Umar Haque is one of my favorite new business authors.  I found his blog on the HBR list that I follow, and downloaded his short essay Betterness: Economics for Humans onto my Kindle to start reading it.

The essay is short, about 80 pages, and is an ideal read for entrepreneurs and psychology dabblers like me who have been following the Positive Psychology field grow out of Penn.  In the essay, Haque takes the principles of positive psychology and applies them to the economy.  Namely, just as positive psychology recast the paradigm of mental health from therapy to fix mental and emotional problems, into coaching for peak mental and emotional performance, we can also think of world economies as something to be optimized as well.

Umar does a brilliant job to redefine “wealth” as more than stakeholder returns.  He uses the word wealth in reference to higher order returns: emotional growth, social connection, emotional health, job satisfaction, to name a few.  Here’s a post that will elucidate this movement is already happening.

Just like business coaches help executives reach their peak performance, we can also envision economies measuring themselves according to higher-order returns, and performing at their peak instead of half-hearted therapeutic attempts to remedy wage stagnation and widening economic inequality.

“A move away from business towards betterness.”

Umar takes the mission statements of a few growing companies and singles them out as exemplars of growing wealth in human terms: emotional, social, personal, and mental wealth, as well as monetary.  He gives examples of those higher-order returns and challenges corporations and entrepreneurs to begin measuring their success according to the things they want the world to have tomorrow that it lacks today.  It’s a much-needed expansion on how we define “wealth” in human terms.

I carved out a simple writing exercise to help me think about the impact that I want to have on the world, and then how to measure it.  I’ve taken Umar’s lexicon from the book, and applied it to a simple set of questions that can be answered over time to develop a new business, a personal manifesto, or to re-examine how an existing business is measuring their impact and growth in terms of Purpose, Products over Trinkets, and how to create true value chains.

Let me know what you guys think:

1. What kinds of higher-order returns to I want the world to have tomorrow that it doesn’t have today?
2. Which kinds of precise benefits to I want to return, and to whom?
3. How can I measure the human wealth that I create?
4. Specify the Common Wealth with precision and accuracy.

1. Whose wealth will be enhanced?
2. Who will benefit most from what is put back into the economy’s buckets?
3. Who will gain the wealth created?
4. To whose common wealth will I add?
5. How will the created wealth be enjoyed in common, shared amongst the community?
6. How will the wealth created enrich others as well?

I hope this helps.

Austin W. Gunter

Karen Borchert and I met at Austin Java to talk about Entrepreneurship in Austin

Yesterday, I had coffee (she had a latte, I had a huge espresso) at Austin Java with Karen Borchert, Director of Products at Phase2, an open-source technology services company serving publishing, public policy and non-profit clients globally.  Karen has founded and run NPOs as well as the social venture, Keen Guides, a video tour company with accessibility in mind.

We met to talk about Social Entrepreneurship in Austin.  Actually, one of the first things that we did was acknowledge that many of the ventures in Austin are simply more socially focused than in many other cities, simply because of the local culture.  Karen pointed out that so many of the startup companies in Austin have an eye towards sustainability or are as equally cause-based as they are profit driven.  She pointed to the work that Suzi Sosa is doing at the Dell Social Innovation Challenge as a prime example.

Since I have been talking with a handful of entrepreneurs about creating a social entrepreneurship incubator in Austin, I gave Karen the big picture of the project, and asked for her feedback.  She is an alumnus of the LaunchBox Program in DC, and shared some of her insight about what makes an incubator successful.

It was a good coffee conversation until we started wrapping up, and I asked her to please “call bullshit” on my pitch.

Best question I asked today was: "Can you call 'bullshit' on my idea?" The answer was amazing.

January 31, 2012 12:06 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@austingunter

Austin Gunter

That was when the conversation actually got interesting.

I’ll summarize the big idea that she put forth.

