To help with that, I’ve assembled some inspirational stories of hard-working entrepreneurs with some non-business folks mixed in for good measure. Two caveats. First, hard work is completely irrelevant is you’re not working smart and being productive. Second, hard work is also counter-productive if you’re sacrificing your health to an extreme degree and if the increase in quantity of hours worked is leading to a decrease in your creativity (often the case!). With that being said, here’s some stories of people who’ve worked about as hard as a human being can.

Jeff Immelt – A few years back I read a story about Jeff entitled The Bionic Manager which reset my thinking about what hard work is. Here are a couple of passages from it:

Immelt, 49, says he’s been working 100 hours a week for 24 years. That does not take him back to his 1978 graduation from Dartmouth, where he was football team captain (as offensive tackle) and a fraternity president who liked to party….Most hard-charging types have put in a 100-hour week or two. But month after month, year after year—is that even possible? Let’s do the math. If you worked from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week, you’d still be two hours short of 100 hours. If Immelt has been working that hard for 24 years, then he has already done 60 years’ worth of 40-hour weeks.

Here he is on a recent swing through San Francisco: The first meeting is with institutional investors at 7 a.m. Then he addresses some 200 retail investors at 8:30, standing comfortably for 25 minutes with his left hand in his pocket and his right hand holding his PowerPoint remote; after his talk, he answers questions for an hour. Then it’s more institutional investors, followed by GE salespeople in Burlingame, a presentation to customers, and finally a big reception for customers and top salespeople. He seems as energetic at the end of the day as at the beginning. He had run virtually the same routine in Los Angeles the day before.

Mark Cuban – Cuban has written some posts on his most excellent blog on the subject of hard work and loving what you do. Here is one of my favorite excerpts:

The edge is getting so jazzed about what you do, you just spent 24 hours straight working on a project and you thought it was a couple hours. The edge is knowing that you have to be the smartest guy in the room when you have your meeting and you are going to put in the effort to learn whatever you need to learn to get there. The edge is knowing is knowing that when the 4 girlfriends you have had in the last couple years asked you which was more important, them or your business, you gave the right answer…The edge is knowing how to blow off steam a couple times a week, just so you can refocus on business…The edge is recognizing when you are wrong, and working harder to make sure it doesn’t happen again. (from The Sport of Business)

Steve Pavlina and Seth Godin – These guys have written millions of words in their relatively young careers, authored books, spoken at conferences and started companies largely as one-man shows. They do more in a year than most people do in a lifetime and are well worth learning from!

Steve sums up his philosophy towards hard work pretty well in the aptly titled post “Hard Work“:

Hard work pays off. When someone tells you otherwise, beware the sales pitch for something “fast and easy” that’s about to come next. The greater your capacity for hard work, the more rewards fall within your grasp. The deeper you can dig, the more treasure you can potentially find…Your life will reach a whole new level when you stop avoiding and fearing hard work and simply surrender to it. Make it your ally instead of your enemy. It’s a potent tool to have on your side.

Seth has a similar post entitled “Labor Day“:

Your great-grandfather knew what it meant to work hard. He hauled hay all day long, making sure that the cows got fed. In Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser writes about a worker who ruptured his vertebrae, wrecked his hands, burned his lungs, and was eventually hit by a train as part of his 15-year career at a slaughterhouse. Now that’s hard work…Hard work is about risk. It begins when you deal with the things that you’d rather not deal with: fear of failure, fear of standing out, fear of rejection. Hard work is about training yourself to leap over this barrier, tunnel under that barrier, drive through the other barrier. And, after you’ve done that, to do it again the next day.

