The world is a better place because of the legacy of openness, generosity, and love left by Bob Wormington.

I hired a personal trainer and I am finding the physical limits my body can take.

It’s been apparent to me that I have lived a very comfortable existence for much of my 43 years. I had a good paying job. I was single. I ate what I wanted. I chose comfortable things to do like playing video and card games over exercising and eating healthy. Living comfortably was more important than living healthy.

Here is what I have learned. The only way to know your limits is to “find” your limits. Find out what you are capable of. I wonder exactly how many people do this. I speculate that people don’t know how useful this practice is.

I also speculate this is because our culture is so focused on being comfortable. To live with discomfort is so foreign to people. We feel entitled to comfort. Something is wrong or un-natural if we aren’t comfortable. I’ve come to find the whole thing so interesting. I’ve begun to notice the conversations I’ve had with people when I talk to them about some concern I’m struggling with, like my body. For those who think and act with their body as a concern, they listen. I can have a real conversation with them about different strategies I can employ to provide a more meaningful impact. For those who don’t think and act with their body as a concern, they look at me with incredulity and tell me how great I look. It’s as if they think I have a self-esteem problem because I feel a need, finally, to do something about my body at the ripe old age of 43. I speculate its because misery loves company. People getting healthy makes the unhealthy very uncomfortable.

As I talk to people about their mobile application needs, I’m struck by how many people are making offers in this area. There seems to be a gold rush of sorts going on. As has been said prior, it is 1994 all over again. People are over-promising and under-delivering their capabilities and time-lines that they can deliver. And it is causing a bit of distrust in the industry.

It’s not just coming from suppliers though. I also see it in the clients. Clients are seduced by promises of little work, low cost and fast time-lines. When a supplier requires more work, more money and more time, clients understandably get frustrated. Unfortunately, though, it’s never as simple as a supplier making requests of the client.

What is much more likely to happen is that the supplier simply stops taking calls. The client, still seduced by getting such a great deal, and knowing that to hire someone else would be very expensive, does everything they can to get the supplier back on track. They end up having to sacrifice in some way with scope or cost in order to get the supplier to do what he already promised to do . . . finish the job. In my experience, these type of suppliers never finish. When they do its usually been half-ass completed as a way to get the client off the suppliers back. The supplier usually doesn’t collect on the final payment because, they just don’t want to talk the client again. At that point the supplier either gives up the business or is off to bullshit another client. Sometimes the client ignores the time and energy it took to see a completed product and pats themselves on the back for not paying a lot.

Clients, if this happens to you once, it’s understandable. You’ll still have to pay the consequences. If it happens more than once, and you’re not seeing the consequences, you need to ask yourself why you invite these situations to repeat. After all, it’s your business that’s suffering. You are doing business with people who don’t care about your need or concerns. Why is that? Are you unable to notice poor ethics because you have poor ethics yourself? Fix that. Ambitious businesspeople are usually able to see ambition in others. If you don’t see it in the people offering you help, move on. Those people can’t help you. They will only hurt you.

Maybe you think you’re clever or special. Maybe you think you’re so great, people want to throw help at you. The reality is that, at best, you’re gullible. At worst, you might not have the intellect to be a business owner.

Good help costs money. Get used to that. If you are in the habit of not wanting to pay for good help, that help will never find you. You’ll then be left with what’s left over. At best, you’ll be stuck exactly where you are and at worst, you won’t have to worry about your business any longer.

Business and Technology work best when they are planned within a powerful interpretation of reality. Human beings have concerns that they cannot ignore. If these concerns are ignored (for instance: choosing not to exercise or eat healthy), you will reach a point in your life that you will suffer. Because business exists within the same reality that humans exist, the same laws apply to companies. If you neglect your concerns related to marketing or technology, your company will eventually suffer. I will call this “not taking care.”

Science is coming up with ways to explain this phenomenon. Cosmologist, Sean Carroll speaks to the University of Sydney about “Entropy” and “The Arrow of Time” to illustrate that answers can be found in physics for consequences related to those who don’t take care.

Why isn’t the universe and our concerns more static?

Part One:

Part Two:

Mobi-Strategy will still point to this location but the branding of the blog will be entirely different. As such, if you have any bookmarks to this space, you won’t need to change them.

Best,

Vince