The very kind folks at Eton of Sweden were nice enough to let me use their gorgeous boutique at 58th and Madison for these record setting attempts as well as supply the Pocket Squares (my favorite place to add to my Pocket Square collection. Eton has some amazing new things coming this spring and fall.) Being surrounded by that much classy fashion, there was no way I could fail.

The first record: Most Pocket Squares Worn in 30 Seconds

The second record: Most Pocket Squares Worn At Once

Now that I’ve taken the plunge and have two of my very own world records (until someone breaks them), my mind has started to race with other records I can create/set/break.

What about you? Was set/break world record on your 2012 resolution list? Is it now?Tweet

Whirly Bird (254 S. 2nd Street – Williamsburg) is a pretty simple place with only two things for your consumption: espresso and Breakfast Tacos. And, as their signs claim, both are top notch.

First up was the appropriately named “The #1″ which featured scrambled eggs, oaxaca cheese, homemade salsa on a crispy corn tortilla w/jalepano chips and some of the best chorizo I’ve had outside of Texas.

Secondly was the monstrosity known as “The Waldorf” which took “The #1″ to a whole new level by adding another crispy corn tortilla and swapping the scrambled eggs for a perfectly fried egg right in the middle of the yummy goodness.  It’s presentation was great, as was its taste, but the practicality of eating it was a little bit suspect due to its size, but the overflow of toppings made for a nice pool of scrumptiousness waiting in the basket to finish off with a fork.

Even though Jeff the owner isn’t from the south (he’s from CT), he is considering adopting the slogan of “Don’t Mess with Breakfast” and is doing his part to bring smiles to the faces of folks with a passion for the growing cravings of hipsters and southern transplants alike, the oh-so-wonderful Breakfast Taco.

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But, Saturday Night Live seems to agree with at least the sentiment as seen in this past weekend’s sketch called “You Can Do Anything!”

Completlely hit the nail on the head. Bravo.

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To read the first post about building your network before you need can be read HERE

“The best time to be building your network is when you don’t NEED to be building your network.”

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Worth the 6:05 to see it all the way through.

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The idea of happiness isn’t, but as a goal it is. How do you define “being happy?” When you have achieved that state, do you have to stay there? Or, it is a “more often than not” kind of thing? And, if so, how will you know for sure that you have achieved it? Will you write down the number of minutes each day you were able to keep yourself in that state of happiness?

In my post yesterday, I talked a little bit about the high level story lines that I’ve started to pull out from the unfiltered ramblings that I jot down when planning for the year ahead. But, I realized after getting some feedback (from you the reader, thanks!), that I left out how I determine if something will in fact make it from the hair brained idea phase to the committed and inked phase of the year.

I’ve had the chance to be a part of a lot of “goal setting” meetings, both professionally and personally with mastermind style roundtables. It is always amazing what you can learn about a person by the goals they share and the approach that they take to prioritizing what they think are the have-tos for the next year. But, in those meetings and roundtables, I’ve also hear a ton of really bad goals, like the previously mentioned “being happy.”

For me, in order for a goal to be counted as a legit commitment, it must pass the SAM test.

Significant: It has to be something that you don’t know exactly how it is going to happen and it is going to take your very best to continue to pull the pieces into place so that it can occur.

Attainable: In the time frame of the goal being set, in this case 2012, it has to be something that can be achieved. If not, you will end up failing and knowing that you are going to fail is never a good place to start.

Measurable: If you can’t precisely define when you have arrived and what steps and progress you are making along the way, how will you know your are getting closer? You must be able to tick of units of success as you go.

By having these checks and balances in place, I’ve been able to take big lofty ideas like “Being Happy” and boil them down to specific goals that aim towards the bigger idea AND pass the SAM test.

I had the chance to spend some time with Jeff Swartz, the former CEO of Timberland. In talking about goals he put it another way: “It has to be big enough to matter, but small enough to achieve.”

