Jun 16

This Is What Most People Get Wrong About Entrepreneurship

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What do you see as current trends, issues, or challenges in entrepreneurship? originally appeared on Quora – the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.

Answer by Gary Vaynerchuk, Entrepreneur, Investor, and Best-Selling Author, on Quora:

A huge issue with the current entrepreneurial landscape is that people don’t realize you can’t just wake up and decide to be an entrepreneur. There’s been a recent over-promise of what business success looks like. It’s causing people to lose out when they try to “go for it” and is blinding them to the opportunities that are actually right for them. This issue leads to a larger conversation we need to have about self-awareness and what defines success. For example, I really want to be the quarterback for the NY Jets. But, I’m realistic that no matter how hard I work, it won’t make up for the fact that don’t have the DNA or the skills to play in the NFL. Too many people lack this self-awareness when it comes to what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur.

There’s a recent trend in society that anyone can start, own, and operate a successful business. Movies, television, and the media make it look easy to become the next Mark Zuckerberg or get funding for the next “big idea.” The truth is that it’s not–it takes a lot of hard work and talent to achieve that level of success and be the CEO of a business. Everyone is too romantic about who they want to be instead of looking at the reality of who they are. Everyone believes that they can be a successful entrepreneur or business person, when the reality is that these people would be more successful as the number two, three, or four positions at a company.

What people lack is self-awareness in the business and entrepreneurial space. There are a lot of people who were good students and are built to be great “fours” and “sevens.” But right now, because of all the “entrepreneurship” talk, a lot of these “fours” and “sevens” are trying to start their own companies and raise VC money.

This becomes a problem because being a “one” requires a level of grit that’s not taught in school. It has to be in your DNA. When you try to be a “one” after a life of winning in a structured system, you’re entering into a marketplace that you are probably unprepared for. When you aren’t born a true-bred entrepreneur, you don’t have the stomach to deal when the market says, “Screw you.” It takes self-awareness to understand if you should go for it or not.

We need to start recalibrating our expectations of what success looks like because a lot of people are going to be disappointed when they are not able to reach what they consider to be “successful.” It’s too common for people to think that success is defined by making or raising millions of dollars. But in reality, making $155,000 a year is massively successful. It puts you in the top 10% of earners in the United States. The entry level for the top 1% earners in America is only $430,000 a year. I said “only” because so many people are going in with the mindset of $1 million or bust. What has happened is that the branding of entrepreneurship has forced us to become very impractical–it’s portrayed to be a low risk, high return narrative.

Our current culture disseminates that if you’re not a number one, a business owner, or making millions you’re not a “success.” This is a huge issue and we need to start having real conversations about these expectations. We just lived through the Golden Era of fake entrepreneurs. People claimed they were entrepreneurs, when they were actually just average operators. They’ve built financial arbitrage machines predicated on raising the next round, not businesses that will be around for generations to come. We’ve inflated what it means to be successful in business and the media has disrespected how much time, money, and grit it actually takes to get there.

Watch this video for more depth on reframing the entrepreneurial conversation.

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Jun 16

British Lawmaker Jo Cox Dies After Attack

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LONDON (Reuters) – Jo Cox, a lawmaker for Britain’s opposition Labour Party, has died after she was attacked on Thursday, police said.

Cox, 41, was attacked as she prepared to hold a meeting with constituents in Birstall near Leeds.

 

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Jun 16

Young Liberians Call for Education on Day of the African Child 2016

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By Moses Owen Browne Jr., A World At School Global Youth Ambassador

On 16 June 1976 Hector Pieterson was shot during a peaceful demonstration in South Africa about the imposition of the use of Afrikaans and English in schools. He was 13 years old. Forty years later, we mark this day – The Day of the African Child – by encouraging young people to step forward and speak up about the issues that affect them.

I believe education can change the world, no matter what. Education can take us into the future that we long dreamed of. What matters most to me is training, teaching and mentoring young people so they can be active creators of the future they want.

A World at School has laid the foundation for real-time advocacy in the 21st century. A World at School provides the tools and creates the platform and modules we need as young education advocates to take our destiny into our own hands. I am passionate about education and this unique organization inspires me to continue to support my fellow young people, street children and out of school kids to see education as the only way forward from poverty and discrimination.

