SamAntics – The Antics of Sam

I absolutely love to read, and I’ve read many hundreds if not thousands of books over the years. I’ve always believed that knowledge is power, especially in the world of business. Unfortunately, so many of the business books out there are antiquated, droll, and at this point in time utterly worthless. In case you haven’t noticed, the world has changed. What worked yesterday is unlikely to work tomorrow, a fact that media empires the world over are finally beginning to accept.

Luckily, there are a handful of people in this world who not only grasp that things are changing, but who have discovered how to bend those changes to their advantage. There are also people who seek to understand why these things happen and leverage that knowledge, instead of just going with the flow and accepting the way things have been as the way they will be. Thankfully, many of those people are authors.

Continue reading “The 7 Most Important Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read”

Yes, that is quite a bold statement, but that has been my opinion for quite some time, and from what I’ve been reading lately it’s dead on. It appears that neuroscience yet again supports my opinion, which makes me smile 🙂

Let us begin with the résumé. I’ve always been bothered by the fact that a résumé serves as the primary gatekeeper for job interviews. Why? Because a résumé is often a work of creative fiction. Sure, they are usually grounded in some sort of reality, but they are written by the job seeker, making for a highly biased representation of a job candidate.

Continue reading “Why Résumés and Traditional Interviews are Worthless”

Our culture seems to be attached to a great many worthless things, and the Olympics are no exception. Why do I think they are worthless? Hmm, let’s see…I can think of 5 good reasons:

#1 – For starters, they are a ridiculous waste of resources. The Olympics cost billions of dollars to organize and host, an incredible waste of money that could be much better spent elsewhere. Where does that money come from? Partly ticket sales, but mostly tax payers. Even worse, some countries that host the Olympics really can’t afford to do so, and the after effects on that country can be negative.

Continue reading “The Olympics Suck – A Waste of Resources and Lives”

As far back as I can remember, I’ve always thought outside the box. In school, I would come up with new ways to solve problems, which pissed my teachers off constantly. I’ve always hated being told “just because”…to me those are the most closed-minded words on earth. Those words crush creativity and curiosity, and I have always been extremely creative and very, very curious.

My creativity and curiosity have set me on a lifelong path of learning. I love to read, attend lectures, debate things, ask questions, and solve problems. As I’ve continued on this quest for knowledge, I’ve found three individuals that have significantly impacted the way I view the world: Tim Ferriss, Seth Godin, and Tony Hsieh.

Continue reading “My Mentors – Thinking Outside the Box”

Generation Y, also known as the Millennial Generation, is a term used to describe anyone born between approximately 1980 and the year 2000, plus or minus a few years at either end. And if there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that few people outside of Gen Y really understand us. Understandable, since our views and general approach to life is so radically different from previous generations.

We’re different in a number of ways:

We detest mindless tradition. If you want us to do something, you better have a very good reason, not to mention the good sense to get out of our way and let us innovate and improve the process…”just because” doesn’t work for us, and neither does inefficiency.We epitomize creativity.

Continue reading “Understanding Gen-Y – The 15 Most Important Innovations of Our Age”

What is Terrorism? The use of violence or fear to elicit a desired response.

I well remember the morning of September 11th, 2001. I was on my way to Kenner’s Kolache Shop in Arlington, TX to get some kolaches for breakfast. I remember getting angry as I was driving there because there was no music playing on the radio. When I got there, everyone was just standing staring at the TV. I asked what was happening, looked up at the TV and saw a plane hit the towers, and that was that. Our nation has never been the same.

Continue reading “Airline Security Sucks and the TSA is a Joke”

I love to learn new things, and have a variety of interests across the board. I have a personal library in excess of 5,000 books, spanning almost every genre, style and type of writing in existence. Even better, I have incredible retention, and can remember most of what I read, see or hear. I learn extremely fast, and can master new concepts and skills in a fraction of the time it takes the average person to do the same. I’m a certified genius, and a member of Mensa.

You would think, with a basket of knowledge and skills like that, that finding a top paying job in a cutting edge field would be easy. Alas, it is not so.

Continue reading “Degree Discrimination – Degree vs. Experience”

So, I was going to write a post of my Top 10 movies, but I just couldn’t trim the list down to 10. I considered going up to 100, but I didn’t think anyone would actually read a list of 100 movies, so I trimmed it down to 25 30. Alas, while this list only comprises about 1% of the movies I’ve seen, it will have to do 🙂 The list is sort of in descending order, but it is so hard to put one great movie ahead of another…

Continue reading “The Top 30 Movies Made in My Lifetime”

I’ve been wanting to tackle this topic for a while, as it is one that really, really pisses me off. PETA giving a “humane fly trap” to President Obama was the last straw, motivating me to finally write this post. Let me just clamber up onto my soapbox…almost there…ok, here we go 🙂

I absolutely detest extremists in any form. Everyday, almost everywhere you go, you will find an extremist. Perhaps you bump into someone at the office who happens to be a Vegan, or maybe a friend on Facebook announces that they are headed to a PETA rally. Maybe you are watching TV and stumble across Whale Wars. Maybe you are accosted at your doorstep by someone who swears you will go to hell if you don’t join their religion. Each of these is a perfect example of extremism.

Continue reading “PETA – Veganism – Etc – Extremism is Stupid”

There is a disturbing trend among employers that has been going on for some time. In the last 12 months, thanks to the recession, I have seen this trend steadily worsen, and I believe it is almost at critical mass…I’m referring to a trend I’ll call Retail-itis.

Retail-itis happens when a business is vastly more concerned about the happiness of their customers than they are about the happiness of their employees. This is a fundamental flaw in many businesses, and one that if fixed would literally change the entire face of business as we know it.

Let us examine a few examples of this problem. I’ll start with my least favorite company in the world, Walmart. Continue reading “Happy Employees and Happy Customers Aren’t Mutually Exclusive”