by tomnora | Apr 7, 2020 | Life Design
THINK!
Sometimes you just need to think. People do all kinds of things to avoid thinking. They procrastinate, rationalize, take a break, sleep, argue, whatever.
This is a form of Subconscious laziness.
You can Judge, Label, Belittle All so you don’t have to think. Too much of it going on these days.
The result is negative energy, slowing yourself down, when you need to Move Faster to accomplish your goals and move on other things.
Maybe you never so this, but most of us do once in a while. Try to catch yourself, retrain yourself.
The above was the result of a CEO training where we used stream of consciousness to try to quickly tackle a problem identified by the group. It evolved into a discussion about using defensiveness as a weakness when trying to manage difficult employees. Criticising people who work for you can be extremely damaging, and something they never forget.
by tomnora | Mar 22, 2020 | Reading / Writing
Books I’m Reading …Or, have read recently, with links to Amazon to purchase.
I’m on a binge of reading –– non-fiction and fiction books so far in 2020. The genres are all over the map but somehow seem to fit my mood(s). Here are some of my recent and current reads.
1. Memoirs, Autobiographies (Non-Fiction)
There seems to be a surge of personal memoirs right now by the famous and semi-famous. I’ve always like memoirs because they’re written by the subject and are condensed into a specific period of one’s life.
I find them to be very honest and eventually uplifting.
ADRIENNE BODEUR – WILD GAME –– MY MOTHER, HER LOVER AND ME.
Adrienne Bodeur is an accomplished writer in a long line of accomplished writers, including her mother. This book is Adrienne’s personal story growing up, with some almost unbelievable twists and turns.
She is forthcoming about her mothers and her own misdeeds while tangled in a decades-long secret love affair between her mother and her father’s best friend.
DAN PERES – AS NEEDED FOR PAIN
Wow, what a crazy story. Peres was running one of the hottest magazines in the world, DETAILS, while taking up to 60 oxycontin pills a day. He bares his truth with strong writing and brutal honesty about himself and everyone around him, but is a bit pompous in his accounting.
Often autobiographies by celebrities talk about their drug use, but this one is only about his drug use.
Nevertheless, an amazing read. You’ll enjoy this ride.
LIZ PHAIR – HORROR STORIES
What ever happened to her, the 1990s pop icon? Well it’s all in here. A very revealing and humble account of her life. She is Honest, original and absolutely remarkable in her confessional writing style.
2. Business (Non-Fiction)
Entrepreneurs, Solopreneurs, Silicon Valley
This is a topic I’m very interested in right now as I build a new brand for my work and writings called startupCEO Media. I’m realising that the definition of the startup CEO is changing, and in many cases small is better.
THE FOUR – SCOTT GALLOWAY
Galloway, a professor at NYU and very successful entrepreneur, has been a predictor of the downfalls of evil-doers in tech for years. He’s usually right.
In this book he tears apart 4 giant U.S. tech companies. – – – Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google. He gives awesome statistics and lays out why these companies need to be stopped, broken up, before they destroy our economy. As a major customer of 3 of these, it was hard for me to accept that they are such ruthless businesses, but very enlightening.
My Book:
TOM NORA – HACKING THE CORE
This was my first book, published originally in 2017, then updated this year (2nd Edition).
3. Fiction –– Epic Novels:
I’ve read a couple of very good novels recently, one that is probably the best book I’ve read in years.
DELIA OWENS – WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING
The most epic novel I’ve read in a decade is WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING by Delia Owens. I don’t usually read this type of book, I’m more into thrillers and stories about big cities. But man, this was an incredible story, and as a writer, I was fascinated with the extremely well crafted structure of this book. And it’s her first novel. Very inspiring.
It’s a story that takes place in rural South Carolina swamplands.
Books that inspired Delia when writing Crawdads.
I love reading real books made out of paper, but about half of the time I use a Kindle or iPad to read.
The Kindle is a pretty cool invention, and the cost is so low, starts at about $49 with internet access. I use the Kindle Oasis. It’s the top of the line $249 model.
Kindle Oasis
disclaimer: this page contains affiliate links.
by tomnora | Jul 26, 2017 | startup, startup CEO
(Photo by Wil Stewart on Unsplash)
Im my book HACKING THE CORE, I write about using Creativity and Innovation to help startup founders achieve that elusive goal – sustainable business growth, along with a few other things like profitability, a fun place to work, personal fulfillment.
That’s an oversimplification, but the idea is to expand your horizons, “think different” to enhance your chances for success as well as personal fulfillment along the way.
Innovate. Be creative. Discover something no one else has. Go where they’re not.
