Why You Should Pay Attention To Your By-Products

Recently I took a walk through my neighborhood after going out for a morning run. After the run, I decided to take a longer route back to the apartment. I often do this to challenge my mind to be accepting of new things, and to break routine.

But taking the different route led me to the neighborhood garden. This year my neighborhood got a new garden that we’ve all come to appreciate very much. From what I hear, it all came about after one lady decided to request the previously unused plot of land from the City of Austin and make a garden of it. How the back and forth went, I don’t know, but when the city gave permission and folks broke ground, I enlisted to volunteer to help get it in shape and create beds for the garden. We got it done, fenced and all.

So it’s all a pleasant morning stroll, or at anytime of the day, when I walk by and see the transformation, as my mind goes back to what it used to be like — nothing like what I see now. Members of the community have bought beds and are growing all kinds of plants, flowers, vegetables, and the like, there.
But with gardening comes things to buy, right? That’s how mulch found it’s way to the garden. A huge pile of it is set aside right next to the garden for use.

So that morning, I stopped by to take a closer look at it — the mulch. It looked like trash, and it was, and it isn’t.

 

I scooped a bit into my hand and took a close looked at what it’s basic ingredient is — pieces of leaves, wood scraps, little tree limbs, and all. Not much of value. Or?

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Henry Ford & Crude Oil

Who started Kingsford Charcoal, the company? Till I read the book Rework by Jason Fried & David Heinemieier Hannssson, I didn’t know. But it’s interesting to find out that Henry Ford did.

And the backstory is worth paying attention to. Here’s a clip:

Henry Ford learned of a process for turning wood scraps from the production of Model T’s into charcoal briquets. He built a charcoal plant and Ford Charcoal was created (later renamed Kingsford Charcoal). Today, Kingsford is still the leading manufacturer of charcoal in America — Rework

On the back of this is another interesting thing I read about in an article sometime back. It’s about the number of by-products that can be had from crude oil, which is what petroleum is. The number was in the thousands.

Enter Wikipedia:

Over 6,000 items are made from petroleum waste by-products including: Fertilizer, Linoleum, Perfume, Insecticide, Petroleum Jelly, Soap, Vitamin Capsules. See link to partial list of 144 by-products listed by Ranken Energy [3]
Worth pondering over, right?

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Gladiator

Recently a friend of mine who loves movies recently bought a DVD of a movie he loves and considers a classic.
I mean this guy loves movies, the suspense, drama, and the layers of storytelling that goes on in movies, he will spend hours telling you all about it, making clear what may not be apparent to you. He lights up.

So when he bought the extended version of the movie Gladiator with Russell Crowe I was not surprised. The DVD was a little heavy and packed.

This edition came with more features, deleted scenes, how characters were created, sound and visual effects, costume design galleries, cast portrait photo galleries, storyboard demonstrations, tales of the scribes, story development, the tools of war, and more. And all this was broken down into a 3 Disc pack.

Here’s the 3 Disc’s contents ( let me just share a few of the contents from each of them):

1. Disc 1: Feature: All new commentary by Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe, Trivia Deck, etc.
2. Disc 2: Documentary: “Strength and Honor: Creating the World Of Gladiator” Never before seen seven part Documentary: The glory of Rome, Shadows & Dust, Tale of the scribes, The heat of Battle, and others.
3. Disc 3: Supplementary: Storyboards, Production design and galleries, Ridley Scott’s own sketches of “Maximus’ Journey” Costume design galleries, visual effects, abandoned sequences…
   

Definitely these are all by-products from the making of the movie, right? And definitely they did not go to waste. My friend found saw value there and bought it. He saw how it could help him improve his understanding of the movie-making process.

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You Can’t Make Just One Thing

One of the most finest lines I have heard about the creative process again comes from the book Rework. Here it is:

When you make something, you always make something else. You can’t make just one-thing. Everything has a by-product. Observant and creative minds spot these by-products and see opportunities.

Henry Ford saw his, crude oil producers see theirs, and movie-makers see theirs. What about you and I?

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You & Me.

 
Day in and day out we wake to get things done, and whether we like it or not our lives are in the making. We are creating something. We are picking up things, including little pieces of information.

