Category: Entrepreneur

  • #1 Secret to Selling Effortlessly

    #1 Secret to Selling Effortlessly

    This morning I did my usual routine of going to the gym.   Except it was anything but usual. Here I was, on the stationery bike, doing my normal intense 30-minute ride, so engrossed in beating my previous time on the bike that I didn’t notice the two people in business suits standing there.  Nor did…

  • How to Break Out of the Financial Rat-Race

    How to Break Out of the Financial Rat-Race

    Today I read an article written by a woman who spent her professional career taking care of the elderly just before they died. Helping them prepare for death. In these last weeks of life they would go through any combination of these emotional experiences: denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. She found…

  • Top 10 UnReasonable Business Strategies for 2012

    Monday evening I was getting increasingly nervous as I saw the 21 entrepreneurs’ faces turn from excitement to dread.  The guest speaker was on stage telling my students why being an entrepreneur really sucks! And Gary meant it. Gary Whitehill, a good friend, is one of the top entrepreneur advocates in New York.  His rapid…

  • How to Be Successful as a Creative Entrepreneur

    Throughout his entire life he felt he fooled the world into thinking he was special.  In fact he was dumbfounded that people actually cared anything about his personal life. Even after he had received the Nobel Prize, was considered the second most popular and trustworthy man on the planet in the ‘30’s, a key creator…

  • Are You Raising Capital For Your Company? Who’s Your Lead Investor?

    Are You Raising Capital For Your Company? Who’s Your Lead Investor?

    I felt like a little kid waiting for that letter from Santa. I kept checking the mailbox. A few days earlier I completed the legal terms and amount from my first investor for my newest company, the Shift Group. My investor told me he was sending the check and our contract in the mail. More…

  • What to Do When You’re Totally Out of Ideas?

    What to Do When You’re Totally Out of Ideas?

    Even before I opened my eyes, I knew I was screwed. Opening them only confirmed it.  The guy I was traveling with had drugged and robbed me of everything I had. I was in a dangerous city in a foreign country, didn’t speak the language and now with no passport, travel visa or money. And…

  • How To Stay Focused On the Important Stuff

    How To Stay Focused On the Important Stuff

    Last Friday, I sat among others in the waiting room of an incredible organization that helps people with hearing loss. The Center for Hearing and Communication is a century-old not-for-profit that has been instrumental in helping me hear and relearn to communicate after my near-death experience in 2002. Disturbing the quiet of patients waiting to…

  • Six Green Movers and Shakers of New York City’s Startup Scene

    Six Green Movers and Shakers of New York City’s Startup Scene

    Entrepreneur magazine compiled a list highlighting thirty movers and shakers of New York City’s startup scene. How many of their startups are green? If you take a look through the list you will find six movers and shakers who are behind green startups. I’d like to give them special attention. Of the “The Hot 30…

  • Knowing When Your Business Strategy Isn’t Working

    Knowing When Your Business Strategy Isn’t Working

    In late February Trayvon Martin, a 17-year old black male, was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old Hispanic, in Central Florida. And while recent evidence suggests Zimmerman did not act in a racially-motivated way, this tragic story has our nation up in arms yet again over the issue guns and race. Zimmerman claimed…

  • Building the Right Support Team

    Building the Right Support Team

    I was nervous as I rounded the corner heading to John Jay Criminal School of Justice in NYC last week. I was invited to mentor and coach a group of 30 or so entrepreneurs just completing a major part of their training. But these weren’t just any entrepreneurs. These were men who completed serving 1-20…