Eminem and Kanye West – These guys have legendary work ethics. Witness:

It is a little-known fact that the only book Eminem read as a child was the dictionary. He pored over it, searching for words that rhymed with each other that could later be pulled out of the bag during the freestyle rap “battles” that provided his education in hip-hop. The years spent studying the English language lie at the core of his technical brilliance. They turned him into the greatest rapper of his time. But they did so at a personal cost: for Eminem could be uncharitably described as an anorak. His life starts and ends with music. He writes constantly, scrawling lines on sheets of notepaper in a crabby handwriting. When he’s not composing new verse, or messing around in a studio, he’ll be listening to hip-hop. “The guy’s a studio rat,” says producer Terry Simaan, the owner of Oh Trey 9, one of the Detroit’s most influential hip-hop labels. “If he feels like it, he’ll spend 12, 15 hours a day in a studio.” (From Eminem: The fall and rise of a superstar)

But West initially had trouble convincing Roc-A-Fella execs to let him make his own album as a rapper. He was able to change their minds only after the accident that inspired his breakthrough single, Through the Wire. Exhausted from working around the clock, West fell asleep behind the wheel of his Lexus and got into a crash that nearly killed him. He was back in the studio three weeks later, recording that hit song with his broken jaw wired shut. (From Genius Is As Genius Does)

(Note to self…take a cab or have someone else drive you if you’re working your tail off!!)

Kobe Bryant and Tiger Woods – While these guys haven’t exactly been choir boys the last few years they’ve definitely worked their tail off to get to where they are. Here are some of my favorite articles about them:

Commuting to Staples Center with Kobe Bryant

Kobe’s well-honed killer instinct

It’s 1995, and Bryant is the senior leader of the Lower Merion team, obsessed with winning a state championship. He comes to the gym at 5 a.m. to work out before school, stays until 7 p.m. afterward. It’s all part of the plan. When the Aces lost in the playoffs the previous spring, Bryant stood in the locker room, interrupting the seniors as they hugged each other, and all but guaranteed a title, adding, “The work starts now.”

(Don’t miss Spike Lee’s documentary about Kobe either!)

Tiger vs Phil Part Two: Work ethic.

I refuse to let anyone outwork me. That’s the reason I log so much time on the practice range. Besides, hard work is the only way to maintain a competitive edge, and I enjoy the process. The key, though, is to practice with a purpose.

Tiger’s Daily Routine and Workout Regimen

The Beatles – Gladwell made their Hamburg-era work ethic famous in Outliers. Here’s the passage in case you missed it:

“All told, they performed for 270 nights in just over a year and a half. By the time they had their first burst of success in 1964, in fact, they had performed live an estimated twelve hundred times. … Most bands today don’t perform twelve hundred times in their entire careers. The Hamburg crucible is one of the things that set the Beatles apart.” (From this blog post about the band)

Yolanda and Rogelio Garcia Sr. – You’ve never heard of these two and I hadn’t either until I stumbled across this article talking about how they put their kids through college:

For 21 years, the Garcias have supported their family by picking through garbage, often cutting their fingers on broken glass while searching for cans and bottles. Late at night they make their living on the darkened streets and back alleys of Los Angeles, recycling other people’s trash for cash. They’ve collected more than 8 million cans and bottles to help put two children through college. Their youngest is still hitting the books, so Yolanda and Rogelio still hit the streets every night.

OK, perhaps this doesn’t fit the definition of working as smart as possible but nevertheless, reading stories like this reminds us that our “hard work” probably isn’t as hard as we think.

Who’d I miss? Let me know in the comments!

And then there’s the other type of quit.

The quit where a huge part of you wants to give up. The quit you make when you the world is against you, when you’re sick to your stomach half the time and when all those who told you it was a dumb idea to begin with are now reminding you that they told you that it was a dumb idea to begin with. The quit that just feels easier.

So what do you do when feel that kind of quit coming on? Simple. Never give up. But just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s easy. So here’s what you’re going to do when you feel that kind of quit coming on (and I’m going to say “you” but it’s really “we” because these are the things I’m going to do as well when I feel this kind of quit coming on!).

#1 – You’re going to read Evan Williams’ story in Founders At Work. When Evan was at Pyra Labs they ran out of money. He laid off the team (actually just stopped paying them). Everybody hated him. He worked alone for a year in what I can imagine were far from optimal conditions. And what happened next? He sold his product (a little thing called Blogger) to a hot start-up (a little company called Google). The rest is history. And I’m pretty confident there would be no Twitter today if Evan hadn’t persevered back in the day.