If you’ve lived here on earth past a quarter century, you have picked up something worthy along your journey. What have you learned? What interesting experiences have you had? What unique insights do you have? How is that useful to someone else? Is that value?

But more importantly can you offer it to someone else?

Nothing is useless if positioned right.

But if you offer it in a jumbled order, it’s of no value to anyone. It must be geared, organized, and directed towards solving a specific problem for someone else.

What you have are pieces of problem solving bits, and they are not useless. You only have to re-purpose them towards something specific that makes a difference for someone.

Mulch in it’s basic components is little pieces of wood scraps, broken tree limbs, and a lot of ‘obviously’ useless bits. But when organised and packaged for the sole purpose of enriching garden soil, suddenly it’s a product, and it’s valuable.

Do you see your by-product?

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Also, I apply the by-product principle in the offering of my new book, Get To Know Your Backyard Opportunity here. And feel free to let me know your thoughts, too, or share it with someone who will find it useful, if it’s not for you. Thanks.

Walking Into The Unknown

This is an excerpt out of recently released eBook, Get To Know Your Backyard Opportunity.

Walking Into The Unknown

It’s like a voyage of discovery into unknown lands, seeking not for new territory but for new knowledge. It should appeal to those with a good sense of adventure — Frederick Sanger.

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My approach is to go one street at a time. Keep in mind I didn’t know anyone — -business owners, that is — -personally. So I go out and take my chances. But it’s not just me and the chances. It’s me and some goodies in my pocket — the desire to learn, a clear idea of what I’m out to do, the purpose of my project, going about things in a professional manner, goodwill, a desire to write all about it and share the stories I collect, and a clear idea of how to present my project and set up interview appointments. And all of it for free. And lest I forget, joy and a smile. These are trump cards on their own, it’s only up to me to use them well.

Okay, so when I’m out, already knowing about the locality pretty well, I pick one street and go from shop to shop presenting my project to owners.

I was turned down by some, and also run into shops where the owner was absent, but for the most part it went well. For stopping by about 10 shops in one stretch, I will come away with one interview. And if you factor in absent owners and having no prior relationships to tap into, I’d take one interview any day.

Also, besides the tools in my pocket, I also have at heart that in the end these business owners and I are the same at heart. We all want to be loved, to belong, to be acknowledged, and to be part of something good. In this case, I have created this good thing that I know they ( if they get to know my reasons) will definitely want to be a part of. As of writing this book, some of them were the very ones who gave me testimonials to share on my book page, after getting to know me through the project, and a good amount of them are now my Facebook friends.

Also when I’m out prospecting like this, I’m only out there for about 2–3 hours, sometimes 1, at a time. Sometimes I visit only 5 shops in a day. You can see how I spent my day in the behind the scenes posts that I wrote about towards the end of the book, in the later chapters. There, I share everything I wrote about on a daily basis while the project was going on.

In the same way, I’m sure you know your local community very well, so pick a few streets that you will be visiting business owners on during your project. Yet if you already know a few business owners, do your first interviews with them and use that as evidence when you are ready to go out and talk to owners you don’t know.

But after picking a street, simply walk in, like I share above, and present your project. With your presentation in mind, and believe me you’ll come away with interviews.

Again, know you have these in your pocket.

1. Sincerity
2. Goodwill
3. Desire to learn
4. Desire to write about it
5. Willingness to share their story with others
6. It’s all free and costs them nothing save a few minutes of their time
7. A smile.

Do this for 7 days, 2 hours a day, and you’ll come away with 3–4 interviews, at least.

This is for folks who will like to do my kind of project ( with business owners). But for those looking to interview another kind of professionals, a similar approach will work. For, let’s say churches, if you want to interview pastors, it will be visiting a select number of churches in your local community and requesting to meet the pastors. The same list above applies in approaching them, too.

For folks focusing exclusively on interviewing chefs, it will be visiting only restaurants and requesting to talk to their chefs. For teachers, it will be local schools, for stockbrokers, it will be visiting investment firms in your neighborhood, however few there are there, and so on. You get the idea. But the goodies I list above work in almost any situation.

