Showing posts tagged success
Books I’ve read this year…
I have never been a big reader but this year I set a goal to read a book a month. This has been a daunting undertaking for me considering I’ve never read but a handful of books my entire life that weren’t required for school.
Since December I’ve read…
- Linchpin: Are you Indispensable? - by Seth Godin
- I Will Teach You To Be Rich - by Ramit Sethi
- The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal - by Ben Mezrich
- Inside Steve’s Brain - by Leander Kahney
- Unleashing the Ideavirus - by Seth Godin
- Making Ideas Happen - by Scott Belsky
- Emotional Intelligence 2.0 - by Travis Bradberry
- Outliers - by Malcom Gladwell
- The Tipping Point - by Malcom Gladwell
- The Facebook Effect - by David Kirkpatrick
Next up (in no particular order)…
- The Rise and Fall of Bear Stearns - by Alan Greenberg
- The Four Steps to the Epiphany - by Steven Gary Blank
- Actionable Web Analytics - by Jason Burby, Shane Atchison, Jim Sterne
- The Perfect Store: Inside eBay - by Adam Cohen
Check out my shelf on Shelfari.
Apple II to iPhone 4
33 years ago from today, Apple shipped the first Apple II. I’m super excited for my iPhone 4, but what will dwarf it 33 years from today?
Oguchi Onyewu - Strides towards greatness
I read an article today about an abnormal (maybe unprecedented) but admirable career move by a professional soccer player named Oguchi Onyewu (originally from Washington, DC). I am not a soccer fan or a huge sports fan but his decision today struck me as one that could be made by anyone, no matter what line of work they are in.
His world is unfathomable by most people. Soccer clubs (AC Milan in his case) pay their players tens of millions of dollars to play ball; more than most athletes in the US. Players like Ronaldinho and Beckham have consistently been among the highest paid athletes in the world the past few years; above any NFL or MLB player. Oguchi was reportedly making upwards of $8 million. However, he will not be making that or anything close to it this year.
Oguchi most likely won’t be making any money this upcoming year. He was injured last October and has been rehabbing his leg ever since. The reason he won’t be making any money isn’t because he’s injured, but because he was going to be let go. “By his choice…he asked not to receive any kind of salary.” Sounds ludicrous at first, but not when you think deeper into it.
Playing for a team like AC Milan is a dream. If taking a pay cut will allow him to stay on the team and prove that he can add value, then it’s worth it for him, and the team in the long run to let him do so. And let’s face it, he probably isn’t hurting for money at this point.
I commend him for his forward looking gesture. Think about this situation for somebody who is not a professional soccer player or athlete. Would you ever do this? I like to think that I would if the situation were similar. He could go somewhere and make some money and have an ok career, or he can be part of something extremely special and historic. He needs to sacrifice one year of pay (which he can afford to do) for the opportunity to be part of history and then potentially make more money than ever before. I’d like to think that if I were part of something that I believed in, something that was truly special, that I would make the same sacrifice all because I believe that much in myself. I think this was an act by an extremely successful being because you know he has the belief and the will-power to make himself as great as he can possibly be. One day, I hope to be part of something that I sincerely believe in to the point that I would sacrifice what’s necessary to make both myself and whatever it is, into something great.
