Another odd Rotary Invocation

My Rotary Club assigns the job of presenting invocations to volunteers like most clubs.  Our club is larger than most and with a diverse membership representing many faiths.  So when the duty came to me I wanted to do something different that the 'stock' Christian invocation we hear nearly every week.

My first invocation was based on a Masonic theme.   My most recent was on Karma.  Another was on Stoicism.  

A recent blog posting by Tim Ferriss titled: On The Shortness of Life: An Introduction to Seneca really resonated with me.  I had read quite a lot about Stoicism but didn't know nearly as much about it as I did after I had read his post.  This is a 'must read' for anyone convinced that we are living in unique times, with unprecedented challenges and confronted by post-modern issues of meaning and relevance.  Get over it!  It's all been done before, thought before and reasoned before.  Our best course is to take advantage of this great work and benefit from it.

With humility, I present the invocation I delivered at the Indianapolis Rotary Club on January 29, 2008.

"In the third century BC a philosophical movement known as Stoicism was conceived in Greece by a philosopher named Zeno.  His teachings ultimately gained popularity thoughout Imperial Rome.  Much of what we know about Stoics today we have learned from the diary of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius.  

In those days, religion wasn't helpful to mark the path to a desirable "good flow of life".  Philosophers literally gave such lessons on porches - the Greek name for which is stoa - thus the first teachers became Stoics.

Stoics believe that all that is necessary to have a happy life is to 'live in agreement with nature'  This included practicing prudence, wisdom, justice, courage and moderation.  These are purely internal prescriptions.  Virtue is the sole good.  Humans can exercize their power of choice and decide to be happy.  Stoicism shows them how.  The way may be hard, but the rules are simple.  A person who achieved the pinnacle of Stoic virtue was called a Sage.''

Like our Rotary Four Way Test, a Stoic life emphasized Ethics.  In addition to truth, they believed that to conform our affairs with nature demanded consideration of the concerns of others.  Sounds like 'Fair to all' and 'Beneficial to all concerned' to me.  Over 2000 years before Paul Harris was born, Stoic philosphy anticipated the words 1.2 million Rotarians would use to inspire our thoughts and actions.

Least important to a happy life were external attributes that include wealth, possessions, status - even health.  They called these 'indifferents'.  As if, with the proper internal focus, these common measures of success were unimportant to true happiness.  So should we believe today.

Many of you may not have heard of the Stoics, or of their philosophy.  The agreement of their views with our Rotarian mottos should give us confidence in their timeless relevance.  But most of us *have* heard of this prayer that unmistakably encapsulate Stoic beliefs.  It's called the Serenity Prayer:

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.  Amen."

Why my Twitter avatar is Nicola Tesla

Entrepreneur Inspiration

Found this video on Technorati in a story on Blogtrepreneur

I cried.

Perfect doesn't matter

People are busy. Attention spans are short. They don't care nearly as much about whatever you are saying or doing as you think they do or should. Except maybe for your mother.

There are many conclusions that can be drawn from this inference. But the one that makes the most difference is in your effort to delay an introduction of a product or service until it is perfect.

Remember the 80-20 rule? It is a Universal Constant! Most of your customers don't care about 80% of your features. They don't read 80% of your website or user manual. They don't hear 80% of what you say. So don't sweat the details - throw it out there in reasonable form and make an impression!

BUT: sloppy isn't good. Misspellings are symptoms of carelessness or worse: illiteracy. So just keep it simple, brief, functional. As the guys at 37 Signals would say: "We believe most software is too complex. Too many features, too many promises."

Get it out there. Perfect doesn't matter.

Note to a friend

An old friend (30+ yrs) is an avid bicycle enthusiast. I don't see him as much as I like, but I think of him often.

Randomly browsing the web turns up interesting links. I occasionally share them with friends. This one popped up today. So I sent him a message with a link.

"Could either of us have predicted that 30 yrs after we met we would be able to sit on our porch, type a few commands onto a system with a VDU (color & high res!) running on batteries, with a wireless connection to servers (millions of them!) with content uploaded with all manner of content (including video!) of stuff that was simply interesting (not corporate!) by normal people from all around the planet??"