Hasta La Gadget!

This picture represents several things, including hope, frustration, patience, understanding, persistence, faith, gratitude and love. My sister Patti was physically healthy but learning disabled as a teen. She completed a special program at NYU and became certified as a Teacher’s Aide in day care centers around Manhattan. She loved her work, loved caring for toddlers. They called her Miss Patti. She was very independent – commuted from New Jersey, lived on her own, paid her own bills. In 1989 she began falling, without warning. She lost her job, went from cane, leg braces, walker and by the mid-nineties was in a wheelchair, unable to walk, followed by loss of use of her hands, deterioration of her speech and swallowing. Patti was always a huge fan of Oprah and from early on in her degeneration, I tried bringing Patti to Oprah’s attention. I called, sent letters, even sent a personal journal book manuscript that Patti had written when she still had use of her hands. All efforts were answered with a polite declination. I explained to Patti that Oprah is approached by thousands, if not millions of people. In 2004 I took Patti to Chicago from Miami and we attended Oprah’s show, but no meeting happened. Then, in 2006, through Will Smith’s office I sent my book Kindsight to Oprah’s Chief of Staff, Libby Moore. Libby sent me a note of thanks, and then nothing. Six months later, on a quiet Sunday, my cell phone rang. “Hi Robert, it’s Libby Moore, Oprah’s Chief of Staff. I’ve been so busy but I finally picked up your book and have been crying for the past two hours. I love it. I want you to bring Patti and your Mom to Chicago to meet Ms. Winfrey.” It took fifteen years, but it was well worth the wait. Oprah made an impression on us that will last our lifetimes. She was gracious, attentive, caring, completely present and real. The smile on Patti’s face says it all.

robert@robertzuckerman.com
www.robertzuckerman.com

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Success is not final. Failure is not final. It is the courage to succeed that counts. – Winston Churchill.

I’ve failed more often than most people I know. I’m actually proud of that. It just means I’ve taken more risks and learned more along the way. Still, it doesn’t mean that learning is easy. On the contrary, learning is damn hard and admitting failure is even harder. But I believe that if we can admit to our mistakes, we can turn them into lessons that help us avoid them in the future.

It’s easy to take credit for our successes, attributing them to internal factors like hard work – that way we can talk ourselves into believing that we deserve it. But failures, well those we’d rather blame on external factors like luck. So for the purposes of personal growth and a desire to help others learn from my experience, I’d like to share what I consider to be my top 7 hard won lessons learned (to date) as an entrepreneur.

1. Don’t let failure make you less generous. I think of myself as a giving person, but at times, especially when my personal bank account suffered from company expenses, I found myself increasingly selfish. In only thinking about myself, I pushed business partners away and snuffed out good opportunities. Now I work to maintain my otherwise natural sense of abundance.

2. Step off the emotional roller coaster. I’m a passionate, enthusiastic person and that usually serves me well, but in the daily roller coaster of emotion that is entrepreneurship, it’s kicked the crap out of me. I’ve blown both my wins and setbacks out of proportion. It’s made me lose my even keel and that has caused me to run out of gas when I really needed it. Now I find passion in success, not just my ideas.

3. Don’t always react, but do listen. When people have told me that my products wouldn’t work, it just made me want it more. Entrepreneurs are contrarian by nature, but I found that not following other people’s advice shouldn’t mean not listening what they have to say. In reality, some of my products ended up being solutions looking for problems. Now I hear what trusted sources have to say and make adjustments accordingly.

4. Always believe in yourself. Rejection and entrepreneurship go hand in hand. You’re trying to do something new that most don’t yet understand. I used to take a lot of that rejection to heart and lost self-confidence along the way. Without confidence, things fall apart. Now I’m better prepared for the rejection and don’t take it so personally.

5. Be naive, but not too naive. To some extent, entrepreneurs need a little naiveté. Truly seeing the immense amount of work ahead causes most logical people to run the other way. However, too much naiveté and our assumptions are almost certain to crumble in the face of adversity. Now I invest a lot more in due diligence before diving head first into an industry.

6. Find a complementary partner. I’ve thrown myself at ideas and pushed relentlessly to make them a reality. In that process I’ve worked with several consultants, advisors and vendors, but not with enough true co-founders. For me, finding a great technical partner has been my biggest challenge. As I’ve ridden the emotional roller coaster of entrepreneurship, I’ve also wished that I had a partner that I could lean on when things seemed bleak. Now I don’t act like a cowboy and never go it alone.