#2 – You’re going to read Paul Graham’s essay The Anatomy of Determination.

We learned quickly that the most important predictor of success is determination.

Got that? Not talent. Not intelligence. Determination. Thank your lucky stars you’re facing adversity. How the hell would you be able to show that you have what it takes to succeed if you weren’t?

#3 – You’re going to listen to Joe Liemandt’s story of the starting of Trilogy. Trilogy was dead. Dead as in $500,000 worth of credit card debt dead. But this story is a prime example of entrepreneurial will (even if it will likely make every financial advisor cringe). Joe and his team didn’t give up. They believed in what they were building and they had a vision for the future that they clung to even in the darkest of days.

#4 – You’re going to read the story of Steve Genter in Friday Night Lights. Genter was supposed to competed in the Munich Olympics in 1972. One small problem. His lung collapsed before the Olympics. He swam anyway. Without painkillers. You gotta read the whole story but if this doesn’t make you re-think quitting I’m not sure what will.

#5 – You’re going to watch Jimmy Valvano’s (the former basketball coach at NC State) speech at the 1993 ESPYs. At the time Jimmy was only 8 weeks away from dying of cancer. This speech is intense. Some of his closing words? “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.” (8:30 in)

#6 – You’re going to read the Three Feet from Gold story in Think and Grow Rich. Often when you’re faced with the prospect of giving up you’re simply three feet from gold. The world is full of people who were building what could have been the next Facebook or the next YouTube but stopped just a bit short. Don’t be one of those guys at the bar telling you the story of how he almost succeeded. Be the guy who gives it everything he has and has no regrets. Indeed, in your bleakest hour you’re usually three feet from gold.

#7 – You’re going to read this insanely cool collection of stories of people who simply did not give up. Reading through these almost makes you wonder if there has been anyone who has achieved something of lasting value who didn’t suffer rejection and defeat. My guess is that the number is pretty close to zero. Peoples’ failures often don’t get publicized but rest assured, pretty much anyone who’s ever risen to great heights has experienced more than a few Dark Nights of the Soul.

#8 – Finally, you’re going to realize watch the video below and realize that the greatest joys in life come precisely because you’ve been willing to go through the lowest of lows to get there. That’s exactly what makes them so sweet. One of my favorite professional athletes in Kevin Garnett (we had season tickets to Timberwolves games as kids). Kevin went through just about every form of hardship you can imagine. The Wolves sucked for years. Malik Sealy, one of his best friends on the team, was killed by a drunk driver (I was on the same road that same night so that one hit close to home).

All sorts of bad things happened. But he persevered. And last year he won his first NBA championship. Watch the pure joy:

That’s what you’re going to feel when you don’t give up. When you pull through and grow your company and get that big fat acquisition offer. When you ring the bell one day on the New York Stock Exchange. You’re going to remember those days when you wanted to give up and quit.

How sweet it’s going be.

When you get a little down on your luck (and we’re all there at some point in time), here’s a good little reading list (along with some comments) and a few videos for you. I tried to filter out the fluff on the subject (and there’s a lot of fluff on this subject!) and narrow it down to some articles with really quality advice. I think you’ll dig it.

Harnessing Entrepreneurial Manic-Depression: Making the Rollercoaster Work for You – Classic Tim Ferriss article. The part about timing your actions around when you’re feeling incredibly confident or less than confident is sage advice.

The Pmarca Guide to Startups, part 1: Why not to do a startup – This is the article that the Andreessen quote from the Ferriss article was from. It’s not necessarily going to make you feel anymore confident but rather will remind you that we all go through what you’re going through as entrepreneurs.

Some days things will go really well and some things will go really poorly. And the level of stress that you’re under generally will magnify those transient data points into incredible highs and unbelievable lows at whiplash speed and huge magnitude.

No truer words have ever been spoken.