What will I get from all this?

Okay, what will you get from 'walking into the unknown'? The opportunity to step outside your comfort zone is something you should always consider carefully without turning it down immediately, for out of those come some of the best of all a person's personal growth.

Why? The opportunity to step into an unfamiliar zone, where you know no one, or a few people, to share an idea, or to complete a project will draw on the best inside you.

In this case, you’ll be dealing with people you don’t know, but you get out there and engage with them. This is like standing in front of a small section of the world and doing a presentation on why you should be heard. This is not a grand public presentation, but an opportunity to start there, and start working on your presentation skills, and people skills.

The whole world revolves around people, and people are the essence of the world. Some may say animals matter, too. Yeah, they do, but only in the sense that we human beings value them, or their existence helps us. So in the end, an ability to deal with people is one of the greatest skills to have an opportunity to learn.

You have lived in your local community your whole life and may privately hold a desire to travel overseas as a chance to grow and expand your understanding of the world and of yourself. A great desire, I would say, but the reason most people who travel overseas and come back with a new-found self-understanding is the unfamiliarity that being abroad or living in an unfamiliar environment forces you to wrestle with.

It’s like taking the baby bike-supports off your child’s bike and asking him to ride on his own. In that moment, he has nothing to hold on to, but to draw on something inside him, to trust that he can do this. And the capacity that is already inside him but lies untapped will come forth. That’s what foreign lands do to you. They bring out the fears first, and then the treasures deep within.

Well, foreign lands are not always physical. They are mental too. If someone says “I have never done this before,” they only mean that whatever they are talking about is foreign to them, their mind has never experienced something like that. We see this with public speaking. People who are new to it have to deal with stage fright because to their minds this is foreign territory.

So is a local interview project. It forces you to interact with your local community in a new, ‘foreign’ way, and that will test you. But in a good way. It will draw things out of you that you never knew you had. You’ll see your local community in a new light, and when you are done, you’ll have expanded your being, and your relationships, too.

So if the money to travel nor the opportunity do so through a group does not present itself, create your own “foreign” at home, create your own “unknown” right where you are with a local project, and go out and execute.

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If you enjoyed the read, you'll love the whole book: Get To Know Your Backyard Opportunity

 

Why Writing Is A Cornerstone For Any Project

Why Write?

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This is an excerpt from my upcoming book Get To Know Your Backyard Opportunity, a guide that shares my story of interviewing small business owners in Austin, Texas, and the lessons in personal development that I came away with. It also doubles as a guide to help anyone anywhere take initiative on something they love via a similar project in their own local community. This is a chapter on why blogging/writing is key to making the most of the project.

 

Why Write?

 

Grammar is to a writer what anatomy is to a sculptor, or the scales to a musician. You may loathe it, it may bore you, but nothing will replace it, and once mastered, it will support you like a rock. — -B.J Chute.

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Okay, first thing, we are not talking about grammar, not entirely. Yeah, it will come in handy later, but let me draw a bit from the quote above.

Writing is a ‘flesher’ of thoughts. It brings order to things said, and is one of the greatest skills you can develop. Why? Clarity is a quality of all great thoughts, and anything that has to be put into writing challenges the writer to think more carefully — he has to put one word after the other to make a point — and bring out what’s not necessarily clear.

Why not just say it, you may ask? Well, you could, but the spoken word unless written down gets taken up by the air, and is lost forever. What about the memory? Well, it could be collected in the memory, but in time the memory fades. So to rely on it is to leave you scratching your head when it comes time to recollect it for use. And definitely what cannot be retrieved cannot be used. Herein comes the point of this saying: A short pencil is better than a long memory.

But in saying all this, for our purposes here, I do not mean excellent writing. I mean the ability to put down a decent record of your thoughts so that others can read and see what you mean, and at this point mistakes are allowed — that way starters can grow and get better. This is why I do not stress strict grammar, but the ability to start practicing now.

Marco Polo

Okay, let’s look back a little. Let’s see why you know Marco Polo, or the Marco Polo sheep.