7. Don’t lose your patience. I’d like to say that I’ve lost my patience, but the truth is that I’ve never had much to begin with. Looking at events only from my own perspective, I expected others to have my same sense of urgency, which they often do not have. There’s a fine line between determination and annoying the hell out of people. Now I see the line more clearly and am less likely to cross it again.

By no means is this list exhaustive! I’ve made plenty of other mistakes and learned a ton along the way. It’s true that entrepreneurship has sometimes challenged my otherwise positive thinking. Then again, realizing that we have challenges and having the courage to solve them is the very definition of optimism.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

By Ludwig Burger and Georgina Prodhan

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German drugs and crop chemicals group Bayer has offered to buy U.S. seeds company Monsanto for $62 billion in cash, defying criticism from some of its own shareholders in a bid to grab the top spot in a fast-consolidating farm supplies industry.

The unsolicited proposal, which includes debt, would be the largest foreign takeover by a German company if accepted.

The move, which would eclipse a planned combination of Dow Chemical and DuPont’s agriculture units, comes just three weeks after Werner Baumann took over as Bayer CEO, and was condemned by a major shareholder as “arrogant empire-building” when news of the proposal emerged last week.

Giving details for the first time, Bayer said on Monday it would offer $122 per share, a 37 percent premium to Monsanto’s stock price before rumors of a bid surfaced.

“We fully expect a positive answer of the Monsanto board of directors,” Baumann told reporters on a conference call, describing criticism from some investors as “an uneducated reaction in the media” when deal terms were not yet known, and driven by an element of surprise.

Monsanto, which said last week it had a received an approach from Bayer but gave no details, has yet to comment on the offer. The U.S. company’s shares jumped 9.5 percent to $111.17 in pre-market trading.

“UPPER LIMIT”

Global agrochemicals companies are racing to consolidate, partly in response to a drop in commodity prices that has hit farm incomes and also due to the growing convergence between seeds and pesticides markets.

ChemChina is buying Switzerland’s Syngenta for $43 billion after Syngenta rejected a bid from Monsanto, while Dow and DuPont are forging a $130 billion business.

With German rival BASF also looking into a possible tie-up with Monsanto, Bayer has moved to avoid being left behind.

Baumann rejected suggestions from some investors that Bayer should instead try to forge a joint venture with Monsanto, saying this would have tax disadvantages.

Sources close to the matter have said BASF is unlikely to start a bidding war with Bayer. BASF declined to comment on Monday. But analysts say Bayer might still have to pay more to persuade Monsanto and its shareholders to sell up.

That could be a problem, with some saying Bayer’s proposal, at 15.8 times its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization for the year ended Feb. 29, is already a stretch for the German company.

“The price that has now been disclosed is at the upper limit and it is just about economical. Should it rise further, which is to be assumed, the takeover will become increasingly unattractive,” said Markus Manns, a fund manager at Union Investment, Bayer’s 14th biggest investor.

Shares in Bayer, which had already fallen 14 percent since rumors of a bid emerged last week, dropped as much as 3.6 percent on Monday to a new 2-1/2 year low of 86.3 euros.

“VERY AMBITIOUS”

Bayer said it would finance the bid with a combination of debt and equity, primarily a share sale to existing investors. Equity would account for about a quarter of the deal value.

Equinet analyst Marietta Miemietz, who has a ‘buy’ rating on Bayer stock, said the extra debt appeared manageable but could limit Bayer’s ability to invest in its healthcare business, which some analysts think needs a boost to its drugs pipeline.

Baumann said Bayer would continue to develop its healthcare arm, which includes stroke prevention pill Xarelto and aspirin, the painkiller it invented more than a century ago.

“We are not feeding Peter by starving Paul here,” he said, adding no asset sales were planned to help pay for the deal.

Bayer also forecast synergies from a deal with Monsanto would boost annual earnings by around $1.5 billion after three years, plus additional future benefits from integrated product offerings – a reference to its push to combine the development and sale of seeds and crop protection chemicals.

Berenberg analysts, who have a ‘buy’ rating on Bayer shares, described the synergies estimate as “very ambitious”.

