Posts Tagged ‘Relationships’

Google Doesn’t Have The Answer…The Game Of Love

Posted: March 13, 2014 in Posts
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My heart skips a beat then causes knots in my stomach
My mind races and takes from me the energy I need to succeed
My hands shake more than before as I notice how much you balanced me
You held my hand

My body feels weak as it remembers who I no longer am and can no longer embrace
No lie yes my pride is hurt but I have little pride to open up to  you and just be me
I made mistakes, we made mistakes but I know I need and want to change to be your B
And I know how much you love me

My days are really hard to understand what do I do, where do I go and who can I give my happy energy to
I get lost in the moments of you being so sweet so supportive and the moments  of seeing you’re gorgeous smile, feeling your warmth and being best friends

The future I envisioned is now missing from my vision, remember I said I want to spend as much of life with you as I can! The small things the big things you have done  to support me, love me and bring me such joy all the worries would dissipate

I know what my errors were and how they continued after promises they wouldn’t. I am human as you are and we often would act or do similar things. We are a lot the same, come on we both cover our eyes during the gruesome parts of moves and TV.

No woman can compare or make me feel how important it was to have you as my girlfriend…an honor actually. I zone out on our super fun days from doing nothing to a beach far away. Then you started beating me in bowling it was still fun and our thing.

I have after searching no happier feeling than making you happy and excel in life. I want to see you fly and reach all the things you thought you couldn’t because I know you cam.

But yes love I am sad, I have to wake up without you and rush to start my day so I don’t stay in bed

They always say time will make these feelings pass. So is it wrong of me to not want them to pass, to not want to love anyone but you?

So maybe it’s you that needs to teach and help me, I’ve spent much time asking everyone but only you know. Or do I?

You know who you are and my wish is we don’t lose each other when finding each other was hard enough.

Don’t Take It Personal…Bollucks

Posted: July 22, 2013 in Posts
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“Just let me be great, let me be great.” – Jay Z F.U.T.W

Last week like many days in my business life something didn’t go exactly how I wanted it to and I got truly upset. It was early in the day but I needed to just go home and hide and take in what happened and yes do a bit of sulking.

I have been an entrepreneur since 20 years old when I started my first company a call center that pivoted to a data list broker and multi compiler. Business has been my college, my personal life and my source of great energy. Up until my most recent start up Gocella all of my companies were funded by myself and business partner Sev, also my best friend since I was 17 and we are still at it together.

Even Gocella was 1.5 years funded by us until we were introduced to Ryan Moore at Atlas venture who decided to lead a round that we didn’t even have planned…real boot-strappers. Smart guy : ) Thanks Ryan and Atlas and all our investors, rest assured we are building and working from the brain and the heart.

So yes I take it all personally I don’t know how not to because I feel that is what drives my passion to create successful companies and happy clients. I want everything I do to be great and that takes more than a brain and innovation…it takes heart. Well things involving our hearts are very personal.

I do know this makes things at times more difficult, overwhelming and quite exhausting. However it’s my formula and I refuse to change it, no matter how much sleep I lose sometimes, or tears I shed, or worries I create and amplify. It’s who I am and it is the way I am outside of work as well.

I want to not only make my clients happy but my friends, family and the special person in my life. All the same side effects though come with being so personal and unfiltered in my personal life just like I mention in business.

What if I didn’t take it all personally? I would feel like I wasn’t giving my all and if I didn’t have my heart in something and also I would feel like I was lying to myself, to people, prospects, investors, clients, friends and loved ones. This I will not do. My principles on lying are pretty crazy…yes I get the whole white lie thing but I just hope if I stick to this code, this formula, well it will come back to me from others.

Taking things personally means caring, appreciating, being grateful and trying my hardest to do great work, be a good person and you know what just being great. Let’s be great!

I try more now to at least not amplify the little things that happen to all of us, I try to let go so I can move on and make something else work out versus focusing on the negative or unexpected “let down”

But no matter what it’s all personal, it’s my life and it all affects me. Unfortunately I need to remind myself more often that I am not the only one going through these types of emotions and giving my all at any risk necessary…I am getting a little better at this from the help of great friends.

