What Makes a Good Relationship? How do you know if you are in a Good Relationship?

The following questions are probably questions you've asked yourself in one form or another:

What Makes a Good Relationship? How do you know if I am in a Good Relationship?

I would venture to say that a good relationship can be identified in the same ways no matter the kind of relationship between people. Whether it be parent/child, lovers, friends, business partners, etc.

So, how can you detect a good relationship? Here is my list:

1. The conversation comes easy

2. You feel relaxed

3. You can be yourself

4. You don't have to worry about offending or side stepping

5. It's not a chore to put the person into your schedule

6. You are energized by your interactions

7. You find yourself smiling without even realizing it

8. You find yourself making constant eye contact

9. You gain confidence in yourself and abilities

10. Mutual love/respect/trust

Do you have more to add? Leave your thoughts, we can make this a living list.

A Case for Generalists in a Society that Only Values Specialists

In the current age there has been an emphasis on people being highly skilled in one area. While this is important for technological developments in specific areas, there is also a great need for generalists- people with a diverse skill set and education in order to help seamlessly blend together the different elements of study. Take for an example a

creation of a simple piece of furniture- a chair. An engineer may design it to be able to hold the weight of a person, but it may not be beautiful or comfortable. An artist could create something pleasing to the eye, but the chair may crumble once sat upon, and may uncomfortable for the user. An ergonomic specialist may know how a user’s body should be supported, but would have no idea how to create a functional or beautiful chair. A generalist may not make the most perfect chair right off the bat, but could be able to create a stable, beautiful, comfortable chair. And then once they have the base line, can give it to the specialists to refine and perfect the drawing.

In product development there needs to be a synergy of the specialties needed to make an object. It’s a blend of cost, beauty, and functionality. If no one exists with general knowledge of areas there is no one to bridge the gap between the people and their views. The budgeters will want the chair to be as inexpensive as possible without care to anything else. The artist would have no problem using the most expensive of material as long as they consider it beautiful. In a kind of scenario where everyone is specialists there is an analogy of the concept that keeps getting ‘thrown over the wall’. Each person will work on it so it fits their specialty’s specific needs without consideration for anything else. By the end a cohesive product does not exist. The engineer might start with a tabletop with for legs. The artist doesn’t like the bulkiness of the legs to they remove material from the legs, and even decide that 3 legs would look better than four. The cost saver then switches the material from hardwood to a flimsy plastic. In the end the marketing guy has one heck of a job because he has a product to sell that the user doesn’t want because it’s structurally unsound, cheap and ugly.

A generalist acts as a liaison. He or she is the voice of reason, always considering the larger picture. When working on a project it is always important to take a couple of steps back for a view of what is really going on. A great analogy is a group of blind men, each touching a part of the elephant to figure out what it is, but no one has a clue because they haven’t seen the bigger picture, or felt the entire elephant. A generalist might not be able to tell you the detail of how long the elephant’s toe nails are, but at least he’ll be able to tell you that it’s an elephant.

Another strength of generalists is their ability to establish patterns and cross-pollinate ideas from one subject to another. A man was walking in a field, and when he returned home he noticed burrs had attached themselves to his clothing. He was amazed how easily they grasped on, could be pulled off, but then could grasp on again. He analyzed them under a microscope and noticed that the burrs had tiny hooks, and his clothing had loops. The hooks of the burrs were attaching themselves to the loops of his clothing. Had he just specifically been a biologist he may have documented a picture of the burr and be content. But the man took this concept to create a new fastener that did not exist at the time. And because of him we now have Velcro. By cross pollination of ideas instead of having to individually invent something completely new for each area of study, a concept that exists somewhere else can be taken and reapplied to a new subject matter. It’s all about understanding the interconnectedness of the world, and in order for that to happen it’s important that we understand the importance than generalists can provide.

