Dot Connector Blog

The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence.

- Vince Lombardi

Note from Regis: One of my goals for Dot Connector is to connect you with a variety of people we can all learn from: from best-selling authors to successful entrepreneurs, and everyone in between!  This is a guest post from entrepreneur, friend, and colleague, Dave Rigotti.

Being in college, on the executive board for multiple student organizations, and running my own online business, I’ve developed a knack for personal productivity and efficiency.  As I became more and more active, I found myself going to bed later and waking up earlier – usually only getting 4 hours of sleep a night.  I couldn’t keep that up.

Here are my tips for getting that job done and freeing up a few extra minutes in your life.

1.    Get a planner.

You know, the kind you had in school.  They are extremely effective at planning your day and can help find inefficiencies.

2.    Download and use RescueTime.

RescueTime is a fantastic application that tracks your computer usage and reports how efficient and productive you are.  It’s free to use and quite easy to set up.

3.    Watch your TV shows online.

I watch most of them at Hulu.com, which has approximately 5-10 minutes less advertisements than if I watched it on the television.  Additionally, you can pause and come back and also watch it at your convenience (on the bus, doctors office, or even on the John).

4.    Stay focused online.

Using RescueTime or FireFox plugins, monitor you unproductive site usage, such as Facebook or Myspace and other sites that do not contribute to you accomplishing your tasks and goals.

5.    Set goals.

I’m surprised hoe many people do not set any goals, even if they are simple as “I’ll write 500 words of this paper by 5pm today.”  Goals formalize your work and for me at least, I hate not accomplishing a goal I’ve set for myself.  Just make sure they are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely.

Bonus: Find where you work best.

I can’t work at home – it’s too distracting – so I go to the local coffee shop that has free wifi.  In fact, I’m writing this article from one.  I suggest you find where you work best.

What are your tricks for staying on track?  Let me know in the comments!

This post was guest blogged by Dave Rigotti, owner of Career Fire.

[Reposted from Unconventional Thinking, the blog of Mark Stevens]

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”

- Albert Einstein

Throughout his life, my Dad taught me that I truly could be whatever I decided to be. His confidence in me gave me the strength to believe in my ideas, challenge conventional thinking, and take risks.

Below are 6 techniques I’ve used to successfully challenge conventional thinking in my life.

1. Identify and ignore “noise” in your life.
Noise is the unnecessary stuff that distracts your attention and limits your effectiveness: naysayers, gossip, opinions of news media, fear, etc. If you are determined to challenge conventional thinking, you have to train yourself to ignore noise.

I work for Quicken Loans, one of the nation’s largest direct mortgage lenders, in arguably the most challenging time for the financial industry in 20 years. If I listened to all the noise about how bad the mortgage crisis is, I would become paralyzed by negativity and fear. Instead of focusing on the constraints around me, I consciously look for opportunities. Don’t let yourself become a product of your environment; let your environment become a product of you!

2. Don’t recreate the wheel.
I’ve seen companies launch huge new initiatives without ever stopping to ask themselves: “has someone done this already?” Be curious! Instead of blindly jumping into a project, take a step back and think “someone must have run into this situation before, what did they do?”

We recently decided to focus on a particular marketing strategy at Quicken Loans. Instead of starting from scratch, we flew several key people to another, non-competitive company to discuss our plan. Because that company had already executed this strategy really well, the day we spent with them saved us months of trial-and-error.

3. Take a stand.
A couple of years ago, I was leading a project that a senior executive didn’t agree with. He didn’t think the project could make an impact on the business. I believed that it would. We compromised, and he gave me 90 days to prove it. I did, and the executive was proud of the accomplishment.

It can be hard to challenge consensus. But if you truly believe in what you are doing, you can’t be afraid to voice an opinion or do things that others don’t understand. Remember: the thinking that got you where you are will seldom get you where you want to go.

4. Get excited when people tell you “no.”
So many people let others dictate what they can and cannot do. Before they know it, they have lost the ability to be effective. When people tell me “no, we can’t do that,” I immediately think “how can we?”

Every day, I have conversations about ideas that are too hard to do, solutions that are too complicated, and costs that are too expensive. If you attack these situations by creatively brainstorming alternatives, you can inevitably find ways to turn these “no’s” into “yes’s.”

5. Keep it simple like Forrest Gump.
“When I got tired, I slept. When I got hungry, I ate. When I had to go… you know… I went.” Forrest kept life simple. Do you?

