Archive for April 16th, 2008

Don’t Break the Chain – Day 46 [Motivation Hack]

April 16, 2008

“The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in determination.” Tommy Lasorda

I found this website: dontbreakthechain.com exactly 46 days ago. It was also exactly 46 days ago, that I had conceived of my “idea.”

At a quick glance, this website is nothing more than a calendar. However, this website obviously has a much deeper meaning/greater usefulness than a simple calendar. The story [1] originated from the famed comedian, Jerry Seinfeld. Someone once asked for his advice for a young comic. His tip was to write lots of jokes, and write them every day. In short, Jerry accomplishes this by posting a big calendar on his wall, and marking off the days that he writes a decent amount of jokes with a big red marker. He does it for 1 day… 3 day.. a week… 2 weeks… and he slowly creates a chain of red marks. Then, he reminds himself everyday, when he sees the calendar: “Don’t break the chain!”

This is so awesome. All my life, I feel like I’ve always had problems with persistence and staying motivated. There are just so many things that I once felt a strong passion for, but later gave it up, because I lost focus. Yet now, I feel like I can be much more dedicated to something. I am able to continuously remind myself of what I want to accomplish, what I already have built up, and the effort that I would be putting to waste, if I just give up.

This neat little website really plays a huge role in keeping me focused and motivated.

[1] Source: Life Hacker, 7/24/2007, Motivation: Jerry Seifeld’s Productivity Secret.

Hello world!

April 16, 2008

Hello world, indeed. My trek into the software/web dev begins here.

“My son is now an ‘entrepreneur’. That’s what you’re called when you don’t have a job.” – Ted Turner

How fitting: Two weeks ago, “I quit” from my day job, and last Friday was my last official day as a full-time Product Engineer at Maxim Integrated Products. I just really felt that I had to take this bold step into pursuing my entrepreneurial dreams. So, I suppose you can say that I don’t really have a job right now.

So here we go. I’ve also decided to start blogging once again. This time, focusing on my startup experience, my thoughts, my struggles, and (hopefully) some success. I’ll likely try to incorporate at least one entrepreneurial quote into each of my posts.

My startup is currently in Stealth-mode. So I won’t be going into the details of what I’m doing.