The Cranking Widgets Blog

How Holidays and Vacations Make you Sick and What to do About it.

Monday, November 30, 2009

I woke up this morning with a tickle in my throat that has developed into a painful sore throat. This is a familiar beginning of a cold or flu will likely hit me full force tomorrow… Today is the Sunday of my Thanksgiving break and impending sickness must be my punishment for enjoying four peaceful [...]

LINK: The Making of a Successful Entrepreneur – BusinessWeek

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

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While I’m on the topic of what makes a successful entrepreneur, I bring you a slide show with the results of an interesting study on the subject, though from a different angle. There are two quotes related to finance that I find interesting.
First:
Entrepreneurs believe financing is important, but many find ways around relying on large [...]

It’s Official: Entrepreneurs Have Better Personalities than Managers

Monday, November 16, 2009

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Developing the Innate Index got me wondering if there was a link between personality and success as an entrepreneur. My business partner is a behavioral Psychologist who has spent a few decades coaching executives and entrepreneurs, so naturally I asked him about it.
As it turns out there is actually a lot of research! Here’s a [...]

LINK: What Entrepreneurship Is and Isn’t

Thursday, November 12, 2009

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The other day I was reading through the Art of Non-Conformity’s archives and I found a post that Chris wrote in the very beginning. I found myself nodding my head quite a bit as I read it. My favorite part is:
True entrepreneurship involves the creation of processes, not just the creation of work. If you’ve [...]

LINK: 11 Rules for Moguls in Training | Jonathan Fields

Thursday, November 5, 2009

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Jonathan Fields, Career Renegade Extraordinaire, posted a little gem the other day. He literally saves you from reading thousands of books. I probably haven’t read quite as much as he has, but I can vouch for these none-the-less…
Over the last dozen years, I’ve devoured thousands of books on business, leadership, success and lifestyles and learned [...]

Theme Change #2: Productivity for Entrepreneurs

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

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The focus of The Cranking Widgets Blog will have much more of an entrepreneurial bent going forward.
I collect companies and business ideas like many productivity lovers collect pens and notebooks. Entrepreneurship is in every fiber of my being. My record is far from spotless, but if I judge my performance against the statistics I’ve beat [...]

LINK: I Will Teach You To Be Rich – 6 Week Boot Camp

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

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Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You To Be Rich launched his automate your finances boot camp today. The curriculum is pretty solid. I believe having your personal finances in good shape is the hull of your Entrepreneurship (see what I did there?)
If you are stressing a lot about finances or spending too much time [...]

Theme Change #1: Redesign

Monday, November 2, 2009

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My last post was about doing the easy stuff that you’ve been putting off just because you don’t have all the answers or a grand plan. I decided it was time to eat some more of my own dog food and take a look at my incomplete projects.
The shot above is from my active projects [...]

How to Launch a Project in 3 Hours

Friday, October 30, 2009

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I’m a huge fan of Ruby on Rails because of how fast it enables techies to get a new project out the door and into the hands of users. For non-programmers Ruby on Rails is a development framework brought to you by 37Signals that powers some of your favorite sites, like Basecamp, Twitter, LinkedIn and [...]

Passionate People: Get What You Deserve, Become a Career Renegade!

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

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We had just finished putting on our full-body suits, our BCDs, weight belts and air tanks. The waves were about 4 feet tall as we waddled out with what felt like a ton of gear on our backs. Given our experience, 4 feet is high but we noticed the waves are coming in groups of 5, [...]