At Quicken Loans, we have a “no big projects” rule. Why? Big projects usually mean lots of over-complicated ideas that simply aren’t needed to solve the problem at hand. You can have big visions but still execute them in small chunks. Doing this encourages constant improvement, and helps prevent marketing projects that are out of sync with current business needs.

6. Be effective, not busy.
My team completed over 1,100 internet marketing projects last year alone. While that’s an impressive accomplishment, I’m most proud of the impact those projects made. Every single thing we do has a legitimate business reason, or we don’t do it. And every morning we meet to discuss the thing we can do that day to be the most effective.

Every person on my team has (literally) hundreds of things on their to-do list. Our concern is not getting them all done. Instead, we ask ourselves, are we working on the right things, right now? Once we focus on being effective, instead of being busy, we automatically get into
a mental mode of challenging conventional wisdom.

Try one of these techniques, and you can take an ordinary day and make it great! Try them all, and you will hone your ability to challenge conventional thinking.

As many of you know, I work for Quicken Loans, one of the top 10 home mortgage lenders in the United States, the #1 online lender of home mortgages in the US, and Fortune Magazine’s #2 best place to work in the US (Google is #1).

Many of you have asked for my opinion about the mortgage crisis, what got us here, and what can be done.  Today, I’ll share a drastically simplified version of the comprehensive solution, called “A Solution That Works” that was put forward last week by Dan Gilbert, Chairman of Quicken Loans.

You really don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand the housing crisis, or the solution to it, no matter what anyone tells you.  It will take the right leadership to get us out of the challenging situation we are in.  And, just like in almost every leadership challenge, you can’t let how hard you think the solution is prevent you from doing it.

On to the plan…

The Situation Right NOW

• Homeowners today are “striking out” by having a declining home value (strike 1), an unpredictable and growing monthly mortgage payment (strike 2), a growing mortgage balance that they owe the bank (strike 3). Often when this strike out happens, a Homeowner cannot make their payments, or chooses not to, resulting in foreclosure.
• Unfortunately, the $700 billion financial rescue plan passed by Congress last week does little if anything to address these Homeowner issues (stopping foreclosures, declining home values, and dramatic increases in mortgage payments).  These issues are the fundamental reason why the “credit markets” you hear about on the nightly news are in crisis.
• The goal of “A Solution That Works” is to help each American Homeowner stay in their home, prevent their home’s value from declining, change their bad mortgage to a good mortgage, and prevent foreclosure.

A Solution That Works, a Simplified Version of the Plan

1. The Homeowner would work through a Lender to have their bad mortgage changed to a new, 30-year fixed rate mortgage.
2. This new mortgage would have an interest rate of 6.375% fixed for the life of the loan, but would also have a low interest rate (starting at 4.875%) for the first 5 years, to give the homeowner some relief and allow them to “dig out” of their mortgage situation.
3. If the Homeowner owes more than the original loan amount (due to not paying enough interest or any principal, like if they are in an “Option ARM”), the Lender will essentially cover the difference.

A Solution That Works, an Example

The Smith family purchased a home in 2006 and got an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM).  In October, their interest rate adjusted from 6.5% to 9%.  As you can see below, their payment jumped as well:

With A Solution That Works, the Smith’s family’s mortgage payment is reduced to $1,064 initially, and gradually increases over 5 years to approx. $1,250 and WILL NOT change for the remaining 25 years of the loan.

My Thoughts

Personally, I believe that a combination of greed (from Homeowners, Banks, and Financial Institutions), irrational expectations about home values, and a lack of Federal oversight lead to the housing crisis we are in right now.

To get out of this, we have to treat the cause of the disease, not merely it’s symptoms.  I believe “A Solution That Works” would do that.  Here’s why:

1. This plan puts the Homeowner first, helping them to get out of the bad mortgage they are in.  The result is reduced foreclosures and more stable property values.
2. This plan can quickly create a win-win for Homeowners (who get a new, better loan) and Lenders (who get support from the government).
3. This plan is an efficient and practical use of Federal dollars, especially since a lack of government oversight was a major contributor to the situation we are in now.  In this plan, the Federal government would pay the difference between the 4.875% rate and the 6.375% rate for those first five years.  Also, this plan would allow lenders to write off 2x the interest the Homeowner did not pay that was previously added to their loan amount.
4. The cost of this plan would be $50 billion, roughly 1/14 the cost of the $700 billion financial rescue plan passed by Congress last week.  And, it also eliminates the need for a new bureaucracy outlined in the bailout bill to buy bad mortgages.
5. Finally, this plan also gives the investor in these loans higher odds of recovering their investment (versus dealing with foreclosure) by immediately stabilizing the housing market.