So the way I see it is, take it personally and people will know you really care, you really want to  be happy and make others happy and I don’t know how that can be done without putting your heart into your work and wearing your heart on your sleeve.

So for those that feel the same way, live the same way and struggle because of it…I say keep up with the struggle, confide in great friends and trusted advisers because in my opinion nothing will ever be great without someone’s heart being on the line and involved.

Take it personal, it’s your life we are talking about here it’s how you want people to view you and trust you.

Trust is what it’s all about!

So again let’s be great!

Someone who really cares :)

Posted: June 19, 2013 in Posts
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Someone who really cares 🙂.

My Flower

Posted: May 20, 2013 in Posts
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Today feels different and only I and a few know why I am not the same Brian I was last Monday when I woke up, had my coffee, did some reading chatted with my girlfriend and then began my work day.

Today I feel a bit frozen and I am trying to get into a routine but I just don’t feel that inner strength that all entrepreneurs need to begin their day. I want to just sit on the couch, watch some TV and think through why I am feeling less inspired than usual…even though I know why.

I will probably then just watch the clock and wonder if something that probably won’t happen will because I am thinking not only for myself but for others as well trying to send signals and solutions to them that I feel are not selfish just come from experience…from the scars I have of life. That should bring happiness to both of us versus us both wondering what the outcome of some space alone may bring.

I am in a situation that I have somewhat limited abilities to help the outcome other than remaining distant and quiet and allowing a flower to grow on its own versus nurturing it a bit more, I’d rather give that flower a bit more care to help it blossom to where I would like it to be but then that flower may not feel it blossomed on its own and that’s what seems to be what this flower needs.

No matter how much I think about that flower and not go about my day probably not much can change so I should be aware that my life must proceed and trust that this flower knows I am here whenever it needs me…so much easier said than done. In fact my flower may grow more by knowing that I am still strong and will be through it all.

We are all very different but yet all very the same we want to be cared for, we want to be held and we want to not be lonely. Labels have led us to believe a person can only be this to us when they are labeled a certain way especially in relationships but unfortunately these labels come with other baggage.

They remind us of past relationships and what went wrong or right with them, they make us feel we need to change things about ourselves for another person, give up parts of our lives that we feel make us happy or question if our own goals have now been altered.

This a I disagree with, to me a relationship is supposed to be the enhancement to who we are and how we live to make us better inside and out and be proud to be cared for. We are able to surrender ourselves as ourselves so that we have at least one person that cares about us no matter what we are going through, how we look one day versus another and believe in us from close and afar.

Maybe it’s time for me to change this label to something as simple as you are my flower and I am yours, will this change maybe the outcome of together who we are I don’t  know but I do know this label can just be ours.

The good thing is this flower knows it is the most beautiful flower I want to see grow

This poem inspired me…

Woman With Flower

By Naomi Long Madgett

I wouldn’t coax the plant if I were you.

Such watchful nurturing may do it harm.

Let the soil rest from so much digging

And wait until it’s dry before you water it.

The leaf’s inclined to find its own direction;

Give it a chance to seek the sunlight for itself.

Much growth is stunted by too careful prodding,

Too eager tenderness.

The things we love we have to learn to leave alone.

Some Of What Makes Me

Posted: January 11, 2013 in Posts
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It seems like yesterday no wait stop

I know the past is how the future become but
There is so much I have to let go so I need to start again
Open up my heart let all thoughts come and go
I will find what I need as history and the future pass through my brain sometimes at lightening speed
So I let those thoughts pass and even get at me but the present is all I need just these moments not much more
It’s been so long and I saw all I want but I still want more
This time I have had it’s been fun but not enough
Call myself greedy then I reflect and know what I want more of what makes me happy
So here we are I needed inspiration from a source I could trust
I needed to be in someone’s arms so I could keep going strong
This is not weak I can’t be wrong it takes a smile, some care and then my mind goes on
I must admit because it’s heart it’s passion and it can’t be stopped
So tell me I can’t think this way and they are wrong it’s a good woman for me to charm
If I have someone that I can trust then she trusts me and look what I and she  can be
For all that think being this honest is too risky you’re right but I like being wrong
My dreams and what I want I will get as long as I stay this way and so do they
I keep them close because they take care of me and I got them taken care of we
As for karma I respect you sir I know I get what I deserve so bad with good but good will win
Simply because I got me first and with me you are
I speak of one and a few more the circles small and I know where I belong
So thank you to you all you know who you are

Blackberry – A Troubled Relationship

Posted: January 24, 2012 in Posts
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Dear RIM,

(I hope you will receive this message via social media, since the decision you’re making has important consequences for your customers).

