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Reflecting on Steve Jobs' Words of Wisdom and Insightful Questions

Steve Jobs deserves credit. He is a world-class innovator and showman.

 

 
Despite what the cartoon says, there is not an app for that.  Replacing Steve Jobs will not be easy.  He was one of a kind.

His latest accomplishment is that he figured-out how to get everyone to eulogize him while he's still alive.

Brilliant.

To be fair, these may be the last years (or days) of Jobs' life. But, as HBR points out, if so, Jobs no doubt knew that something needed to change. Perhaps it really is time for Jobs to go home, as he put it, to a "wonderful family" and an "amazing woman" and re-reflect on a few of the provocative questions (slightly altered) that he posed to the world in his 2005 Stanford Commencement Address.

Here is the video.

 

 

 

Here are some of the questions he posed. (click here for the complete text version of the speech)

• Have you found "what you love" to do in life?
• Are you wasting your life "living someone else's?"
• Do you "have the courage to follow your heart and intuition?"
• Are you nurturing a "great relationship," one that "just gets better and better as the years roll on?"
• Do you tell "your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months" or days?
• Do you make "sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family" when "the single best invention of Life" takes its toll?
• Do you say "your goodbyes" before it's too late to say them?

For almost four decades Steve Jobs has certainly tried his best to "put a ding in the universe."

If you are looking for more on Jobs' wisdom and insights, Umair Haque has a nice post on the Harvard Business Review site; it is called "Steve's Seven Insights for 21st Century Capitalists".

He highlights lessons that jumped out at him while looking through this compendium of Jobs quotes.

Here are two examples.

It Matters that it Matters. "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugar water — or do you want to change the world?" That's what Steve famously asked John Sculley. Translation: do you really want to spend your days slaving over work that fails to inspire, on stuff that fail to count, for reasons that fail to touch the soul of anyone?

Do the insanely great. "When you're a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you're not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it." We're awash in a sea of the tedious, the humdrum, the predictable. If your goal is rising head and shoulders above this twisting mass of mediocrity, then it's not enough, anymore, to tack on another 99 features every month and call it "innovation." Just do great work.

Those aren't the only lessons, nor probably the best lessons. There are lots to choose from.

Umair Haque challenges: Steve took on the challenge of proving that the art of enterprise didn't have to culminate in a stagnant pond of unenlightenment — and won. In doing so, he might just have built something approximating the modern world's most dangerously enlightened company. Can you?

What a great thing career he had.  He ends his Stanford speech with a quote that sums it up well. "Stay Hungry ... Stay Foolish."

Related articles

• Apple Will Decline After Steve Jobs, But... (businessinsider.com)
• The ultimate Steve Jobs resignation linkfest (abnormalreturns.com)
• With Steve Jobs Stepping Down, What's In Store For Apple? - Forbes (forbes.com)

Great Cartoon Explaining What's Happening In the Market

It was a week where Steve Jobs stepped down and Warren Buffett stepped-in.

It was a also a week where the Markets broke to the upside for the first time in a month.

Here is a cartoon that explains what pundits know when they tell you what it means.

 

via Abstruse Goose.

 

Here Are Some Links To Start Your Week

Poor President Obama.  Just when you think things can't get worse, even Mother Nature messes with you.

 

 
Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

Trading Links:

• "Hope and Change" by the Numbers. (DirectorBlue)
• Buffett's Binge: What Else Did the Oracle of Omaha Buy On-Sale. (InvestmentNews)
• Dr. Doom's Mission Impossible: Can We Stop Another Recession? (Roubini)
• How to Lose a Billion Dollars. (Firmex)
• What Business is Wall Street In? Are Traders Becoming Hackers? (Mark Cuban)

Lighter Links:

• Intelligence Gene: Your Parents Determine Only Half Your Fate. (IBTimes)
• Abercrombie & Fitch Pays 'Jersey Shore Stars to Stop Wearing Its Clothes. (WSJ)
• Need a Break? 10 Charts about Sex. (OK Cupid)
• Apple Patent Filing: Mini-Projectors Could Be Coming Soon. (TheAtlantic) 
• 10 Innovative Apps To Make Reading Tweets Easier  (TheNextWeb)

Some Good Reading Links to Start Your Week

With the economy and markets taking so much of the press, perhaps unemployment has become less of a concern for the current administration?