The 21 Day Challenge Everyone Should Take – I liked this whole article but the “Realize you are going to die” part struck me particularly hard and reminded me of the Steve Jobs Commencement Address (embed at end of the post).

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

(full text here)

Ten Unusual Ways to Improve Your Appearance of Confidence That Really Work – A few of these were a little less than the best but I liked #1, #2 (who does that?!), #5 and #6. As with so much of this advice, it’s about trying stuff and seeing what works for you. But most definitely things like posture and exercise can do wonders for improving your mental state and your confidence.

How to Build Confidence and Destroy Fear – So much good stuff in this post. This quote alone was worth reading the article:

Remember that those times when you feel that your ideas aren’t good enough, or people are putting down on your ideas, or you’re getting fired — that these are the same ideas that you’re going to be celebrated for 30 years later. You almost have to have courage. — Francis Ford Coppola

Command a Room Like a Man – Apologies in advance to any women reading this blog (this is after all a post from a blog entitled “The Art of Manliness” ) but there are some good tips contained in here. The story about Teddy Roosevelt at 23 is classic as is the tip about taking control of your surroundings.

Al Pacino’s Inspirational Speech

Tony Robbins tells Rocky story

Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

Anything is possible. Go out and kick some entrepreneurial ass.

Came across this article today about California (via Mark Suster and Michael Schneider) and the lousy state (no pun intended) that we’re in: Will California become America’s first failed state? The article talks about people facing real problems. Stuff like high unemployment, spending cuts in health care and education and people losing their homes. You know…real problems.

And then I flip over to TechCrunch and started reading a few of the articles about the start-ups that are being covered and to be honest, I got a little nauseous. Before I say why I will say this. Mike Arrington and the TC crew have done more to support entrepreneurs than anyone else on the planet. And, as anyone who knows me will attest, I bleed entrepreneurship. I’ll do almost anything to help an entrepreneur in need. It’s not easy to be out there pursuing your dream and I get that. But here were the last few articles that were posted about start-up companies on quite likely the world’s most influential start-up blog.

Dropico Lets You Drag And Drop Pictures Across Social Networks

Birddi Is A Spanish Twitter Clone

Design Community Decorati Will Be Your Personal Interior Decorator

Sidebar Will Deliver Personalized Mobile Apps And Content To Your Phone

No disrespect at all to any of those start-ups but I do think it’s really, really important for all of us entrepreneurs to take a big step back and ask whether what we’re pouring our time and energy into is really solving the important problems. I’m certainly not the first person to write this. Tim O’Reilly has implored upon us to “work on stuff that matters.” And Umair Haque has been talking for years about the need to create thick value. And in fairness to TechCrunch even their own Sarah Lacy recently wrote her own “memo” to start-ups about changing the world (btw, definitely read this response to her memo).

But I think that’s kind of the problem here. We are way too focused on the incremental stuff, the stuff that will make our Facebook experience or Twitter experience marginally better. The next social game that can eek out a few more dollars in revenue or the next ad network that delivers a 2% better ECPM. None of those things are bad. It’s just that the opportunity cost of those things is very high. It means you’re not working on something that just might solve a really big problem. A real problem.

I’d love to see more entrepreneurs doing that and I’d love to see more people shining spotlights on the entrepreneurs who are. Where attention goes energy will flow. Just think of all the people who do whatever they can do to get on the latest crappy reality TV show. We need to give start-ups that are changing the world a bigger stage on which to share their ideas and products.

I’m an advisor for a tiny start-up called SocialEarth.org. They probably get a tenth of a percent of the traffic that TechCrunch does (if that). But what I love (love!) is that their articles are focusing on the right stuff. Whether they will succeed or not almost isn’t even the point. Whether eduFire helps change education for the better or not isn’t the point. The point is that trying to solve the world’s biggest problems or helping to empower the people who are (through writing about them, investing in them, etc.) is hands down the most important work on the planet. And we absolutely need more people, especially the world’s brightest and most energetic people, to take up the cause.