Life's Winding Path

Many things in my life have changed recently, so now I'm in the process of re-examining my life (as if I didn't have enough to think about before). I had been living with my long term boyfriend from college. We have known each other for 7 years, since freshman year of college. We had been together for four years, and living together for 2 and a half. Until one day, we weren't. Nothing dramatic had happened from one day to the next, it was just a simple revelation. We always knew we were different in many ways, but we were also similar is many ways. It's hard to determine in a relationship what is the correct balance to strike. How similar and different do two people need to be in order to work?

We were generally happy together, and never fought. We shared mutual respect for one another, helped each other out in times of need and stress, and enjoyed each other's company. The problem was fundamental one between us though. He gets a kind of pleasure from being on anything with two wheels such as a motorcycle, dirt bike, mountain bike, road bike (and yes, he owns all of them) that I will never even begin to understand. He needs these devices in his life as much or more than he needs actual people. On my end of things the relationships I build in life are my oxygen. I live for good conversation, mutual love and respect and laughter.

Things were never wrong between us, but things were never completely perfect either. It's easy to leave a situation when its bad, but it's even more of a challenge to leave a relatively good situation. If you aren't between a rock and a hard place, and instead on a ship that's smooth sailing ahead, how do you know that if you jump, if you'll land in a better place? It's quite a dilemma to face when you already have every other aspect in your life up in the air. How do you ground yourself when there isn't a ground beneath you anymore?

So that's where I find myself now, I'm 25 years old and somehow I need to find out where I belong again. Last year I was in the building phase, trying to grow my business, career, relationship and community. After losing a business partner and life partner this past year I find myself trying to figure out the next direction to take. Once again requiring a lot of introspection. I'm definitely learning that life doesn't have a straight path. You just need to take all of the obstacles, punches and joys in stride. I doubt anyone ever ends up where they thought they would.

Are you where you thought you'd be?

Ebay: A seller's nightmare

I listed a high dollar item, http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200413814900 on Ebay. It is a very nice, high definition video camera valued at around $1800. I put it up for aution with a buy it now option. The item sold to the user:

bwxxxk9_123
barbara williams
5749 Twelvemonth Ct
Columbia, MD 21045

The username was suspicious and had zero feedback, so I looked up the address. The address is a foreclosed house. I called the phone number. The phone number was disconnected. The user never paid, and soon after unregistered. So, I relisted the item.

The item was bought again. This time to:
bwxxxk23_123
Barbara williams
3340 Brouse Ave
Indianapolis, IN 46218

If you notice, similar username, same name, but this time they are Indiana. Called the phone number, disconnected again. I contacted Ebay, they told me I should go through with the sale, even though I knew it was a fraud. Surprise, surprise, no payment, and soon after they became unregistered. I relisted.

It was bought again. This time to:
olumi0240
Donald Jones
2054 Wilson Avenue
Dallas, TX 75240

I received an email from this seller after they bought it.

"Enter your question hereDear Seller,i want you to reply me about the condition of this item before you send me an invoice because i want to be sure of want am buying and i want you to get back to me with your PayPal account as soon as possible for payment to be made.
Regards"

The English words of a scammer. Once again, zero feedback, disconnected phone number, no payment. I contacted customer service, and told them scammers kept buying my item. They told me that even though it seemed like a scam that I should send invoice and wait for payment. Invoice sent, and no payment. So, I had to wait 4 days to file a report, and had to wait indefinately for Ebay to credit my account. Eventually other people also complained about him, and he was unregistered. Ironically though, since Ebay no longer lets sellers give negative feedback to buyers, he had 2 "positive" feedback marks, each written with negative comments.

So, I relisted the item. This time it was bought by:

767gclarkx32
Gloria Clark
629 Tiffin Ave
Findlay, OH 45840

Another scammer. I told Ebay. Once again they did NOTHING. I received an invoice for $45 from Ebay. Eventually they credited back $40. They want me to pay $5 in listing fees, although it was because of their unverified buyers that I had to list the same item over and over again. I contacted them through chat trying to get reimbursed, and the customer service rep, "Kevin" was unhelpful, and CLOSED the chat on me! It automatically erased our conversation, and quickly switched to the message, "Thank you for chatting. You can now close this window." I called them, and they were entirely unhelpful on the phone, and refused to credit back my account.