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Trading Links:

• Disapproval Rate for Congress at Record 82% After Debt Talks. (NYTimes)
• Kass: Blame the Quants and High Frequency Traders. (Barrons) 
• Putin Says U.S. is a Parasite on the Global Economy. (Reuters)
• Timeline of Fiscal Catalysts for the 2^nd-Half Of 2011 from Golman Sachs. (ZH)
• The iPad Just Ate 11% Of The PC Market.  Welcome to a Post-PC World? (SFGate)
  It would be the 4th-biggest computer brand in the world, after HP, Dell, & Lenovo.

Lighter Links:

• The Top 20 Reasons Startups Fail.   (BusinessInsider)
• The Blueprint for the Perfect Blog Post. (Infographic) (B2C)
• Forgetting: New Research Shows That We Control What We Remember  (Science)
• Dear Yankee: Eight things you ought to know about Rick Perry.  (TexasMonthly)
• Eating the Dollar's Lunch: The Price of a Big Mac Is Now $17.19 in Zurich. (Zerohedge)

Gamifying Fitness Works: Doing More to Be Less

How do you make it easier to find opportunities to be healthier in our busy lifestyles?

Lots of people say health and fitness are important to them.  Too often, that is an aspiration rather than a resolution. 

 

A Healthy Equation.

 

The key is burning more calories than you consume.  Yes, that is obvious ... but isn't easy.

How do you measure your real caloric intake, and accurately track the calories you burn?

Image via CrunchBase

 

I found a tool that helps.  It is called Fitbit; and it tracks your sleep patterns, eating habits and activity to help you become healthier.

It also wirelessly syncs that information with your computer, and presents it to you in a way that lets you compete to reach your goals and out-do your friends.  Yes, fitness has gone social.

 

Gamification is getting a lot of press recently. Apparently, it works.

Competition often brings out the best in people. There is a part of me that it doesn't believe it. Experientially, however, it's clear that I'm more likely to take action in competitive situations. 

In a way, you can  think of the Fitbit as a game where the challenge is to get at least 10,000 steps per day (and you can also get bonuses and brownie points for doing other healthy things).

The tracking and reporting component add enough competition to change behavior.

For example, there is a certain venture capitalist who is consistently kicking my ass by generating much higher numbers than I do. In addition, there is a short and portly industry analyst (old enough to be my father) who somehow took more steps than I did last week. These things cause me to get out of my chair and exercise.  It has become so persistent that I've started parking farther away just to add to my count.

The proof is in the results. Here's a graph showing my weight over the past two months.

 

 
The jump in the middle came from a visit to the Jersey Shore, where my will-power lost a battle to unlimited Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches and hot pretzels.

 
You Can't Get There From Here.

It was harder than you might guess to get started.

I remember hearing a funny story about someone asking for directions after getting lost in a city and asking for directions. The response was "you can't get there from here." Well, it turns out that my goal of taking 10,000 steps a day was impractical; I couldn't get there from where I was. 

In other words, even on a day when I exercised, my lifestyle didn't come close to an activity level of 10,000 steps per day.

Last summer, I celebrated the fact that I went to the gym three times per week. On one hand, I'm sure that's an improvement from not going to the gym three times a week. On the other hand, as I measured my activity levels and steps, that's a 5,000 to 7,000 steps per day activity level. By that, I mean that 5,000 steps is average, and I might be able to get the 7,000 steps if I really pushed myself.

As a practical matter, I couldn't get to 10,000 steps per day unless I changed something. For me, that meant jogging. And trust me, jogging was something that I didn't want to do. At a little over 240 pounds it was hard to drag my well-marbled meat suit around the park (especially in the Texas heat).

So, after going to the gym, I would reluctantly find my way to the park to waddle the extra mile. That increased my steps; and it also took me past the tipping point where I started to lose weight. That made running easier.  Soon, I was shuffling 2 miles. Now, 4 miles is within my comfort zone.