Growing up as a kid, I heard a bit of the Marco Polo sheep but didn’t quite understand why the sheep was so named. Later in life, I read a piece somewhere of Marco Polo and why he is renowned worldwide for his documentation of his travels to Asia, and how his book — “The Travels Of Marco Polo”— was Europe’s introduction to Central Asia and China.

But wait, was he the first, or was he the most knowledgeable person about that region of the world at the time? Enter Wikipedia:

Marco Polo was not the first European to reach China (see Europeans in Medieval China), but he was the first to leave a detailed chronicle of his experience. This book inspired Christopher Columbus and many other travellers. There is a substantial literature based on Polo’s writings; he also influenced European cartography, leading to the introduction of the Fra Mauro map. — Wikipedia

There, is the power of the pen, which is said to be mightier than the sword. Well, in our day, it will be punching the keyboard, right?

Yet you may say to me, “Kingston, nah, I am not Marco Polo, I am not that big.” Well, we all have to start somewhere, right? We all can’t be great from the outset. We have to start where we are, though, and use what we have, build a muscle for whatever skill we desire, and then see what opportunities come our way to use it.

Time and chance happens to all things, and I am sure Marco started writing, or had a great appreciation for it at a much earlier time in his life, and took other previous opportunities to write about other projects before he penned the famous book. That writing of the book was actually a chance he took to write it — he could have chosen not to. Plus, his expedition to Central China or Asia, in a large sense, was a project, too.

But what’s more? The likelihood of influencing Christopher Columbus would not have existed without Marco putting pen to paper.

What About This Project?

In this case of a project, how useful is writing? In a number of ways: One, it’s a way of creating a story for yourself while you go about the project. There are many things that will happen during the project, and not recording it means a lot is lost along the way. I see value in all things, and so the chance to record my discoveries, conversations, observations, and even mistakes, gives me a record to look back on. This record is a store of things to learn from, things to improve on, and proof that this actually happened.

Two, you need a platform. This is why I talk about starting a blog. When you start a project like this one, with the few people you may share it with or whoever will know about it ( or even the professionals you end up interviewing), they will like to follow your progress, and reading is how they do that.

So in that sense, reading is how they consume what you are creating. Reading, then, is a form of consumption. It’s like eating, and proper eating demands that food be served on a plate. Your project is something you are serving to others. So serve it on plate, a platform — which is what a blog is. It’s simply a “form” of “plate,” and writing is the tool you use to put it on that plate.

This very book you are reading itself is a platform. There has to be a ground upon which I share my story and the lessons. The story is my ground, and the book is my writing pad, my platform, and I typed the words onto the “plate.”

Three, writing on a platform like a blog, sets you up to share your findings. The project will lead you to discoveries, not only about your neighborhood, people, or situations, but your own self and your passion. Make sure you note those — discovering things about yourself is your great key to thriving on the earth. And when you will like to share some of these, a blog gives you a tool with sharing powers — the social media buttons ( Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and others) — to easily distribute it.

Also, the more you write, do projects, and share your thoughts, the more the right people will come to you. The reason people are hesitant to come to connect with others is a lack of information, uncertainty. Lack of information is like walking in the dark, and few people like that. Knowledge is light, and the more you share, the more people know about you, and makes it easy for others to decide how to connect to you, based on what you are sharing. This is how writing improves your chances of getting where you want to go — by connecting you to the right people.

The president of the United States, president Barack Obama, is a writer. During his initial campaign for president, I heard stories here and there about how he sometimes writes his own speeches. How does being a writer help him? Well, in a few key ways.

Connection  — I’m sure some folks read his books (“Dreams From My Father” and “ The Audacity Of Hope” )— especially during his initial campaign for president as a way of knowing more about him as a candidate, and in the process saw his thinking process and what he believed. They then checked if they agreed with him or not on the issues at play for the presidency. For those who did, they easily voted for him. That writing, someway, somehow, helped pave the way for his election. It supported him and connected him to the right people.

So it is with all of us. Your ability to gather your thoughts, package it, and use it to make a point is a rare skill. Not everyone can do that. But you can start small, and with a project that you enjoy, and write all about it. In time, you’ll get better.