The only limits are the limits of our imagination.
Dream up the kind of world you want to live in.
Dream out loud. At high volume.
That’s what we do for a living.

-Bono before “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” from this amazing bootleg show in Dublin.

Couldn’t find anything embeddable but this is fairly close (from the same show):

Penny For Your Thoughts – Umair Haque from Sander Duivestein on Vimeo.

As I’m sure any entrepreneur would love to do, I’d give anything to step back in time 12 years and have a chat with my 21 year old self. And while I can’t do that I do love to share lessons with as many young entrepreneurs as I can. I’ve spoken a bunch at colleges and other organizations for young entrepreneurs. I love passing along lessons while realizing that my experience is far from complete and I have many lessons yet to learn. Still, here are 5 things I’d tell myself if I could step back to 1997 and take myself out for coffee (yes, I know that sounds strange…)

#1 – Take as much risk as you can as early in life as you can. My choice at the time was to either be an investment banker or start a company with some friends. Starting a company sounded way riskier. Which is the main reason why I think I took it. Yogi Berra may have said when you come to a fork in the road take it but I’d merely add when you come to a fork in the road take the riskier path.

I’m not talking stupid risks. But smart, calculated ones. Look, at some point in your life you’ll have kids and a mortgage and a spouse who might not be super understanding of your crazy business ideas. But when you’re young you usually don’t have any of those things. Which means you can swing for the fences. Please do so. I promise you won’t regret it.

#2 – Nail the fundamentals. There are things that you know you’ll likely be doing for the rest of your life. Reading, speaking, typing, etc. Get really good at those things when you are young. When you’re young you typically have a lot more time on your hands. My gosh, I think about all the thousands of hours I wasted when I was at college…

Take some of that time and use it to build skills that will make you more effective and productive the rest of your life. Learn to type faster (David Allen impressed upon me that this will save you thousands of hours during your lifetime). Practice various speed reading techniques (I’ll blog on that soon). Hone your speaking skills by doing something like Toastmasters. Later in life when you’re a busy executive and balancing running a company and raising a family you’ll have a lot less time to devote to this stuff. So nail these things when you’re young and you’ll benefit for your entire lifetime.

#3 – Surround yourself with people who expect you to succeed in a big way. Two quotes have had a tremendous influence on me in this area of my life:

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” -Jim Rohn

“The quality of your life is a direct reflection of the expectations of your peer group” -Tony Robbins

Simply put, if you want to succeed surround yourself with people who (a) are succeeding and (b) expect you to do likewise. That simple piece of advice will do more to put you on the path to success than anything else I can think of.

I’m lucky. I gained this awareness around the age of 27 or so. Some people don’t gain it until much later in life. Some people never do. If you can realize that at 21 you’ll be way, way ahead of the game. I think whether this means peers, mentors, etc. is less important. What’s most important is that the people you are around expect you to do big things with your life. That will serve like a tractor beam that literally pulls you towards some major accomplishments.

#4 – Follow your bliss. This phrase originates (I believe) with Joseph Campbell. It basically means do something your passionate about. OK, you’ve heard that advice a million times. But I think the turning point for me was when I was reading Keith Ferrazzi’s excellent book Never Eat Alone. In it, he talks about the concept of the “blue flame” which he defines as “a convergence of mission and passion founded on a realistic self-assessment of your abilities.” Then he goes on to describe Joseph Campbell’s blue flame.

After graduation, (Campbell) moved into a cabin in Woodstock, New York, where he did nothing but read from nine in the morning until six or seven each night for five years.

I’m not suggesting that you hole up in a cabin and read for five years but what I will suggest is that you should be able to, in the words of Steve Jobs, wake up and say to yourself if I was going to do what I’m about to do today for the rest of my life I would be insanely happy. Or, to put it in Campbell’s words:

“If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living.”