We can no longer sit back and watch millions of children perish in poverty without an education; we must use this day to reecho our calls for governments around Africa to prioritize education.

The Ebola outbreak in Liberia was a great challenge for not just the government, communities and teachers but also national and international organizations responding to the epidemic. Education was one of the forgotten casualties of the Ebola outbreak, like in so many emergencies around the world. Many students have not returned to the classroom since Liberia was declared Ebola free in late 2015. This is in part due to the trauma of loss and greater poverty – many lost their parents and guidance and now lack the financial capacity to restart school so they ending up at work instead.

The education system in Liberia was weak even before the Ebola outbreak, with more than 70% of our schools destroyed during the country’s bloody civil war, and most school going children were denied the opportunity of acquiring basic education and enrolment. Liberia’s Poverty Reduction Strategy papers of 2008 note that many of our teachers were killed and others fled to exile in fear of being killed in the war.

Liberia’s existing schools are in a perilous state. More than half of the country’s schools have no water supply and 43% lack working toilets. Where there are toilets, one is often shared by more than 100 pupils. With nearly 60% of children never attending school, Liberia stands as the second worse country in the world for the percentage of children not in education. The challenges are obvious, yet our government contributes a pitiful 10% to education when the target for public spending on education 20%.

We must therefore mark the Day of the African Child in 2016 for young people to call for action against this terrible neglect for education, their futures, and the future of Liberia. We will be using this moment to echo young voices, and call on the government to ensure that young people are protected, and their needs are prioritized.

This year we will also focus specifically on the need to protect children’s education in the aftermath of an emergency like Ebola. In partnership with It Takes A Village Africa this Thursday we will be celebrating with a number of events to help raise youth voices. We will host speeches from high school students on education in emergencies and diverse performances including dramas, dance and refreshments.

We will Parade through the principle streets of Monrovia to the capitol building and present the #SafeSchools petition calling for the government in Liberia to support the Education Cannot Wait Fund and increase their contribution to the overall education budget. This day will present a platform for awareness-raising and calling for the national government’s attention to the plights of all children, especially for education in emergencies.

I believe we have a massive opportunity to make a difference for every single child, beginning with the education systems in Africa. This is the time for us to take decisive steps and shoulder the responsibility for educating our children.

—

Funding from the players of the People’s Postcode Lottery has enabled Theirworld to expand its Global Youth Ambassador programme across Africa. A World at School Global Youth Ambassadors are a network of young people campaigning in their schools, communities and countries for action to get every child into school and learning.

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Moses Owen Browne Jr. is an A World At School Global Youth Ambassador who has used his experience to garner the support of both the government of Liberia and the private sector in support of global education. He has met Liberia’s Education Minister and been able to engage other government officials, including the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection to join in the cause for education.

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Jun 16

Ten nonprofits called out for breaking political spending cap

Posted in: Today's Chili

by Emma Baccellieri

2016-06-16-1466094341-5892756-nonprofit.jpg
Democratic operative David Brock now runs CREW, the organization that has filed suit against 10 dark money groups. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)

Even with a tax status that says “social welfare group,” a nonprofit organization’s spending record can still reveal plenty of political activity.

Sometimes too much. Ten politically active nonprofits are the subject of new civil complaints filed with the IRS by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a left-leaning watchdog group based in D.C. and run by Hillary Clinton ally David Brock. All 10 are 501(c)(4) organizations, a tax designation for “social welfare” nonprofits that aren’t required to disclose their donors. And all 10, according to the complaints, violated rules that bar (c)(4) groups from devoting more than 50 percent of their resources to political activity.

Nine of the 10 groups used their political spending to support Republican candidates in races for governorships, Senate seats and other offices. CREW also filed criminal complaints accusing six of the 10, calling on the FBI and Department of Justice to investigate whether the groups lied to the IRS.

Uncovering this duplicitous behavior can be difficult, noted Paul S. Ryan, deputy executive director of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. Nonprofits are not required to file their Form 990s — their tax paperwork — until long after the spending in question has occurred. And with lax enforcement by the government and hazy definitions in the law, many groups appear to push the envelope when it comes to trying to influence elections.

