretty sure that she got the idea.

But it led me to believe that the majority of people don’t quite grasp the concept of online advertising. Since the “majority” of people are starting their own websites, their own blogs or even their own profile or channel on some type of a social community platform where ad revenue is split between the publisher and user (Like Blogger or a future client of mine, Blip.tv.) It is crucial that these people understand that there is money to be made. Of course, most of the people reading this blog on Mind Petals understand that there is always money to be made!

Here is a small portion of how it works. Typically, Publishers make money by selling the “inventory” on their site. Inventory is based on impressions or “eyeballs” that a site receives. Almost like a page view except an impression is the amount of times an ad is viewed by someone. If there are 5 ads on a page then for every page view there are five impressions. Publishers will then sell impressions to advertisers on a CPM level (Cost Per Thousand, M standing for the Latin symbol of one thousand). For every one thousand times your eyeballs view an ad, the publishers can charge anything from 1 to 50 dollars. Obviously, the size of the ad and where it is on the site influences the price. A site like ESPN or CNN will charge about 30-50 dollars while my blog could charge about negative 30 to negative 50 cents, if I’m lucky.

While traditional advertising will always be effective way to reach the desired consumer, interactive marketing methods are quickly becoming a more cost efficient way to specifically target a certain audience. It is no secret that there are more choices today then there were 5 years ago in terms of how media is consumed and how advertisers can reach them. The advent of online video, audio, news, and user generated content sites have allowed users to find exactly what there looking for and in turn this allows advertisers to find their desired niche or demographic. With online ad spend increasing each year, then that only leaves more money to be had by Internet entrepreneurs and pioneers.

SOOOOO where does a young entrepreneur fit in with all of this?

With the Internet providing an avenue for us young people to provide some type of service to the world, then we will have an opportunity to maximize the amount of money we get. It is a low cost, low risk way to start a business with minimal overhead and a potential for a high reward. Online advertising is also a low cost way to promote a non-interactive product or service. The specificity of the targeting capabilities in certain ad technologies allows entrepreneurs to reach the exact audience they want to reach without breaking the bank.

Last night while chatting at Starbucks with fellow young entrepreneurs Michael and Jason, I really started to ponder something that Michael brought up. He said: “there really isn’t a way to measure this intangible economy.”

Now let me put things into context for ya. We were talking about how young entrepreneurs are going to be the leaders of the world; how our generation will do things that have been unfathomable up to this point. How young entrepreneurs are making so many contributions at such a young age.

I joked to Michael and Jason about our parents and when they were our age the last thing they were thinking about was entrepreneurship — most of them were thinking about getting job and attaining “comfort” and “safety.”

So what is this “intangible economy” in respect to we young entrepreneurs? Put simply, it’s all of the contributions that we are making to this world that can’t be measured; that can’t be quantified; that can’t be measured in dollars and cents.

Young entrepreneurs are on the front line of innovation, capitalism, and growing our economy and many of us don’t even know it.

Just image all the speeches that we have given that resulted in someone thinking of an idea, starting a company, hiring employees, and making lives easier. Imagine how many people have read our blogs and felt inspired to go off and start a company. Imagine how many people you’ve helped with your product or service that you have no idea about. Imagine how many events that you’ve attended where you’ve engaged other entrepreneurs in deep discussions about business and technology — discussions that resulted in new technology and new business models. Sit back and just let those thoughts marinate in your head.

All of these things are happening. Our thoughts and mere interactions with people are spurring economic growth! Sure, we can’t measure it; we can’t put a monetary value on it; and we really can’t keep track of it because it quickly grows beyond our immediate circle of networks. But it’s HAPPENING.

We are making a change. We are fueling the economy with our ideas, our events/meetups/mixups, our brainstorming sessions, our long nights on the computer thinking about how these lines of code will change the world, our blog posts, our calls we make, our time spent helping other entrepreneurs, and our hunger to bring about change.

Whether you know it or not, as a young and hungry entrepreneur, you are a part of a major evolution so keep rocking on!