#5 – Give the big middle finger to the “good or bad opinion of others“. When you’re 21 people are going to tell you you should “build your resume”, “get a full year of experience with a big company” or (my personal favorite) “be a doctor or a lawyer” (apologies to all my doctor and lawyer friends…God bless you and the world most definitely needs you!). These people (often your family and closest friends) have good intentions. They want what they think is best for you. But while their advice often comes from a pure place it also is very often misguided.

The people who truly change the world often don’t care too much what people think of them. They may have an inner circle who they go to for advice but they are not about to let the opinions of most people sway them from their mission. This removal of the baggage that comes along with trying to win the approval of others frees up a tremendous amount of time and energy to focus in the direction of being who you truly are, not who someone else wants you to be. Because let’s face it, if you’re going into law/medicine/big corporate life/etc because you feel someone else wants you to do that, you’re not going to be happy. Nope, that’s not true. You’re going to be totally miserable. Across the board. No exceptions.

I was way too self-conscious at 21. Heck, I’m still way too self-conscious at 33. But I think the difference is that the older I get the more aware of that I am and the easier it is for me to let little bits of that go. Get started early on that in life and you won’t regret it. Plus, it makes life a whole heckuva lot more fun. By the way, if you want a cool exercise (one that I admittedly have yet to do) to help eradicate your self-consciousness try this one out from Tim Ferriss:

…simply lie down in the middle of a crowded public place. Lunchtime is ideal. It can be a well-trafficked sidewalk, the middle of a popular Starbucks, or a popular bar. There is no real technique involved. Just lie down and remain silent on the ground for about ten seconds, and then get up and continue on with whatever you were doing before.

Fantastic.

I hope you all enjoyed this and I would love (love!) to hear what you would tell your 21, 31, 41, whatever year old self. Fire away in the comments!!

Hey guys. Keep plugging away. Good things will happen. In this market, and as first-time entrepreneurs, I’d focus real hard on a model that gets you to cash-flow positive. Even if it’s sacrifices the long-term vision temporarily I think it’s a better play. Very few people are raising money these days and those that are are typically giving up huge chunks of equity. If you can get to a break-even model then you have the luxury of raising money or not and it becomes less about people buying into you and more about them buying into what you built (something that is usually preferable, especially in a down market).

And take this opportunity to soak up all the entrepreneurial wisdom you can. Read Founders At Work, Four Steps to the Epiphany, 1,000 Dollars and an Idea, etc. Listen to every episode of Venture Voice and Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders. Listen to some of them twice. Read every blog post on Venture Hacks and every essay Paul Graham has ever written. Subscribe to a bunch of blogs (like Eric Ries, Fred Wilson, Mike Speiser, Umair Haque, Marc Andreessen and Mark Cuban). Subscribe to more blogs than you can ever possibly read and then ruthlessly pare them down so you reading the best possible information you can. Figure out a way to get on TheFunded.com and read every single thing everyone there has written (and realize that a lot of it is crap of course! ).

And network relentlessly. Make it your mission to be the most connected people your age in your city. Get to know the VCs that are there to the extent that you can (even if you’re not actively seeking their money). Connect with other entrepreneurs, especially those who are older and have “been there, done that” before. Use the social nets like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to reach out to people and establish stronger relationships. And start blogging. That’s a great to connect to people and it helps you to refine what you’re passionate about and where you are world class. Connect to influential bloggers too. They’re the power brokers of this new world we’re moving into.

You guys are young. You’re already light years ahead of where I was at your age. And whether what you are doing now becomes a huge success or it doesn’t the most important is who you guys are becoming. Businesses come and go. But the stuff you learn now and the networks you guys build will be with you for the rest of your lifetime. And you’re in an incredibly fortunate position to be realizing that at a young age. Most people don’t figure that out until they’re in their 30s, 40s or later and they’re saddled with a mortgage and ton of credit card debt and they have families and then at that point there’s little chance they’ll step on the entrepreneurial treadmill.

So do all of that. Take as much risk as you can as early as you can. Put yourselves in positions where there’s a really good chance that you’ll fail. And learn, learn, learn. We’re moving into a world where the person who is learning 8/10/12/14 hours a day is at a huge advantage over the person who isn’t. The world is changing ridiculously fast right now and that’s to your advantage if you’re continually sharpening the saw. And there has never been a better time to do that. With blogs, podcasts, Twitter, more great books than ever. You are really in an absolutely amazing position.