The book also talks about Wantrepreneurs and Cantrepreneurs. In my consulting work I can identify these types of people. They’re usually struggling, losing their company, walking backward towards the edge of a cliff, failing daily. Yet they’re unwilling to change their thinking.
Creativity and innovation don’t actually make sense to them in a practical application because it threatens their status quo. Deep down, change is bad to them.
Their brains are wired to do things their way – no matter what. Usually their way is to mimic someone else’s or their own successful tactics from the past. Crazy, right?
Every entrepreneur wants to innovate but some just can’t. Even in the face of doom and bankruptcy they can’t change. Another type of cantrepreneur.
They ask for help but only to help them do things their old way, and not to bring new innovation to the problem.
Why? Because that’s a threat to their self image, their power, their reputation as being the authority. Their position as the boss.
There are other people who are totally open to change, reinvention, pivoting, innovating, threatening their own beliefs, listening to others. These are the real entrepreneurs. They’re happy to be wrong. They have much better odds for success.
Which one are you?
Hacking The Core
by tomnora | Oct 26, 2014 | Angel Investor, early stage, founder, Hawaii, Revenue Growth, Scalability, startup, startup CEO, Tom Nora, venture
How is it that so many people associated with startups reap the financial benefits, yet others just as close get no financial upside This is a source of frustration among many people in the startup sphere. Imagine if you’re in Silicon Valley right now with no equity in a tech startup, but associated with several people getting six figure “bonuses” because they somehow wound up with some stock in one.
The free parties (or not free) and swag and great stories and boat rides in the bay are nice. Sometimes you’ll even score an iPad or Apple TV, but it’s not the same as being one of the insiders.
Often as startups grow and maneuver their way through the jungle of success or failure, they have a lot of help from those around them.
Often many these people don’t have any equity or upside from their advise or moral support or money lending, or even the spare couch they let you sleep on when you were in their town.
If the startup actually makes it to an IPO, there is actually something you can do.
It’s called the “Greenshoe”. You have to be very careful about this, you can’t imply or promise anything in advance, and it only works when the company goes public, but the Greenshoe is an amazing award for those involved that don’t have equity.
The Greenshoe is an over-allotment of stock options, up to 15% of the total offering at time of IPO. You can offer these options to virtually anyone, friends, family, people who helped your company. Since they’re options, acquirers only exercise if the stock goes up, and have no downside risk or capital outlay.
Upon the IPO event, the option owner can gain the upside if the stock goes up over the initial offering price and essentially collect that difference.
I’ve used it a few times when I was lucky enough to be able to offer it to friends and family. Strangely enough, some people have declined, because they’re not sure it’s legal; they’ve never heard of it. Others have bought themselves a new Lexus with it.
Here’s more info on wikipedia:
Greenshoe
The Greenshoe should provide motivation for all of us in the startup world to try to continuously build our company steadily, continuously and profitably and to know that you can make many peoples lives a little bit better by sharing the wealth. The rewards are pretty amazing.
Contact me at
#Web #Development #Digital #Strategy #Art| tomnora.com
by tomnora | Feb 20, 2014 | Angel Investor, Business Development, CEO Succession, early stage, founder, Hawaii, Launch, SaaS
Last week I witnessed again the difference between 2 people meeting in person compared all other forms of communication we currently employ.
It’s amazing to see the power of the connection between 2 people in proximity to each other. In the startup world, it seems to be winning over the bits and bytes style. I’ve discounted the value of face to face recently as much as anyone, leaning heavily on asynchronous electronic communication for much of my business and personal life, and even using broadcast communication (twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, email, …) to replace individual communications. But we all should rededicate ourselves to the face-to-face – the random, the first time, the networking, the required, the “have a good weekend”. Connecting on LinkedIn or FB is great but usually leads to few subsequent actual interactions. Apple’s face time is bridging the gap nicely, but still isn’t the same. Meetup.com and Eventbrite, founded on this principle of meeting in person as a response to too much Internet meeting, has helped to spawn, grow and change thousands of startups.
So, back to last week – at a startup mixer I was walking past someone headed to my seat, and we kind of got stuck in the crowd face-to-face. He had on a name tag, I didn’t. We couldn’t move. So he stuck his hand out to say hello, and we wound up talking for 10 minutes and definitely made a bit of a connection. We found several things we had in common, most people do. Since then we have met and emailed and referred business to each other, all from a semi-random meeting.
We never would have connected otherwise. If we saw each other on the street or lived on the same block we probably would just walk on by. So get out there, go to things that you like and are interested in. Barriers will melt. @tomnora