Startups need funding, whether bootstrapped or invested, to pay for the following:

1. Excellent Developers to build the right technology tools
2. Designers to create an identity, brand, and product
3. Legal filings
4. Media / Content
5. Sales / Marketing

Incubators traditionally pair entrepreneurs with investment in exchange for equity so the entrepreneurs can fund 1-5.  But often, a new venture doesn’t know who to use or how to vet potential technologists, designers, or other service providers for their venture, and they waste a lot of money and time trying to find the right folks.  Karen suggested that an incubator might be more successful by taking the same equity, but instead of handing the startup cash, handing them a bucket of time from a tested, trusted, stellar talent network that would provide the development, design, sales, marketing, etc.

Instead of giving cash to a company with no idea as to the quality of the service provider it will eventually go to, foster a symbiotic network of high-quality start-ups and high-caliber service providers.

If the concept worked, the incubator would shift the focus of entrepreneurship towards the development of the people involved in startup companies, instead of on getting funded.  The service providers / engineers would be served by getting market rates for their services while also giving them a chance to work in startup companies.  The idea people could retain the services of great service providers to help them ship products.

Karen’s thesis statement was, “I think most people would love to work at a startup if they could just find a way to get paid.”

As I mull this over, the question of how to split equity comes up, as well as the very real problem of this model not eliciting 100% commitment from all parties and people walking away when things get rough.  I hear Angel Investors say that there is no substitute for the commitment of founders who have already sunk a year or two and tens of thousands of dollars into a venture.

But, I don’t think the amount of money invested comes before entrepreneurial commitment.  I think commitment is the driving force behind an entrepreneur who invests his or her own money into making an idea work.  The amount of money is equal to the time it took the entrepreneur to prove to the world that they were right.

Karen, thanks for spending the afternoon talking with me.

I hope this helps.

Austin W. Gunter

Saturday afternoon, I volunteered as a “production assistant” for We Are Austin Tech.  My job was to record timestamps for each interview question and transcribe the answers.  I took about 15 pages of notes over the course of the afternoon, and got to listen to interviews from some amazing entrepreneurs that I admire for how they live their lives and the challenges that they take on.

Basically it was an inspiring way to spend a Saturday.  Thanks to Joshua Baer for inviting me to help out, and to the whole crew, led by Austen Trimble, for being so awesome to spend the day with.  Amazing and talented people.

Biggest epiphany: Bijoy Goswami, in his interview, defined “bootstrapping” as the process of discovering your personal business model…a process that can take up to 10 years for some entrepreneurs.

I had never defined bootstrapping as a primarily personal discovery, instead of a business model one.  I’ve always mentally blurred the line between the business model and the entrepreneur – not all models work for all entrepreneurs – but I hadn’t articulated the connection so clearly.

It means that as of this year, I am officially a bootstrapper.  It feels good to say that.

I am rebranding my blog right now.  I started talking to designers and WordPress developers 2 weeks ago so I could

get a logo and customize my theme.  I’ve been mostly flying by the seat of my pants, figuring out the brand as I go, but it’s time for me to formalize my brand, my focus, and my work.  None of these will happen overnight.  But, I’m going to be focusing several hours of the next few weeks on the branding of austingunter.com, and you will see changes roll out regularly.

The rebranding process was accelerated dramatically yesterday when I received a phone call informing me of the need to change the name of my blog, and change it immediately.  I’ve found myself on the wrong side of a branding and trademark issue and I’m sharing it so that you can avoid making the same mistake and avoid the same phone call.

Many of you may know about The ATX Equation, work done by Bijoy Goswami and Heather McKissick for the past several years ago as a way to model the Austin, TX Scene.  The way the Entrepreneurs, The Music Scene, The University of Texas, and on combine to make Austin an amazing place to live.  They’re even teaching their model at St. Edward’s University, my alma mater.