Happy Resoluting.Tweet

For years, I’ve broken my annual and monthly goals down into 6 categories as I think through what I expect of myself:

- Professional

- Financial

- Relational

- Spiritual

- Physical

- Educational

I start with very broad strokes in each of those categories, everything that pops into my head gets written down. I usually end up with 10-12 ideas for each category. Then, once I have all of those ideas in front of me, I take a big step backwards and look for trends, themes, or story lines that need to be pulled out and highlighted. What did I tell myself about myself in the free flow of goals and aspirations for the next 12 months? With some intentional thought and a large cup of black coffee, I was thrilled by what I found this year. The unknowns of what my business card will say I am and what I do in 2012 actually freed me up to think about things I hadn’t before. I am still refining what I will commit to for 2012, but the big idea(s) are there.

We are all telling a story with every action we choose to take or not take. We are both the protagonist and the antagonist of an epic tale more commonly referred to as our life. Going into the new year feels fresh and full of possibility, but, 12 months from now, one thing is guaranteed to be true: 2012 will only ever be what we choose to make of it.

Happy New Year.Tweet

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Growing up, my family played a lot of games. Card game, board games, and guess which word I want you to say games. Each time that a new game was introduced, via birthday present or unsuspecting friend, there was a scramble to understand more of the rules faster than everyone else. Whether it was taking turns reading the side of the box, huddling around the small print pamphlet like it was the Dead Sea Scrolls, or reading all the rules before telling anyone else that there was a new game in the house, the rules were a big part of the indoctrination to the Ellwood family game night.

The reason for the clamor around the rules was quite simple: they tell you how to win. And, when it comes to games, that is the only reason to play. (The “let’s not keep score and just have fun” thing just doesn’t work for me.) The rules lay out what exactly you would do to win faster than others and says that these things are illegal. But, in telling you the things that are against the rules, it also paints the picture of what kinds of things should be paid attention to and the areas of the game that advantages might be acquired.

This weekend, the Sunday New York Times front page above the fold story featured a detailed look into the complex tax planning strategies of the hier to the Estée Lauder fortune.  The headline and the sentiment of the article do little to hide the author’s distain for the ways that Ronald Lauder and his family have structured their finances. Several times throughout the article there are references to his “shrewd use of the US Tax Code.” This is followed by general statements about the complexity of “labyrinth of trusts, limited liability corporations and holding companies” that may or may not have been developed to with their likely favorable tax implications in mind.

Looks like someone read the rules.

Looks like someone else doesn’t like the rules.

And while this article may serve as further proof in the case against the Haves being made by the Have Nots, I took it from a different perspective. What are the rules that I haven’t mastered? What are the advantages that exist in my world that I am not maximizing? What are the angles that I can take in the games I am currently playing that will frustrate others not clever enough to find them?

“If no one is accusing you of cheating, you probably aren’t trying hard enough.” – WinnerTweet

If that logic is true, 922 days after joining Twitter, I can begin to say I am mastering Twitter. This blog post will be sent out as my 10,000th tweet.

To mark this milestone, I decided to take account for what has been shared and sent out over the past couple years and 10,000 tweets. As I looked over all the details I uncovered, here are some stats that I found interesting (to run these stats yourself, check out TweetStats.com and CrowdBooster.com)

Here is what the break down of how far each and every one of my tweets went. Some were retweeted by people with a lot of followers and there for reach a ton of folks. Others were retweeted a bunch of times.

Total reach of each tweet

Even through I joined Twitter in May of 2009, I really didn’t get into it until moving to New York in 2010. Here you can see how many times I tweeted each month over the past couple years. (Average 219/month)

Number of Tweets per month

Another interesting stat that I thought was really interesting was what time of day I tend to tweet. As you can see here, unless I am sleeping, there is a chance that I am sharing something about what is going on in my world. And, this may or may not reveal how little sleep I actually need.  (average tweets/day = 11.6)

Tweets by time of day

Then of course the question of, what the heck am I actually tweeting that much about? Here is a word cloud of some of the top words and hashtags that I’ve sent out over the past 10,000 tweets.

Top words in tweets

There is a very true saying that “what you measure is what you manage.” And, as I look back over this set if data and some of these other points that TweetStats.com and CrowdBooster.com revealed, it begs the question: “What, if anything, should I be doing differently in next 10,000 tweets?”

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