Even the great God Himself who created all things, when He sought to record His thoughts, He put it in a book for men to read. This is how we know His will.

A Premise, and Like A Rock

What’s more? The United States Of America, a great experiment in nation building on the face of the earth, in her attempt to free itself from colonial rule, wrote a document that clearly spelled out the grounds upon which they will like to rule themselves, free themselves of the United Kingdom. The document laid clear reasons for what they wanted to do, why they wanted to do it, and shared it with all. Out of this document, in a large sense, the constitution was written, which today governs the country. 

That’s how writing will support you like a rock, as B.J Chute points out in the quote above that starts this topic.

In the same way, you should also, if you were to work on your own personal project, write out a small statement that spells out your mission for the project, and make it clear on your blog. Nothing big, nothing special, just a few words that spell out what you are doing and why you are doing it.

Here is mine:

This is what some owners saw on my blog when I introduced myself. They checked it directly, sometimes in my presence, and said, “Okay, let’s talk.”

That’s how writing can be a support —a tool to help you state your grounds and make things clear.

For you, some good questions to ask, if you were to write yours will be these: Is my purpose clear enough? Does it show why I am doing what I am doing? Is it with goodwill, is it well-meaning, does it serve others besides me?

Write the vision, and make it clear upon tables that he may run who reads it — Habbakuk 2:2

Again, it doesn’t have to be perfect at the outset. No, don’t even worry about that. No one starts out perfectly. Just get your thoughts on to the page in as decent a form as possible. Also, notice in B.J Chute’s quote above how it talks about a process — “…once mastered, it will support you…”  — -showing that it’s a process, and you won’t start out with great writing, but in time, you will master it. It’s the same with everything else and everyone. I’m still learning and striving to be better everyday myself.

Warren Buffet & Basecamp Inc.

Let’s take a quick look at something I read not too long ago. Recently after logging out of my email, an MSN page came up with this headline: Buffet: Stop Blaming The Rich For Income Inequality. The title had Mr. Warren Buffet’s photo behind it. The piece was originally published in the Wall Street Journal on May, 21, 2015.

But far from the meat of the topic is how Warren Buffett got his thoughts out. The author, Dan Bigman, put it like this:

“Buffet, whose net worth we clock in at $71.3 billion, wrote in a Wall Street Journal Opinion piece published yesterday…” — Dan Bigman

Again, let’s not to get into the meaning of the topic, but worthy of note there is one word: Wrote. He wrote. Yeah, writing makes a man exact, as is often said.

There was a matter at issue in the public realm, and Warren Buffett sat down, took out a tool, and made his thoughts clear. He wrote it out. After that, he shared it on a platform, the Wall Street Journal— and from there it was easily distributed, which is how it got to me. But after writing, Mr. Buffet did not spend another ounce of energy to say more. His written piece takes over and does the rest of the work.

How About Getting A Job?

Well, I will again tap into the New York Times bestselling book, Rework, by Basecamp Inc. Basecamp, the company, formerly 37 Signals, is run by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. They are a software company based in Chicago.

Why they matter? They are the makers of the popular project management app Basecamp, among other apps, and created Ruby On Rails which is used by a good percentage of programmers and designers today. They also wrote the books, Rework and Getting Real.

In Rework, they stress the importance of hiring writers. Here:

“If you are trying to decide among a few people to fill a position, hire the best writer. It doesn’t matter if that person is a marketer, salesperson, designer, programmer, or whatever; their writing skills will pay off.

Why?

That’s because being a good writer is about more than writing. Clear writing is a sign of clear thinking. Great writers know how to communicate. They make things easy to understand. They can put themselves in someone else’s shoes. They know what to omit. And those are the qualities you want in any candidate.” — Rework, page 222.

Key words to sense out of that? Empathy — they can put themselves in someone else’s shoes. Clear thinking — bringing order to a mental jumble. Clarity — they make things easy to understand. Concise — they know what to omit. All these point to an ability to communicate, and this is one of the chief benefits of doing a project like this, writing about it, and working and being on the same page with all the people you interview through clear communication. Again no one starts out great at this. Start small.

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