If they would verify users by simply calling the phone number, none of this would happen. But unfortunately Ebay has gone down hill in both their verification of users and their customer service. I'll be closing my account. Thanks Ebay for wasted time, effort and money. And thanks most of all for being rude about the incompetencies of your website.

What would you do, if you knew you couldn't fail?

I passed a sign the other day that posed an interesting question, "What would you do, if you knew you couldn't fail?" It actually made me take a second to think about it. I wonder why this question provoked such thought when a question like, "What are you going to do with your life?" doesn't give people much of a pause except for a brief shrug and an "I dunno".

Maybe its because when you ask someone "What are you going to do with your life?" the first couple of times they heard it they replied, "an artist", "a professional baseball player", until people started to laugh at them, and told them simply that it was impossible or impractical. So, then they changed their answer to something that was standard and something that could not possibly be shot down. Buy when the question is posed, "What would you do, if you knew you couldn't fail?" you are finally allowed to answer by following your heart. But then it becomes too hard to answer because "I dunno" has finally gotten the best of you.

So, now I ask you: what would you do, if you knew you couldn't fail?

PerfectBusiness.com and the Perfect Pitch

I received an email from Entrepreneur magazine one Wednesday morning that told me I had "One Week to Submit Your Pitch to Richard Branson‏". Obviously their marketing department had done a good job because I became intrigued, thoroughly read the email and proceeded to sign up for PerfectBusiness.com It was then that I decided that I was going to do it. Even though there was a $60 fee for submitting a pitch, I felt that it was worth the monetary risk because the potential of great success was there. There were just some hurdles involved because I had already committed to a 3 day labor day getaway to Lake Tahoe, and I was just getting the symptoms of cold and allergies. The video pitch was due on the Tuesday after labor day.

We came home from our travels mid day on Monday so I could start working on my speech. On Tuesday I treated my raspy voice by drinking straight up coconut milk, not the most appetizing, but it did help to make my cold stricken hoarse voice sound better. I set up my video camera to capture my pitch. It turns out that I'm just great communicating with people and talking off the cuff, but an elevator pitch in front of a camera where you need to get every word right is much more intimidating. After hours of talking in front of the camera for a minute and a half speech, I finally got a run that I didn't freeze up like a deer in headlights. It's difficult to come to terms that even when you have the opportunity to do your pitch many times over that it's nearly impossible to reach perfection.

I submitted my entry, typed in my payment information, and accept button. This was it, I was submitting the pitch for my 'baby' online for investors to see. It took a couple of weeks, but then we received word on our submissions. I did it, Top 50! They even sent me a little badge to put on my website, so here is it:

It links to the page that announces the Top 50 submissions. There it is, a picture of me and a listing for my company, Juci Inc, "The future of beverages". They'll be announcing the Top 10 on Monday, followed by an announcement of the Top 3 the next week. The Top 3 get to go to the conference for free and pitch to a room full of investors, including Richard Branson. Now, how awesome would that be? Hi, Sir Richard Branson, would you like to invest in my company? An entrepreneur can dream!

Incorporating in Your Business

Incorporating is a big step, and its important to be ready. This is your first official declaration to the world that you are ready to start your business. In addition, this is when your money starts going to the government. There are resources to help you incorporate, and here I'll let you in on what I found.


There is a book by Nolo, "Incorporate your Business" which is quite helpful in understanding the reasoning behind incorporating and the difference between all the different kinds of formations. At the end of the book there are specific state pages which tells you the particulars of how to incorporate in each state and how the laws and fees differ.

Delaware is known as a corporate friendly state. Their courts are experienced and they have more refined and company friendly outcomes than most other states. Also the incorporation fees in Delaware are relatively low and you are able to perform a name search online for free and real time.

Here is a great guide from the state of Delaware of the steps to incorporate in Delaware: http://corp.delaware.gov/howtoform.shtml

Goodluck!