“The whole reason we’ve seen an explosion of use and abuse of 501(c)(4) organizations is that they don’t have to disclose where they’re getting their money,” Ryan said. “We’re not seeing effective enforcement, so it’s tough to know how much illegal activity’s going on. But the sense is that there’s a lot, and that the amount of illegal activity by 501(c)(4)s has been growing.”

In December, OpenSecrets Blog analyzed the political activity of 24 nonprofit groups that exceeded this 50 percent spending limit between 2008 and 2013. The 10 nonprofits cited by CREW Wednesday appear to have engaged in many of the same spending practices as the groups we examined then.

Some have used “attributable spending,” which involves making grants to other nonprofits that then use the money for political activity. Many have sponsored “issue ads” that they classify as educational rather than political by virtue of the fact that they do not directly call on viewers to vote for a specific candidate — though they often call out candidates by name and reference their track record on various subjects.

Most of the 10 groups are registered in states that haven’t been the focus of their spending. For instance, the Legacy Foundation Action Fund is a 501(c)(4) based in Iowa that concentrated its spending on the Nebraska Senate race, benefiting Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), and the Arizona gubernatorial race. The group spent more than $700,000 on these races, or 69 percent of its total spending. Similarly, the American Dream Initiative is based in Virginia, but the bulk of its outlays — more than $500,000, or 83 percent of its total spent — went to the Texas gubernatorial race. The name of the group’s executive director might ring a bell: Dan Backer, the campaign finance lawyer behind the 2014 McCutcheon v. FEC Supreme Court decision.

Another of the 501(c)(4) organizations spending all of its political money out of state is the Jobs and Progress Fund, which is based in Ohio. It admitted giving nearly $1.8 million (or 56 percent of its total spending) to super PACs supporting Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) in his 2014 race. Jobs and Progress Fund has been linked to another one of the nonprofits listed in the complaints, the Mid America Fund, an Ohio group whose spending in the 2014 Illinois governor’s race was the subject of an OpenSecrets Blog report last February. And there’s a Jobs and Progress fund link to yet another of the nonprofits cited in the complaints: James Nathanson, one of the founding members of Jobs and Progress, is currently the executive director of Freedom Vote, which devoted nearly 61 percent of its spending to backing Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) in his 2014 primary, CREW alleges. Freedom Vote is notable not just for where its money went, but also where it came from. The group received contributions from some of the country’s largest politically active conservative nonprofits, including Crossroads GPS and American Action Network.

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Jun 16

Meet The Man Replacing Lin-Manuel Miranda In 'Hamilton'

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History has its eyes on you, Javier Muñoz.

On Thursday, “Hamilton” maestro Lin-Manuel Miranda announced that July 9 will mark his final performance (for the time being) as the titular founding father in the stage production, reports The Associated Press. Miranda originated the role in 2015 at the Public Theater, before the musical transitioned to Broadway to become an international phenomenon, earning a slew of Tonys in the process. 

Replacing Miranda is his “Hamilton” alternate, Muñoz, who plays the lead role twice a week at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. Muñoz also took the reins from Miranda when he departed his first production, “In the Heights.” 

He will begin regularly playing Alexander Hamilton on July 9. 

But fear not Hamiltonians! Miranda made sure to emphasize that just because he’s taking some time off, it doesn’t mean he’s throwing away his shot. 

“I think this is a role I’m going to be going back to again and again. I plan to revisit this role a lot,” he said, according to USA Today. 

Miranda played coy, however, when asked whether the rest of the cast plans to stay on after his departure, telling reporters that he “wouldn’t begrudge anyone who moved on” and  “wouldn’t begrudge anyone who chose to say.”

The five-time Tony award winner went on clear up some confusion about the shake-up on Twitter Thursday morning in his signature poetic style. In seven tweets, he broke down what fans of the musical can expect for the future and urged everyone to keep calm and “Ham” on.

Read his tweets below: 

Understood? 

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Jun 16

Elastigirl: SuperMom Survives Summer

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The interesting thing about being a mother is that everyone wants pets, but no one but me cleans the kitty litter. – Meryl Streep

2016-06-13-1465823191-8203113-Elastigirl.jpgMy 11-year-old daughter, Haley is playing Jingle Bells on the piano. It’s been less than a week since the girls schlepped their backpacks home stuffed with months of worksheets, book reports quizzes, science projects, a clay pinch-pot (penny holder? soap dish?), and a smashed cupcake from the last-day-of-school party.