Again, the key is that once your activity burns more calories than you eat, weight comes off quickly.  Like I said, simple, "just not easy."

 

Intent and Focus Help Too.

 

The other area where the Fitbit has made a big difference is with the intent to be healthy. It's one thing to say that you will be healthy. It's another to vote with your feet and actually do healthy things.

The Fitbit helps bring the intent to the forefront of your consciousness. That means you will think about it more often. That also means you will notice more opportunities to be more active more often. As a result of the increased activity, you will burn more calories and lead a healthier lifestyle.

It's easy to manage what you measure. So making it easier to measure something can actually make it easier to achieve better results. That's where the Fitbit shines.

Get one here.

Related articles

• Four Simple Fitness Fundamentals (zenhabits.net)
• Cross Training for Fitness and Fat Loss (thepearlsofwisdom.wordpress.com)
• 60 Small Ways to Improve Your Life in the Next 100 Days (lifehack.org)
• The Good and Evil in Gamification of Incentives and Recognition (myventurepad.com)
• Worth It? The FitBit Pedometer (blogs.wsj.com)

A New and Simpler CPR Can Help You Save a Life

You never know when something like this can change your life or the life of someone else?

Every three days, more Americans die from sudden cardiac arrest than the number who died in the 9-11 attacks.

You can lessen this recurring loss by learning Continuous Chest Compression CPR, a hands-only CPR method that doubles a person’s chance of surviving cardiac arrest.

It’s easy and does not require mouth-to-mouth contact, making it more likely bystanders will try to help.

Here is a video showing you how it works.

 

 

Read more >>

If YouTube is blocked by your organization, you can watch the video on the Arizona Health Sciences Center site.

Visit the Sarver Heart Center for more information and resources on Chest-Compression-Only CPR.

 

Related Articles

• Learn Hands-Only CPR on the body you want your hands on (osocio.org)
• CPR training no longer involves mouth-to-mouth resuscitation (nydailynews.com)
• Essential Skills You Can Teach Kids That May Save Lives [Health] (lifehacker.com)

We Are the World: And It Was a Tough Week For Most World Markets.

Image Wikipedia

German Chancellor Angela Merkel sent a pretty clear message to the Markets this weekend – that Europe's leaders will not be bullied into action just because the markets are throwing a fit about the speed of their actions.

Other highlights of her recent comments include:

• “At this time — we’re in a dramatic crisis — euro bonds are precisely the wrong answer.”
• “They lead us into a debt union, not a stability union. Each country has to take its own steps to reduce its debt.”
• “Politicians can’t and won’t simply run after the markets.”
• “The markets want to force us to do certain things. That we won’t do."

Cullen Roche, from Pragmatic Capitalism, says: if you’re a market speculator you can basically read her comments as such: “We are in no rush whatsoever to solve the crisis in Europe. We will not be swayed by market crashes or panics.” Interesting, because the markets are sending them a very clear message. There is a very serious risk of a banking crisis in Europe.

 

It's Not Just Europe.

The world continued its sell-off last week.  The table on the right shows the damage done to seven major markets.

The DAX was the biggest loser, down 8.63%. It's also the index that has slipped the furthest into bear territory, down 27.20% from its interim high set on May 2nd.

In fact, five of the seven are now in cyclical bear territory, down 20% or more from their interim highs: The DAX, Nikkei, Hang Seng, Shanghai, and the BSE Sensex.

The FTSE and S&P 500 remain above the traditional bear boundary, vying for the dubious designation as top performer during this world-wide correction.

 

How Do The Moves in Once Country Compare to Others?

Here is a chart, from Doug Short, showing the comparative performance of World Markets since March 9, 2009.

 

 

It has been a tough few weeks for just about everyone. 

Laszlo Birinyi adds that stock correlation is also soaring. The average 50-day correlation of S&P 500 members to the index has risen to the highest levels since the market bottomed in 1987.

