Is today the day of romance or the day of the wallet killer? This is one of the most common holiday event that people tell me is more like a money grubber of some sort to get you to buy things. I must admit too, this is one of those holidays that I never really fully understood on how it started as I guess in elementary school they train you to do things like exchange cards with others that day.

But thanks to the Internet that makes researching pretty easy. I just quickly did a search and found this interesting video that talks about the history of Valentine’s Day. The beginning isn’t exactly the most romantic thing just to warn you ahead of time.

I guess the lesson in the end too is that you don’t need to spend a whack of money to show your love to another.

For blog updates subscribe to our RSS feed.

I received a check today from Mpire Corporation which is the company that runs the Widget Bucks program that I ran on this blog as a test. Here is a picture of the envelope that it came in:

Of course, here is a photo of the check itself for a payment of $63.60:

At first I was a little confused about the currency that the check was written in as from my experience most companies label it on the check. However, since the company is based in the US I naturally assumed it was in US currency and sure enough it is.

That’s not too bad of a performance I thought in terms of generating an income with the fact that I just kind of stuck the widget on the blog without too much planning. However, I’ve decided to remove the widget at the moment as I noticed it was taking a very long time to load up which created an enormous load time on the blog. Hopefully they will fix that up though as for me the performance hit was a bit too much.

That’s not to discourage anyone else from trying it if you think it will work for your site. As I mentioned before, I thought the Widget Bucks program would work best on a more tech oriented site. I’m currently experimenting with another program that should be launching soon, so we’ll see how that works out. Journey scorecard is as follows thus far:

Stock Investment: $800
Blog Web Publishing: $285.79
Million Dollar Term: $100

Total: $1185.79

For blog updates subscribe to our RSS feed.

At first I never even heard of this and apparently this started towards the end of January. In a nutshell, there is an actor named Edison Chen who is in some sort of sex scandal as apparently he has taken hundreds of explicit pictures and videos of him with a lot of different women who happen to be major celebrities in Hong Kong. Somehow the photos and videos were stolen and have been redistributed on the Internet which has created a huge frenzy due to the names of the people who are attached to this ordeal. I’m not sure where this originated from, but someone even created a timeline of the incidents which is kind of crazy when you look at it:

I never even heard of these stars before personally since I am accustomed to western culture and so to me it just sounded like one of those celebrity gossip scandals that I don’t have too much interest in. However, the person is born here in Vancouver and I was asked if I knew anything about it. So I did decide to read more about it and I couldn’t believe how fast this was spreading in the east and quickly affecting the people involved such as business contracts being thrown out as a result of this incident.

For example, Edison himself apparently lost a credit card endorsement deal and from what I read he was suppose to play some type of role in the new Batman movie which is being revoked as a result of this it seems. He even has his own production company that most likely will be affected by this as well. Similarly, for a lot of the women that were involved their squeaky clean image and personality that they relied upon has been compromised which resulted in lost deals as well with some situations being extreme such as marriages that have been called off.

This got me thinking from a business perspective on how it is so important to be professional with your conduct inside and outside of your work. As demonstrated here, that old remark about what people do in their own time shouldn’t matter is sure not the case. Another way to think about it is that people often use the phrase ”People do business with people” which should make you think twice from doing something like that.

Another point that this situation made me think of is being able to admit your mistakes in life as oppose to trying to hide it. Using others as a scapegoat without taking full accountability for your actions will affect your professional image even more. That age old quote that I hear seems to be so fitting for this scenario where “It takes a lifetime to build a reputation and a moment to kill it.”

For blog updates subscribe to our RSS feed.

I guess the blog network will be starting soon as I got an e-mail indicating that I can display the badge on my blog. Seems like there are three choices I could use as you can see here:

Not sure where I would put it at the moment.

For blog updates subscribe to our RSS feed.

I was reading some literature that revolved around people’s experiences and challenges when it comes to business and life. Of course, there were the common answers such as you have to have determination to not quit when the going gets tough while being passionate about what you do. They talked about having certain people in one’s life as a support system which was a major factor for their success.

The interesting observation was that there seemed to be a split as some people mentioned that the most important person to have was a mentor while others say it is finding a significant other. In general, people emphasized a mentor as they provide you with insight and advise while helping to expose you to opportunities to help you grow. With a significant other, the theme revolved around having someone who will be there during the good and bad times for some much needed emotional support and push to keep going.

Generally speaking, I personally see a mentor as someone who helps you to accelerate your growth in a specific area which means you need more than one. In that sense, you need someone specifically for say business advice, lifestyle health, etc. A significant other would make me think that their impact in your life would help to build your character overall. With that, it is more about developing a foundation and environment where you will be invigorated each day to do whatever it may be.

I don’t think I have the knowledge and wisdom compared to others who have experienced a lot more in life to really make a comment on which one is more important for professional growth, but it’s an interesting thing to think about for people such as aspiring entrepreneurs if all you think about is work and trying to do things by yourself to achieve success.

For blog updates subscribe to our RSS feed.