There are no buses to catch this morning and at 9:00 a.m. they’re still in pj’s.

Sydney, my almost 15-year-old daughter sits eating at the breakfast table, but her steady, methodical routine is disrupted by the percussive volume coming from the front room. Sydney, who has Down syndrome, is sensitive to sensory input, and her sister’s over-the-top decibel level renders her nearly unable to enjoy her cereal. As for me, I can’t even hear myself think.

“Haley!” I yell, “It’s June, for heaven’s sake. Play something else.” Sending my grandmother’s antique piano stool spinning, she jumps off and comes sliding into the kitchen.

“I’ve got the Power!” she sings loudly, growling the word power and adding a kick and a punch for emphasis.

Dancing around and under my feet as I move from fridge to sink to coffee pot, she belts, “I’ve got the Power! I’ve got the Power! I’ve got the Power! I’ve got the POWER!”

Where she heard the 1990 Eurodance hit by Snap! I do not know, but she’s got the hook line down.

“Ha-ley. You’re annoying me.” Sydney says quietly. “Your . . . singing. You are, you are giving me . . . a headache.”

“I’ve got the Power! I’ve got the Power! I’ve got the Pow-ow-ow-ow-er!” Haley scoots undeterred out of the room. Sydney sighs and slaps her forehead.

In preparation for summer fun with my girls, I cut back my hours at my job, figuring I could work some from home and still have time to indulge in all the recreation we’d been missing.

My fantasies consisted of less routine and more freedom, less busy-ness and more time together, less time spent working and a whole lot more spent playing. But that was before summer actually started.

You’d think I would know better by now. This ain’t my first rodeo. With two older kids, 29 and 27, grown and long out of the house, I’ve had plenty of practice at navigating summer vacation. Truth be told, I am a psychotic mommy; a June Cleaver meets Joan Crawford version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The fact that only my children are capable of triggering this instantaneous shape-shifting is oddly comforting and disturbing at the same time.

My youngest, in particular, with her brilliant mind and astounding zest for life, pushes my buttons, and is (coincidentally?), like me; multi-dimensional. Living with ADHD, she is challenged by impulsivity, inattention and hyperactivity. While Sydney needs time to process, lots of repetition and a slower pace, her sister needs fast-paced stimulation, a high level of structure and detailed feedback.

Living with Haley is like living inside a pinball machine; a jarring barrage of sounds, words and thoughts. Continually absorbing her environment, what she takes in, she remembers forever after. When she was 5 she said, “I have a camera in my head,” a perfect way to describe her photographic memory. Her brain fires rapidly and her mouth interpolates a running narrative.

“How do you make your own fossil?”

“Is wood a plant?”

“Why do we say 9 ‘oh’ 4 instead of 9 ‘zero’ 4?”

“Are there questions scientists can’t answer?”

“What’s bigger, galaxies or the universe?”

“What about a ‘multi’-verse?”

Incessant, perpetual, talking, questioning, exploring and exclaiming, Haley is compressed energy.

Sydney tries to interject between the words, but it takes her longer to get her sentences out, “Um, Mom? Mom? Um, am I going to Camp Barnabas on June 17th?”

“Yes,” I answer for the 700th time, “you are.”

Sydney is needy for attention because her sister commands it all.

“Ha-ley! Stop! Mom, I didn’t get to talk. She’s talking across me.”

Managing the lives of not one, but two, children with special needs–diametrically opposing needs, and talents–has made me the crazy mom I am today.

I vow this summer will be different. This summer I will NOT find myself turning green and ripping my clothing to shreds.

But, I need a plan. If, when putting away freshly folded laundry in the girls’ bathroom, I find mildewing towels on the floor piled on top of discarded dirty clothes, globs of toothpaste on the counter, and a specimen floating in an un-flushed toilet bowl, I will pause. If I sense the start of a familiar chemical reaction, the adrenaline surge through my body that threatens an uncontrollable urge to scream until my throat is raw, I need to STOP. I need to Breeeeeeeathe. I need to Stay. In. Control.

But, how? That is the million-dollar question.

Being with my kids 24/7 reminds me that there is only one time they drive me nuts, and that’s when I’m with them 24/7.

