Total War waged by Roman Engineers and a few good soldiers

The Roman empire is the longest standing empire in history, over 1000 years which is quite an accomplishment. In fact, Pontius Pilate under the command of Julius Cesar's HQ in Rome was the one who allowed the crucifixion of Jesus, his subsequent death and resurrection 3 days later. 

Why the Romans were a very large empire, they didn't conqueror their enemies quickly or overnight like the speedy Monguls before them. The Romans were instead very much methodical, generation after generation. At their core the Romans were engineers and builders, they were also more cruel than anyone who came before or after them. Julius Cesar invented "Total War" when he invaded the Gauls, present day Germany. 

Total War is the idea you pull out all the stops, anything goes, and that meant anything. What Commodus did to Maximus's wife and child in the Oscar hit Gladiator is just a drop in the ocean. Eye for an eye is simple, Total War is more strategic and attempts to exploit any weakness against your enemy, his family, his home, his county, and his dignity as an example to others to stay in line. The idea is you make war more painful for your enemy so they typically give up before any spears are thrown and thus become subjugated and members of the Roman Empire. 

Since the Romans were always outnumbered, they had to scrappy. Julius Cesar was the most refined of them all as he conquered all present day Germany & France occupied by the mighty Gauls. The Gauls were in fact, Rome's mortal enemies having sacked Rome BC 410 and again in years past.  

So where does all this lead? I live in America and we do not engage in total war even though we could. We have the best weapons and a huge defense budget rivaled by none. But America has learned a better way.  America believes in protecting freedom of all humans around the world, regardless of their social status or creed, we do not aim to kill innocents and civilians. We protect the downtrodden and let their people judge them such as Saddam Hussein. 

 In closing, since the Romans were always outnumbered that had to win in other ways, and those ways were very cruel, sometimes called worse than barbaric. They did however quite literally pave the way for future generations and hope that history would not repeat itself.  

To learn more and a good podcast in the car or office, Dan Carlin and Elon Musk discuss an Engineers War and the Romans way of doing things or Google EP17 Engineering Victory with Elon. 

Inflection points & leveraging the power of Technology

What a computer is to me is the most remarkable tool that we have ever come up with.  It’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds –Steve Jobs

My professional life orbits technology and selling the latest and greatest of it to my enterprise customers. By riding this technology continuum, I've discovered some tech short-cuts you should quickly implement. My hope is you can use these tips to future-proof yourself for tomorrow and better prepare for technology's Vast Future.  

To start, I believe technology in 2015 is at yet another inflection point.  It's standing at a deep chasm, looking down and ready to leap, less it get left behind.  This inflection point is very similar to the most well known and recent: the advent of the internet. True to its very nature, today's inflection point is also unique, quick flowing, and unchartered. Since I mentioned the Intenet, let us now put that inflection point under a microscope and see how technology's past can help predict its future.   

The Internet as we know it today became accessible to the general public in the early 1990’s. Although it took almost a decade to advance to this level, the intenet's evolution now becomes much make rapid. 

Those who embraced the Internet early such as Mark Cuban profited handsomely.  Now sure... Mark got very lucky and the wind was strongly at his back, however he was not the only person to catch this same technology typhoon.  Other technology moguls such as: Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, or Larry Page were right there with him.  Albeit, these moguls were doing something completely different from Mr. Cuban however, they were still focused on technology, leveraging it, and all were positively affect by the internets's gravitation pull on eqch's technological genius. 

So, what does this all mean and why were these Edison's of our time immensely successful?  I believe it is because these individuals happened to recognize an inflection point in technology and made the most of it.   For those of you who aren't familiar with what an inflection point, let me explain.  An inflection point is a certain point, that once reached turns everything before it on its head.  An example is once water starts boiling it will never stop bubbling, it is forever changed so long as it is above 212 F.  Water turning to ice is another parallel example.

So in closing, I believe Technology has begun boiling again and is at an inflection point.  My advice to you is to leverage this shift, while of course making sure you don’t get burnt. Here are my top 3 tips for making sure you don’t get scalded and come out of this tech boom better than when you went into it.

These tips can be implemented immediately.

1. Purchase your .com domain name.  This can easily be done through Godaddy and costs between 1$-15$ (I own mine, www.DerekVeenstra.com)
2. Claim your LinkedIn URL and make it your name, exactly how it appears on your LinkedIn profile, here is a tutorial.  My LinkedIn profile URL is https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekveenstra for example.
3. Claim your name with a corresponding Gmail account, if you're not too late. Unfortunately I was outfoxed and had to settle for VeenstraDerek@Gmail.com  There are actaully 179,349 Derek's in the US alone.  10 Derek Veenstra's on Facebook last time I searched. 

Make your New Year’s Resolutions Stick

Nothing matters more than a goal -Unknown 

As we approach the New Year let’s use this time to reflect and dissect what this year has meant to us.  Let’s also not forget to celebrate this year’s accomplishments. Hopefully this includes the successful completion of some of the resolutions you made around this time last year.  If you fell short in achieving any of these goals, maybe this article can help you do better in 2015.    

Here are 6 of my personal tips for achieving this year’s, New Year’s resolutions. 

1. Write them down, or digitally store them in Outlook notes or anywhere they can’t get lost. If you think this is crazy, can you remember what your resolutions actually were for last year or the year before that?

2. Don't have too many goals. It's ok to just have one goal if you feel that having multiple goals will distract you from reaching any of them. Better something than nothing.

3. Make sure your goals meet the S.M.A.R.T. criteria (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, & Timely)

4. Tell as many friend and family members as you can. Scientific studies show you'll greatly improve your chances of reaching a goal if you publicly state it.  I've posted one my New Year’s Resolutions at the end of this post for this exact reason.

5. Use mile stoning if it's a long goal. For example if you're a commissioned sales professional like myself and would like to earn more than last year.  Calculate what you need to sell each month to be on pace for your goal.

6.  Use positive manifestation. If you want a new car in 2015 imagine yourself driving it into your garage as much as you can. 

Best of luck hitting all your professional and personal goals of 2015 & Happy New Year.  

** 2015 New Year’s Resolution: Have salad at least 3 times a week**