Bijoy and I spent half an hour at Link Coworking in December talking about the questions that I’ve been asking, like “Who is Austin?” and, “What does Austin do that people pay him for?,” “What are Austin’s skills valuable to startup companies?”  The goal of the conversation was to help me focus all the elements that orbit around my head into a coherent statement of what I am and what I do professionally.

I’m a writer.  I’m a connector.  I am always doing a million things at once.  I am constantly meeting new people.  I love startups.

Bijoy told me that he is always asking the question, “How can I ‘be joy’ (Bijoy)?”  He told me that in his experience, the big questions he has asked have always added up into something like Bootstrap Austin, or the MRE project.  And he told me that the work I’m doing and the questions I’m asking is the “Austin Equation,” or the equation of who Austin Gunter is.

At that point, I had personal epiphany.  Bijoy gave me a bit of clarity that I had been looking for, and it was a big moment for me.  I had just been given permission to ask all the questions that I had been asking, and to be patient and wait for the answers to reveal themselves.  Bijoy acted like a mile marker along my path, telling me I was was

So I asked him if I could use, “The Austin Equation,” on my blog, expecting an immediate no.  Amazingly, he told me to use it.

Where I went wrong was assuming that I could use it as the title for the blog.  I didn’t do enough homework about  trademarks, or the work that Bijoy and Heather have put in for the past few years.  Most importantly, I didn’t really think about what my own brand would become.  That whatever brand I created for myself would be much stronger and more Austin than something Bjioy had created for the ATX Equation or the Austin scene.

There would be an Austin equation for me personally.  The elements are adding up on the blog in real time.  If you’re reading it, you get to see it happen.  This mistake is a part of that equation.

In retrospect, all of this seems patently obvious.  In December, when I retitled austingunter.com “The Austin
Equation” it made all the sense in the world.  As I write this, I’m seeing things more clearly.

I’m sharing all of this, because I’m changing the blog title again and I want you to know why.  And I’m sharing it because it’s a mistake worth sharing so nobody else has to get yelled at for violating a trademark.

I’m lucky.  The brand that I encroached on is owned by a friend.  Bijoy told me, “this is what being a community is about, giving feedback and getting better.”  I’ve got the chance to learn this lesson in a relatively safe environment.  I got my ear bent a little, that’s about it. But infringement on the wrong brand can mean lots of legal issues if you run up against someone with a bigger name and a bigger legal team.  I looked into some of the stories of trademark legal battles, and they aren’t pretty.

I’m changing the blog to “Austin’s Story,” as a temporary fix.  Since I’m rebranding right now, it makes sense to just leave the title in flux.  I don’t have the permanent name right now, but I won’t rush it.

Where I’m at is a good place to be.  And this little story serves as even more evidence that the more I am authentically Austin W. Gunter, the truer I am to myself, the better my brand will be.  It’s the ultimate statement of faith in humanity that the more genuine we are, the great impact we get to have.  Bijoy gave me a push towards greater authenticity.

That’s why I’m sharing the mistake with you.  It’s now a part of my story, so I’m embracing it.

What’s your story?  Are you embracing your mistakes as part of your own story?

I hope this helps.

Austin W. Gunter

PS: In case you were wondering how Bijoy responded…

@austingunter the bootstrap journey is a learning journey and you are one of its exemplars! Kudos. http://t.co/k9yDzfS0

January 29, 2012 9:42 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@bijoy

Bijoy Goswami

“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily.  To not dare is to lose one’s self.”

Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish Existential Philosopher and Theologian said that.  I love Keirkegaard’s work because he explores our emotion and choice when we as people face big life decisions.

“Facing a big life decision” is a fancy way of saying making an choice that will change my life.  We say a decision is important because it alters the current balance our life in a substantial way.  Once we’ve made a big choice, there is no turning back.  Choosing where I eat lunch isn’t typically a life-altering event.  There isn’t a lot of risk involved.  Choosing to live in Santiago Chile when I was 20 changed my life forever.