One strategy is to keep moving, to keep us booked solid, day after day and frequently into the nights. My Google calendar loads up, the pretty colorful blocks of appointments and events and practices and play dates filling up each day. Keep moving. Yesterday we made it to swim practice (almost on time), picked up milk, dish soap and a birthday present at the store, had a friend over to play and went to the library. I managed to get dressed, but I think I forgot to brush my teeth. I can’t stop or even slow the pace of our doing, because, at that moment, sensing weakness, they will circle for the kill. Channeling Dori, my mind repeats, ‘just keep swimming, just keep swimming.’

Realistically, though I can’t keep up that kind of pace and honestly, I don’t want to. I crave down-time and I will get it, even if it’s forced on me by exhaustion. And they need down-time, too. Relaxing at the pool seems the perfect strategy. The kids can swim and Mommy can lie in the sun; it’s a win-win! However, another mother has messed with my plans this year; Mother Nature.

It’s been a cold, rainy spring in Mid-Missouri but despite the temperatures and weather alerts for thunderstorms, floods, and even a tornado watch, swim team practice has been held. The little troopers sit at the edge of the pool, shivering and hugging themselves; their lips blue, teeth chattering. The other day the sun broke through the clouds for 5 glorious minutes, then, a crack of thunder, and down came the rain. Again.

My last and best strategy is to simply let go. Surrender. Give in, but not give up. Go with the flow.

Flexibility is the mother’s F-word.

It feels like a relief to embrace the fact that things won’t go as I’ve planned. There’s an elusive truth somewhere in the back of my mind waiting to hand me the key to the best summer yet. Like I said, I should know better by now, and maybe I actually do.

As I renegotiate my expectations, time for myself mustn’t be excluded; the wise woman in me says, ‘neglect your own needs repeatedly, dismissively, and mercilessly and, without fail, you will crash and burn.’ Prioritizing time alone is worth any effort it takes. Plus, my pampered princesses need to learn that everything is not always about them; that their desires need to be balanced with others’, including their beloved mother. And for me, space from my little darlings can be the difference between me being SuperMom or Mommy Dearest, the difference between me merely surviving the summer or relishing it.

My house won’t be as clean, the to-do list won’t get checked off, but I’ll be rested and happy and appreciating my children, who won’t ever be this young again.

I notice the singing has stopped. Suspicious, I look up from the email I’m working on to see Haley coming towards me.

“Mom, can I borrow your kickboxing wraps to make something?”

Because of her tendency to rip through drawers, closets, and cupboards, leaving destruction in her wake, she has been told and warned and threatened to ask permission before she commences digging.

“Okay,” I say, looking back to my computer, “but only one pair.”

As she starts to move, I look up at her, peering over my reading glasses, “And I will get them for you.”

Sheepishly, she says, “I already got them.”

She lifts her whole leg and sets her heel heavily on the coffee table, revealing a makeshift cast, my white wraps wound and Velcro-ed over her foot, around her ankle and all the way up to her knee.

“I broke my tibula and fibula. Can you show me how to limp?”

Eventually, the sun has to come out, right?

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Jun 16

Today's Best Deals: Your Favorite Anker Gear, 6-in-1 Tool Set, and More

Posted in: Today's Chili

Your favorite Anker gear, a versatile tool set, and a fantastic $18 showerhead lead off Thursday’s best deals.

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Jun 16

A Lot of People Were Involved in Making Game of Thrones' Humongous New Battle

Posted in: Today's Chili

HBO might not want to release an absurdly vague synopsis
for the next episode of Game of Thrones, but they would like you to know that the big bastard-y brawl between Jon Snow and Ramsay Bolton duethis weekend happened because of a ton of people’s gruelling work.

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Jun 16

Zika Can Cause Birth Defects Even If Mothers Show No Symptoms

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A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that Zika-infected women who are in their third trimester have virtually no chance of having children with microcephaly. Troublingly, the same study shows that women who exhibit no symptoms can still give birth to babies with brain abnormalities.

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Jun 16

Well, the American Gods Show Is Looking Pretty Much Perfect

Posted in: Today's Chili

We’ve been hearing about American Gods’ excellent casting choices
for a while now, but now we can see a few of them in action—new images have been released giving us our first look at Mr. Wednesday, Shadow Moon, and a memorable location from the book to boot.

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