 

 
Are 'fat tails' are more likely to happen at the end of a crisis? If so, we might see a bottom soon.  It bears watching to notice which sectors will break out as new leaders.

 

Related Articles

• The Bear Market Welcomes Germany & Others to Join China In The "20% Correction" Club (zerohedge.com)
• Asian Stocks Decline a Fourth Week as Growth Concern Deepens (businessweek.com)
• Three Charts Explaining the Financial Crisis (zerohedge.com)
• Double-dip fear as markets seek reassurance (independent.co.uk)

TED Talk: How Algorithms Shape Our World

Booting up SkyNet.

Kevin Slavin argues that we're living in a world designed for -- and increasingly controlled by -- algorithms.

In this thought-provoking talk from TEDGlobal, he shows how these complex computer programs determine: stock prices, espionage tactics, movie scripts, and architecture. And he warns that we are writing code we can't understand, with implications we can't control.

Here is a TedTalk by Kevin Slavin.

 

 

 

Risk-Off or Risk-On - What's a Trader To Do?

Fear is not logical.

Nonetheless, you can often use logic to predict human response to certain emotions and stimuli.

For example, let's look at the clear shift in investor sentiment over the last few weeks.

 

Click here for a live version of this chart.

In short, the money flows show a re-pricing of risk. Stocks and commodities, which are viewed as riskier assets, declined over the last two weeks. Bonds and gold, which are viewed as safe-havens, advanced as alternatives. The Dollar, which is somewhere in the middle is virtually unchanged.

There Are Other Ways to Measure Fear.

The sell-off of the past few weeks triggered a number of extreme measures. Whether you look at volatility, price action, breadth, or volume, recent readings were off-the-charts. The table below is from Quantifiable Edges. It highlights some of those extremes.

  

However, every action brings a reaction ... what can we expect next?

What Does the Volatility Bring?

We just saw four straight days with moves of 400 points or more in the Dow Jones Industrial Average ... a first in its history. Is that just a meaningless market statistic?

Perhaps, instead, it is another indicator that we're at a significant extreme?  If so, periods of great volatility are often followed by periods of relative calm.  The logic is that bulls and bears fight until one side gives up (for a while); and the market pushes forward in the direction of the winner.

Looking For a Positive Sign?  Here's a Promising Trading Signal.

Mark Hulbert says market indicator with perfect record just signaled 'buy'. 

Last week, we got to a point where less than ten percent of NYSE stocks traded above their 200-day average. When the number of stocks that manage to stay above this moving average -- a common measure of momentum -- make a nasty two standard deviation move to the downside from the norm, it usually means an oversold market and a good time to buy.

 

The last -- and most extreme -- oversold position was on March 2, 2009, about around the start of the bull market. Click here for more on this type of chart.

You don't have to like the economy or the markets to trade them.

 

Related Articles

• Trading Against Your Pain Level (community.tradeking.com)
• High-Frequency Firms Tripled Trades Amid Rout, Wedbush Says (businessweek.com)
• What Business is Wall Street in ? (blogmaverick.com)
• How to play an oversold relief rally (humblestudentofthemarkets.blogspot.com)

Some Good Reading Links for the Weekend

Only some of the heat traders felt this week came from a volatile week in the markets.

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

Trading Links:

• Buffett: The Lower Stocks Go, The More I Buy. (Fortune)
• The 4 U.S. Companies Now Rated Higher Than The Government. (BI)
• Porn Doesn't Sell Like It Used To. (WSJ)
• Hackers Disrupt Hong Kong Stock Exchange Trading. (HuffingtonPost)
• Man vs Machine: Robot Trader Beats All Humans at AI Conference Challenge.
  The winner, a Bot using adaptive aggression (SmarterTech)

Lighter Links:

• Think “Different” – Rules for Innovators. (Economist)
• Don’t Worry, Sesame Street Says Bert and Ernie Aren’t Gay. (Slate)
• Saliva Can Tell Scientists How Old You Are (Video). (Reuters)
• How To Drink Gatorade: It Might Be Better If You Don’t Swallow. (Wired)
• Predictions of the Future - From the 1960s! (video). (Singularity)