Choosing to start a new project, or start a new business carries a great deal of risk with it.  If things don’t go as planned, the business could fail.  We could fail.  Whatever the outcome, it can take time to regain a sense of balance.

Earlier this week, I wrote that I am moving out my parents’ house because it will make my life less stable.  The goal is to lose my footing in order to not lose my dreams.  I am choosing to take a risk, and I feel afraid because I know that might fail.  The fear can get in our way if we bow to it.  Recently, I’ve decided that if I’m feeling fear then I’m doing the right thing and pushing my comfort zone.  It means I’m making progress.

Here’s another quote from Kierkegaard:

During the first period of a man’s life, the greatest danger is to not take the risk.

When I feel afraid, I remind myself of this.  I am 25, and I don’t have much to lose.  With each year that passes, I have more to lose.  Now is not the time to wait for something to happen to me.  Now is the time risk failure in order to make something happen.

Two weeks ago, I was talking about risk with a mentor of mine, and she reminded me that taking a risk is like riding a Segway.  Segways won’t move forward until the person riding them risks losing their balance and leans forward.  Segways move when rider leans forward past the point of being balanced. Right now, if you stood up and started to lean forward, once your center of gravity passed your toes, your body would fall forward.  The human body is programmed to prevent you falling on your face.  Once you lean too far forward, your foot steps forward and catches you.  You’ve almost fallen, but you’ve also taken a step forward.  If you didn’t lose your balance, you would have stayed in the same place.

The Segway works the same way.  Only once the rider leans forward and loses their balance the gyroscopes kick in and the Segway moves forward.  The farther forward the rider leans, the faster the Segway moves.  It’s natural to feel uncomfortable when you lean forward like this. If you’ve ridden a Segway, you know the sensation of almost falling over right before you start moving.  After a few times, most people learn to trust that the Segway is not going to let them fall flat on their face.

Instead of a wheelchair, I rode a Segway all 4 years of college.  My arthritis was very bad those four years, and  I rode the Segway to class every day.  I forgot how scary it was the first time I rode it.  Leaning into the risk and trusting the Segway became natural.  Trust was my segue through the pain of walking and helped me graduate from college.

The YouTube video below is me riding my Segway across the stage at graduation to accept my diploma.

Taking a risk is the only way I know to segue from one stage of life to the next.  And once I get comfortable with one risk, it seems like it’s always time to take the next one.

What is your Segway?

I hope this helps.

Austin W. Gunter

PS: Kierkegaard also said that “anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”  Here’s to your anxiety.

How many 25 year old men are still living with their parents?

Last week, I got so much positive response from my post, Coming Clean, where I talked about having Rheumatoid Arthritis. The positive response to such a personal story made me consider being that open regularly in this blog.  That post received 1,000 unique hits because the Arthritis Foundation shared it on their Facebook page and their Twitter stream.

Prior to that moment, I never believed I could be that honest about my pain, and I was amazed by the comments from people who had their own stories about rheumatoid arthritis to share.  The response was humbling and encouraged me to continue.

So now I’m wondering when I’ve said this over the past 3-6 months.  How many times have we all said it?

Last night, I shared something about my childhood on Twitter that I’ve never shared before.  It’s an important part of my life story, but I had always wanted to keep it quiet in the past.

I think it may be time to bring my story of RA into my blog and my writing. It feels like the time has come to start embracing that saga

January 9, 2012 3:52 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@austingunter

Austin Gunter

I grew up with Rheumatoid Arthritis, and nearly died at 13 from complications. When I was 15 I had both hips replaced.

January 9, 2012 3:52 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@austingunter

Austin Gunter

I was asking questions about Health Insurance for independent consultants / contractors like myself, and I decided that I probably wasn’t the only person in Austin with a life story that involved chronic illness.  I might be the only one who had Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis at age 13, but I’m sure that the city is full of people who have survived challenges in the past.  Kate Voth, who has survived cancer several times, comes to mind.