If I can do anything else to help you guys out don’t hesitate to ask. If one day when you’ve just sold a massive company that changed the world you can tell me that my advice was 0.0000001% of what got you there then this email is totally worth it. But the other 99+% is out there right now waiting for you guys. So go out and soak it up. There is SO much opportunity out there. It has never been a better time in the history of the planet (dot com era INCLUDED) to start a company. And it’s most absolutely never been a better time to be young to get all this technology that’s changing the world faster than anyone realizes.

Hey, I hope you don’t mind but I’m going to post this email to my blog as well. Won’t reveal you guys of course, just want to see this shared with more peeps.

Keep rocking and keep on letting me how I can help!

Jon

And through all this economic death and destruction all I can do is offer two words:

Let’s go.

As this most excellent Paul Graham essay points out, it’s never been a better time to start a company.

As Umair Haque has been repeatedly sounding the gong, it’s never been a better time to remake capitalism.

Everyone morning that we wake up and flip on the tele and see the Dow down another 300 points (good news…there can only be 22 more of those days! ) we should thank our lucky stars that we’re alive during this time.  Because history tends to do a pretty good job of forgetting how we get ourselves into these messes and a fantastic job remembering, honoring and rewarding those who pull us out of them.

Where do we start?  A great place is the conditioning.  Each and every day we wake up and choose how we want to condition ourselves.  Want to feel fear and anxiety?  Easy…flip on the news. Read the paper.  You’ll hear plenty of reasons why you should be stuffing money under mattresses and clinging to that safe job (Advice: No job is safe in this economy or any economy.)

So start there.  Flip the conditioning.  Remind yourself and that you’ll be dead soon and truly have nothing to lose anyway. Remember that every inch is important and that the winners are the ones who fight for those inches. Never forget that the ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the only ones who do. Or do what I’ve done just about every time I feel myself getting a little off-center by the surrounding chaos and watch the Ted Kennedy’s Eulogy at RFK’s funeral.

I cranked through the remarkable book Brothers last week which chronicles the Kennedy brothers and their mission to change the world.  JFK and RFK were far from perfect but I think why they are so fondly remembered is their ability to rise to the occasion in times of immense challenge.  During the Cuban Missile Crisis we, according to Noam Chomsky in this chilling video, were one word away from terminal nuclear war.  That was what the Kennedys were dealing with.  Kind of puts the sub-prime crisis in a bit of perspective eh?

So step through that fear and realize that true leaders only surface in times of crisis.  And these my friends are those times.  And we’re so blessed to be exactly where we are.  We have the opportunity to do something remarkable right now. To change the planet in new and innovative ways. It won’t be easy. True and meaningful change never is.

It will mean casting aside some of the ways we’ve been living. Thinking really hard about stuff like consumerism and how we accumulated so much stuff. Taking a good long look at stuff like the education industry, the food ecosystem and health care and thinking about what we’d do if we were rebuilding them from scratch. You know, zero-base the heck out of them. And skip the bullshit conditioning that tells us that we’re not powerful enough to do that.

Instead surround yourself with the crazies. The people who know that anything is possible. The people who’ve done stuff that will blow your mind (keep repeating it, anything is possible). The people who would laugh at the notion that there’s such a thing as too high of a degree of difficulty. Immerse yourself in that. Bathe in it for a few weeks. Or months. Or the rest of your life.

So my apologies to Umair and Pavlina and Bruno and Brian and all the other people who I’ll likely channel in this blog.  You guys got brought me to this place. I owe you all an eternal debt of gratitude. And to the people who walk through the room from time to time. You know, the ones who will whisper in our ears if we’ll only listen. MLK. Gandhi. Nelson Mandela. I think if there were here they would all be saying pretty much the same thing to us at this very unique point in history.

Let’s go.