I’m speaking for myself and, to some extent, for all RIM customers. (Naturally, I encourage other customers to voice their own views.)

First, I want to thank you for the work you’ve done to date. I’ve been a loyal RIM customer and a brand ambassador when given the opportunity. Over the past two years, however, I’ve thought many times about switching to an iPhone or another competitor’s device.

While I continue to be happy with some of the features that sold me on you in the first place: amazing email functionality, superior security and your keyboard (I have a Bold 9900, and dig the device), I believe it’s high time RIM provides its customers some new reasons to remain loyal.

There was a great article in the NYT this weekend on Apple’s manufacturing which demonstrated the incredible emphasis Apple has on anticipating consumers’ needs during product development. It would be impossible for an Apple customer to read the article and not feel that Apple cares deeply about their product experience, considering even how their phone’s going to fare when placed in their pocket next to their housekeys. It’s a good read on American manufacturing that also touches on margins, work ethics and more.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

I don’t have any special knowledge of RIM’s product development methodology and so can’t make a comparison. If RIM is working in similar fashion to Apple, planning a future with its customers based on their needs, I’d be glad to know about it. The way I see it, RIM and I are and have been in a relationship. I suppose I’m asking what RIM’s commitment to me is and what it’s done for me lately.

Relationships involve getting better at what you’re already really good at, learning what the other person really wants from you and then working on being more of whatever that is. For RIM, this should involve embracing niche markets and developing more of what they want.

I’m not going to give a full list of what I need from RIM right now but there are undoubtedly areas for improvement that benefit us both. These have to include merchant abilities (possibly in the works), a secured merchant app so I can have outside sales reps for my software company accept payments. One new reason why this is important is that Square, one of the most popular services, isn’t available for Blackberry https://help.squareup.com/customer/portal/articles/140388-can-i-use-square-with-my-blackberry- This would really make us both happier. Mobile merchant services is not a bad look considering…

I feel we aren’t communicating well. Maybe you have plans I’m not aware of—things that would allow me to worry less and be more enthusiastic about our future. I know, financially, you’re stressed out right now. Frankly, it’s that way for a lot of companies, so know you’re not alone and you’re in a better place than many others, I’m here to support you for the long haul. However, you can’t ignore that I’ve made plenty of sacrifices to be in this relationship. It’s time for you to reciprocate by making some compromises of your own.

I think it would be cool to see you working on a highly publicized incubator to build enhancements to the Blackberry experience. Make it fun, challenging (independent of your existing culture) and really focus this on utilization of existing customers; score us and the ROI on each of us.

You can’t be everything to everyone, so prioritizing our relationship right now is pretty important. Think beyond startups. Look for mobile companies and software that will really benefit your customers and help them provide products to us (Right now, they’re almost all very focused on Apple IOS and Android, understandably so). When I say “highly publicized,” I don’t mean a reality show, I mean publicized on social media and communicated to me and my friends and then their friends…because that’s how it works. Think Kickstarter concepts for RIM (not literally); source the interest from me, don’t be afraid to ask. You haven’t asked about me in a long time.

Another idea, Vlingo! I used the Christmas credit you gave me (thank you!) so it was free. That was cool because I was already testing the free trial, is there a way to work more closely with them? Are you already doing that? They’re the same company as Siri, right, but I tested Siri and, well, Vlingo needs work but has potential. I would just be cautious on advertising it too soon, I think there’s a way to find out what help Vlingo may need, what challenges they have, and what it would take for Vlingo deliver the best version possible to Blackberry users and then make it happen!

Well RIM you know how to reach me…

Cheers –

Brian Rice