When I was 13, I was normal and healthy, played football, loved it, all that stuff.  Then I started getting these really weird fevers and joint pain all over my body.  Within a few months, the fevers were spiking at 103 Degrees every day, and the joint pain was keeping me from walking around much.  I was about 5’10″ but I dropped down to about 120 lbs and nearly died in the hospital from complications that winter.

Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis meant that my body’s immune system had turned against my body and was attaching my joint and connective tissue.  My case was very aggressive, and I don’t have a joint in my body that hasn’t suffered significant cartilage loss.  Things don’t quite bend as well as they ought to, and certain movements, normal for other people, can be painful for me.

Things got better, and by the time I was 15 I was on the swim team, feeling healthy and living a pretty normal life.  Then my hips stopped working over Christmas break 2001, and I spent the next 18 months not walking.  I kept up with all my classes through this great program the school district had to send a teacher around to collect all my assignments and visit me twice a week to teach me the math I couldn’t figure out on my own.

In the summer of 2003 finally found a good orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Greenway, who replaced both of my hips with ceramic replacements in one six-hour operation that June.

The X-Rays of my hips immediately after surgery. You can see the screws attaching the socket to my pelvis.

I remember waking up thinking this is exactly like it looks in a movie with bright fluorescent lights gradually coming into focus, hearing a nurse say, “He’s coming to, go ahead and call the parents.”  

They wheeled me into a room and the next day a physical therapist strapped a belt around my waist, pulled me up out of bed and made me stand up.  I still had the epidural and catheter attached, and I couldn’t feel my legs, but they were going to get me walking again.  The next day, I took my first steps with fake hips.

After 2 weeks of hospital Physical Therapy, they sent me home where I had a new lease on life.  You see, before the surgery my hips had lost all cartilage and the bone-on-bone movement of walking was incredibly painful.  The ceramic hips took all that pain away for the first time in more than a year.  Learning how to walk again was easy compared to the bone-on-bone pain.  Before the surgery, I couldn’t even get out of bed on my own.

I literally had to learn how to walk again after that surgery. Imagine relearning to walk instead of living a normal 15 yr old life.

January 9, 2012 3:53 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@austingunter

Austin Gunter

That was normal life for me. Wasn't all bad. I definitely used it for fun too. I had a Segway that I rode on campus at St Edward's.

January 9, 2012 3:54 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@austingunter

Austin Gunter

I went back to high school for my Junior year and took almost a full course load.  I would come home after school, put on a movie and take long naps.  My body took about 2 years to fully recover from that surgery.  I still have 7-inch scars along the outside of my legs.

Paying for college was a major concern for my family.  We had good insurance, so my medical bills didn’t cause problems, but paying for college was going to be a big issue like it is for most middle-class families in America these days.  Making matters more challenging, I wanted to go to the very private St. Edward’s in South Austin, since it was a smaller campus and had a Writing and Rhetoric program I wanted to join.  Paying for college somehow worked out between my SAT scores (1380) and my various scholarships.  Those scholarships made it possible for me to graduate debt-free, and I’ll always be grateful to folks like George Kozmetsky for their grants and scholarships that put me through school when I wouldn’t have been able to manage a job, classwork, and rheumatoid arthritis.

There were plenty of mornings that I couldn’t get out of bed because of the pain I was in, but I wouldn’t have traded it for anything.  In order to make things easier on me, I rode around campus on a Segway.  The State of Texas wanted to buy me a HoverRound, but I knew the Segway would make it easier for me to get dates.  If you can’t fix it, feature it.  The Segway did star in several first dates, and I became known for better or worse around campus as “The Segway Guy.”  