(Reporting by Maria Sheahan, Ludwig Burger and Patricia Weiss; Writing by Ludwig Burger and Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Edwina Gibbs and Mark Potter)

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

By Julia Skorcz

I can remember sitting on my friend’s couch in the seventh grade, the credits of How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days rolling quietly in the background as I asked my friend for the tenth time that night how she’d gotten her guy. And her first kiss. It happened for her at another friend’s birthday party, during a game of spin the bottle, and that night he’d texted her “Tonight was fun less-than-three [<3]."

And for the tenth time that night my own less-than-three felt like < / 3

In fact it would feel very much the same way for another five years. I was 17 when I had my first kiss as a junior in high school and although I’d been envisioning that moment for years, it was nothing like I expected. We’d been watching Anchorman with a good six inches between us while the other couple in the room had progressed well beyond the first kiss stage of their relationship and were too busy to notice our nervous glances from each other to them to Will Ferrell, and back to each other. At one moment our foreheads hit and in the next we were kissing. Simultaneously better and more awkward than I ever could have dreamed of, I drove home from my then-boyfriend’s house with a huge smile on my face, but a slight pang of disappointment in my less-than-three. That was it.

In the following three years I spent with said then-boyfriend, I both cherished the fact that I’d only ever kissed a single person and wondered if I’d ever get that butterflies-in-the-stomach, “Oh my god what is happening??” feeling again. Every love song about kisses I’d ever listened to only concerned the first ones, and after I ended that three-year relationship I didn’t know whether my kisses had risen or fallen in stock value, so I waited.

Having only experienced a first kiss followed by a three-year relationship, I wasn’t sure I wanted to waste another first on a guy I didn’t know as well or who might not be interested in a long-term relationship. Lots of girls can kiss casually with no strings attached, but not me. I figured at 20 years old I should be more comfortable with the notion of kissing (it wasn’t my virginity, for goodness’ sake!), but I feared my next first kiss would carry both too much or too little meaning and so still I waited.

By some eerie coincidence, my second first kiss occurred almost four years to the day of my first first kiss. Instead of taking place in a boyfriend’s basement, this kiss happened in a college apartment with two bottles of Stella on the coffee table and a B-rated horror film playing in the background. Knowing for the vast majority of the movie that the kiss would happen before the end credits rolled, I suddenly found myself back in seventh grade wondering what exactly this experience would be like.

Would he kiss the same as my ex? Where would he put his hands? We were in college, so did that mean tongue was expected the first time around? Shirts on or off? Was the movie too corny? Should I have reapplied deodorant? Should he?

But just like junior year, it happened too quickly for me to analyze in the moment. All I knew is that our mouths were touching, the butterflies were back, we weren’t dating, and this was wonderful.

Of course my first reaction was to compare this kiss to those I’d shared with my ex-boyfriend. This guy was thinner, more toned, and less hair to run my hands through. He also didn’t seem to get that curly hair has more knots in it than meets the eye, so there were a few awkward interjections when I’d say “Ouch! Yeah, you pulled my hair. No, just a little. It’s fine.” He also smiled more, touched my face, and agreed when I said, “Well, that was nice.”

The best part about it, however, was that I didn’t know what to expect. Not before, not in the moment, not after. We were just two people getting to know each other, and that was exciting! This kiss was filled with the same curiosity as my last first kiss and the same hesitation as before. The rules of the game hadn’t changed (OK, well, shirts did come off this time), but kissing someone new was a thrill in itself.

No one talks about the second, third, or fiftieth first time they kiss someone or hold someone’s hand, or even stutter an embarrassed “Hello” to a new crush. Why is it the first firsts get all the attention? I promise you, darlings, nothing’s lost with an old or ended relationship. There are so many beautiful, confusing, awkward moments that will make your less-than-three beat faster than you thought it could after so many years. Let’s celebrate those moments, too.

Originally posted on Literally, Darling, an online magazine by and for twenty-something women, which features the personal, provocative, awkward, pop-filled and pressing issues of our gender and generation. This is an exact representation of our exaggerated selves.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

More and more people are moving away from traditional landline phones and going to mobile phones only. The problem for families that do this is that kids can’t always use a smartphone unsupervised and sometimes older people either have a hard time using a smartphone or simply aren’t interested in one. A new smart home phone called Ily has hit … Continue reading