Now, before you think: “isn’t Quicken Loans one of the reasons we are in this situation?” Please consider that although Quicken Loans did offer some versions of these loans, we never made these products our “bread and butter” and we never did any significant subprime mortgage business.  Our overall business has always been in standard, “conforming” loans.  Also, please feel free to read Quicken Loans Reviews to learn about our excellent customer service.

I encourage everyone to read the plan for yourself and comment here to let Dot Connector readers know what you think!

More information

• A Solution The Works Website
• A Solution That Works: Frequently Asked Questions
• Watch Dan Gilbert discuss his plan on CNBC
• Detroit Free Press coverage of the plan

What you can do

• Find your Congressional Representative
• Find your U.S. Senator
• Contact the President and White House
• Contact Henry Paulson, The US Secretary of the Treasury.
• Contact Your State Governor
• Contact Your State Representative
• Contact Presidential Candidate Barack Obama
• Contact Presidential Candidate John McCain

UPDATE: A great overview of the current financial situation, in extremely clear terms:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4Ns4ltUvfw]

I have never seen a monument erected to a pessimist.

- Paul Harvey

How you choose to spend your “mental energy” is the single-biggest determinant of your career. The power of mental focus separates those who are good from those who are great.

How do you “spend” your unconscious and conscious thoughts? Do you ever think about that? Try the test below to see if you are an abundance thinker, or if you are focused on scarcity. The following test and solutions are adapted from a newsletter article by Tim Sanders, former Chief Solutions Officer at Yahoo! and author of the books How to Save the World at Work and Love is the Killer App. From Tim:

Scarcity is the greatest crisis today in our society. There is no greater evil than the belief that there is not enough to go around. There is no greater threat to your organization or company’s future than the Scarcity mindset. Sounds scary? There are two pieces of good news: there are solutions and when they are implemented, you will experience profound happiness and peace.

- Tim Sanders

Scarcity Test – 4 Questions to Better Understand Your Thinking

1. Do you believe that there is “not enough to go around”?
2. Do you ever define yourself based on what you lack, not what you have?
3. Are you motivated by fear, do you talk about fear (i.e. “my fear is…”), and/or do you motivate others by fear?
4. Do you find yourself thinking that when others gain, you lose; or, when you give, you have less?

If you answer yes to any of these questions, you focus on scarcity in your thinking. The more questions you answered yes to, the more scarcity has taken over your thinking. Yes, it really is that simple.

Impact of Scarcity Thinking

Focusing on scarcity hurts you and the people around you. Why?

1. You create a personal “doomloop” (a phrase coined by Jim Collins in “Good to Great“). A doomloop is a situation where you are constantly looking for the single defining action, the grand program, the one killer innovation, the miracle moment that will allow you to skip the tough “buildup stage” of any idea, career, etc. and jump right to realizing the benefits of your work.
2. You can no longer share in the success of others. Ideas create new ideas. Friendships and communities create new friendships and new communities. If you are inwardly focused (“what about me?”), you create a fundamental, internal, “mental disagreement” with those around you.
3. You limit your potential to be a leader. Leadership is about giving to and serving the people you lead. If you focus on scarcity, you stop seeking opinions and stop trying to bring out the best in others.

Solution: Return to Your Abundance Mentality

Here are 3 solutions to eliminate your scarcity mentaility, from Tim Sanders:

Step 1: Change your thinking. Define yourself by what you have, not what you lack.
As Dr. Wayne Dyer says, “find the Abundance in the little things in your daily life”. This morning I found Abundance in my breakfast and the endless cup of coffee given to me. In 2000, during the crash, I found abundance in the smiles of others. At Yahoo, I led the ‘refresh’ campaign and encouraged people to find abundance in what they had, especially compared to all of the others that had so much less and so little to look forward to.

Step 2: Stay on the lookout for Fear. Replace it with Faith and Endurance.
This is one of the few places where it is OK to label people. Call a spade a spade. That’s what I do at Yahoo as the Leadership Coach. When I catch someone acting like Chicken Little, I stamp them. When I observe someone acting out their personal story of Abundance, I name them DaVinci (Don, Doris, etc.). My mom gave me advice for this talk; I need only two things to lead and thrive-faith and endurance. One will help me when the other is in short supply.

Step 3: Practice Abundance daily.
Practicing Abundance requires letting go of stuff – and believing that there is more. Every day, give something, share something or be a bigger person because you know there is enough to go around. Each act of generosity on your part sends a signal to the world that you are in touch with your Abundance.