That was a lot more fun than most people imagined. Everyone asked to try it out, and I would teach them how to ride it. Super fun :-)

January 9, 2012 3:55 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@austingunter

Austin Gunter

I’ve never made a point of sharing Rheumatoid Arthritis publicly mostly because I didn’t want to burden people with it.  Those of you who have had a chronic or debilitating illness can attest to how differently people can treat you when they know you’re in pain.  I don’t want people to be on edge when they’re around me.  There are other things to be worried about, and I think everyone has their own pain to focus on.  I can handle my own as well as anyone else can.

I think this weekend I realized that I knew who I was apart from the illness, and I didn’t have to worry about anyone else getting confused about my identity.  I’m Austin the Writer, Austin the Entrepreneur, Austin the Connector, Austin the Extravert, and now people will know that I’m also Austin who has Rheumatoid Arthritis.

The question of health insurance still remains.  I have a good situation set up right now, thankfully, and there isn’t an imminent risk to my coverage.  It is a temporary fix, though, and if there are ever coverage gaps, it would be an interesting challenge to fight a health insurance company to get back on their rolls.  I represent a drain on their profits even thought I work very hard to focus my diet and to keep my body in good condition with Tai Chi.  It’s an expensive proposition to pay for the biologic injection I give myself every night before bed.  I’ve had great success in treating my own condition with diet and exercise, but I still need really awesome (pricey) medicine to function at a high level day in and day out.  Without the medication, the inflammation usually comes back after about 48 hours and I end up back in bed like I was at 13.  That may change someday, and I have high hopes about healing.  For now it’s a daily process, and I’m in better health than I was last year and the year before that.  Lot to be thankful for.

But I think it's a story worth sharing for my own sake, just to share it, and for anyone else who might read it and hear something important

January 9, 2012 4:06 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@austingunter

Austin Gunter

For my own sake, I’m making public acknowledgement of this in my blog.  It’s healing for me to write about it and then put it out there to be read publicly.  I think that the upside of sharing it outweighs any potential downside.  Austin, the city, is a forgiving place that allows individuals to be themselves.  And the nature of social media allows us to be genuine and flawed human beings one moment, and perfect the next because we always have an opportunity to change our status a few minutes later and be a different expression of ourselves.  In that way, Facebook and Twitter do allow us to be more human more publicly than we ever have in the past.  They allow us to be genuinely flawed like never before.  I’m grateful for that.

I’m not sure where things go from here.  I love being able to share my story with people, and there is more to it than this.  It would be cool to hear from other people who have a similar struggle in their own lives.  I’m open to answering questions or having coffee or lunch to talk about it, especially if you are just getting started with your own battle for health.  I think someday it would be amazing to start a non-profit for kids like me who have Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis.  We’d provide resources for their whole family to cope with the challenges and pain their children face on a daily basis, just like I did.  The emotional and identity issues are as painful as the purely medical ones, but there is a great deal of hope and support to be found in the community.

So we'll see what happens.

January 9, 2012 4:08 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@austingunter

Austin Gunter

If you continue to read, I’ll continue to put all this out on my blog.

Thanks for reading this far and sharing this part of my story with me.

I hope it’s been helpful.

Austin W. Gunter

PS: You can read all of the tweets here.

But I found this video because Bret Hurt, Founder / CEO of Bazaarvoice, tweeted it out, citing the importance of good company culture encouraging employee productivity.  Bazaarvoice is famous for their culture, so I queued this up and listened to it in my truck while I drove over the weekend.

I was inspired.  Eric Schmidt talked about the potential for connecting people together as a way to foster entrepreneurship and innovation, and how technology like Twitter keeps governments accountable.  He made the point that connecting people is a fundamental good for society, even if it doesn’t seem like a directly profitable enterprise on its face.  It was the encouragement I wanted to hear.

I’m a genetically-inclined connector.  It was awesome to hear the CEO of Google encourage me to continue seeking to connect inspiring people, pointing out that Search didn’t look profitable when Google was started either.  I don’t really want to be Google, but I would like to make a living being Austin W. Gunter, the Connector.