My Professional Life Story so far...

Check out my new blog post on Untemplater.com entitled "Are you the ideal candidate?"

It's a bullet point run down of my professional life story, a few challenges I faced and currently face, and the things I have done to help overcome them.

I was pretty hesitant to share this info about myself, however, I honestly feel that it could help others in achieving their professional goals in life.

Hopefully, it will for some.

Cheers,
Andre
http://andrecharoo.com

--
Follow me on Twitter || http://twitter.com/acharoo
Blog || http://andrecharoo.com

Untemplater Blog Post: Why should you veer off the paved path?

Check out my recent blog post on Untemplater.com. Shared some advice that is particularly targeted towards students.

Let me know what you think.

Click here:
http://untemplater.com/self-improvement/why-should-you-veer-off-the-paved-path/comment-page-1/#comment-1388

Cheers,
Andre
http://andrecharoo.com

--
Follow me on Twitter || http://twitter.com/acharoo
Blog || http://andrecharoo.com

Great Book Recommendations from 2009

At the beginning of last year, I set out to read at least 12 great books. How did I decide on which ones were great? Unless a book is recommended to me from people I trust, I rarely will read it. So, thanks to all my friends and friends-of-friends who recommended these great books that I read over the past year.

Here's a bit about each one and what I got out of it:

1. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

I have a tendency to compare my startup to other major successes in the market, and according to Gladwell's book on Outliers, most times, there are other reasons of why they became so successful. Reasons that are outside of your control like their culture, their generation, their friends, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Here's a short post I wrote about the book earlier in the year.

Gladwell explains how success in our lives often comes from people outside of our core group. How do you network to find your own outliers is a good question to ask yourself? He examines the best, the brightest, the most famous, and the most successful and asks the question -- what makes high-achievers different?








2. Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama

After being a part of history, I definitely wanted to read a book about Barack Obama, however, I didn't want it to be too political. I wanted to learn about Obama before his Presidency and Dreams from My Father was recommended to me as that book.

Obama takes you inside his thoughts from his youth and childhood upbringing. You would think that someone who has become the President has always dreamed of becoming the President. Not the case with Barack Obama. He didn't know what he really wanted to do.

The book takes you along an unusually honest journey of his pursuit to find who he really is, his background, his family, his ideals, etc.

The best part of the book is to know that it was written before he became famous, before he became the President, and before any of this happened. It is a raw memoir of the young Barack Obama.




3. I Will Teach You To Be Reach by Ramit Sethi

This book was written by a friend of a friend, Ramit Sethi, who's story is very inspiring to me. Ramit is a Stanford grad who worked on a few startups during school, dabbled in venture capital for a bit afterwards, co-founded PBwiki (now PBworks), a venture-backed startup which is now the world's largest provider of hosted collaboration solutions for business and education. However, that's not all. He's now the author of Iwillteachyoutobereach.com which gets over 250,000 readers per month. He also published this book, which became an immediate #1 Amazon bestseller. Impressive huh?

The book really provides a practical guide to your personal finances in the areas of budgeting, saving, banking and investing. Got great tips out of it. It's especially geared towards young people between the ages of 20-35 years old.






4. Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson

This book was very timely because currently in the "bits" marketplace, many of the tools and applications we use online on a daily basis to get information and connect with others, are free or moving towards free. So, it begs the question -- if you're building something online right now and it's geared towards the consumer market, some portion will have to be free in order for you to compete.

The book received a fair amount of controversy due to Chris Anderson's conclusions that essentially a generational and global shift is at play where those below 30 won't pay for information anymore. Malcolm Gladwell quickly responded with his thoughts on the book in the New Yorker, which got a lot of attention as well.








5. Yes We Did: An Inside Look at How Social Media Built the Obama Brand By Rahaf Harfoush

This book hits home a bit, because Rahaf Harfoush is a Canadian who got the incredible opportunity to work on the New Media team for the Obama campaign. She's also my partner Justin Lee's friend from high school. Pretty cool!

She takes you inside the entire online operations of the campaign from start to finish and shares all of the strategies they used to make the campaign a success. There are some great nuggets of effective social media tips in this book.

Check out this post I wrote about it after reading it earlier in the year.









6. The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Black Swan was quite a thought-provoking read. It's about the impact of the highly improbable. Nassim Taleb has spent his life obsessed with the probability, uncertainty and the fragility of human knowledge. In this book, Taleb essentially says that people don't account for highly improbable events. It's unpredictable, but yet, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random and more predictable than it really was. Taleb is saying that as humans, we are hardwired to learn specifics when we should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and fail to take into consideration what we don't know. Therefore, we're unable to truly estimate opportunities.

What's pretty incredible is that Taleb founded a hedge fund based on his theories called Empira Capital, which actually Malcolm Gladwell goes into more detail about than Taleb does in Gladwell's book What the Dog Saw. His fund's trading philosophy is predicated entirely on the existence of black swans, and on the possibility of some random, unexpected event sweeping the markets. Taleb's fund apparently "made a staggering amount of money for his fund" during the recent financial crisis of 2008-2009.



7. Trust Agents by Chris Brogan

In today's market, it's all about building your brand and reputation, most of which you can control online. Chris Brogan is the king when it comes to using social media tools to build networks of influence that can positively impact your business and in this book, he shows you how to become a trust agent. What is a trust agent? Trust agents are simply "digitally savvy people who use the Web to humanize businesses using transparency, honesty, and genuine relationships."














8. Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

In this book, Dan Ariely applies the irrationality of human decisions and actions to the emerging field of behavioral economics (in fact, behavioral economics is behind some of the thinking for the Obama campaign). In a series of experiments, the author strives to prove how these irrational behaviors are not random, but because they are systematic and repeated over again, predictable.

A timely example is the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008 which showed psychology and irrational behaviour playing an influential role in the economy's functioning. This is opposed to the conventional economic model based on the assumption that individuals are rational and able to make optimized decisions using cost-benefit analysis. The book makes us aware of how we distort our perception of reality and encourages us to use this awareness to navigate through indecision.







9. Crush It by Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vaynerchuk is probably one of the most intense, energetic and passionate people you'll ever hear speak. Check out a video of him here -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhqZ0RU95d4. Gary is a motivational speaker who helps people realize their goals and passions in life. Crush It is no different. Gary essentially channeled the same energy he has behind his talks into each page of this book, which isn't too long, but just enough for you to get the point -- that you can turn your passion into a career. Gary built his wine company into a $60 million business and he shares his experiences as well as a step-by-step guide of how he used social media tools to help grow his company.










10. Viral Loop by Adam Penenberg

Viral loop is essential for any startup founder who is focused on the consumer internet space. This book discusses the magic per say behind truly viral companies and how today's smartest businesses grow themselves so fast on incredible scale and start with so little. Adam breaks down all of the various components necessary to creating a viral company and backs them up with stories and case studies of companies including Hot or Not, Netscape, Ning, Hotmail, eBay, PayPal, Flickr, YouTube, MySpace, Bebo, and Facebook. If you want to know what's essential in creating a viral company, this book is a must read.










11. What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell

As you can see, I really enjoy reading Malcolm Gladwell books. This one is simply a compilation of his favorite work from The New Yorker, where he's been writing since 1996. The stories are quite diverse. The book is separated into 3 parts: (1) Obsessives -- minor geniuses (about interesting people who aren't that famous); (2) Theories -- ways of organizing experience; and (3) Predictions we make about people. Malcolm tries to question where people get their ideas. He believes "the trick to finding ideas is to convince yourself that everyone and everything has a story to tell. Our instincts as humans, after all, is to assume that most things are not interesting." Gladwell tries to fight that and examines a number of things that may not be that interesting in the grand scheme, but it could lead to some things that are.








12. Tribes by Seth Godin

Tribes is one of the most inspiring books I've ever read. Seth believes that the internet has empowered everyday people to lead and make change more than ever before. He argues that the only thing that holds us back or keeps us from realizing our potential is fear of criticism and fear of being wrong.The book has numerous nuggets of information and advice. I tend to dog ear pages that I find helpful or useful and want to remember, and in Tribes, I think I dog eared almost every other page.

My first post on Untemplater: 8 Ways to Avoid Mediocrity

As mentioned, I've started writing on Untemplater, a blog focused on breaking the template lifestyle for students and young professionals. The founders have written this cool manifesto, an ebook essentially of 6 inspiring stories of people embracing the untemplated lifestyle. Download it here.

Here's my first blog post:

http://untemplater.com/business/career-business/8-ways-to-avoid-mediocrity/.

Hope you enjoy it.

Cheers,
Andre
http://andrecharoo.com

--
Follow me on Twitter || http://twitter.com/acharoo
Blog || http://andrecharoo.com

I'm an Author for Untemplater!

Today, a cool new blog launched called Untemplater. It's a blog focused on breaking the template lifestyle for students and young professionals. This is something I'm pretty passionate about. Fortunately, I've been given the opportunity to be an author for the site. The major topics I'll be writing about are entrepreneurship and business. You can subscribe to my posts here.

Check out Untemplater on Facebook and Twitter to see what they're up to. Meet the other authors here. They are a group of very talented people who all have interesting stories to share and a desire to see young people reach their full potential.

I am excited to be part of a group who wants to see everyone work where they want, live how they want, and be who they want to be!

Cheers,
Andre
http://andrecharoo.com

--
Follow me on Twitter || http://twitter.com/acharoo
Blog || http://andrecharoo.com

Tidbits of Advice from a Budding Entrepreneur - #11

#11 - What is the timeline from start to finish as far as seeing results in a startup? How long should you mentally prepare for when you start a company?



I believe it's important to manage your own personal expectations, and unfortunately, many people don't, and thus, give up too early.

What's your take on this? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below.

See previous tidbits here - #10, #9, #8, #7, #6, #5, #4, #3, #2, #1

Cheers,
Andre
http://andrecharoo.com

--
Follow me on Twitter || http://twitter.com/acharoo
Blog || http://andrecharoo.com

Tidbits of Advice from a Budding Entrepreneur - #10

#10 - How do you stay motivated when everyone around you may have a paycheck and you don't?



How do you stay motivated? What do you think are the keys to staying motivated, especially in the early days?

See previous tidbits here - #9, #8, #7, #6, #5, #4, #3, #2, #1

Cheers,
Andre
http://andrecharoo.com

--
Follow me on Twitter || http://twitter.com/acharoo
Blog || http://andrecharoo.com