Roosevelt Cooper BlogMy philosophies on business, investing, personal development, religion, politics and more.

Yesterday on September 1st, Apple hypes up a big announcement. As usual all of the Apple fanboys are jumping around in glee waiting to hear what the company is coming out with next. Steve Jobs comes out and announces that the big announcement is Apple is debuting ITunes 10.

My thoughts? Who cares about ITunes 10???

For such a smart company, Apple can be pretty dumb. ITunes 10 is coming out, big deal. I’m going to be able to add my friends to ITunes, wow, just what I need, yet another social networking application to check out.

Let me tell you what Apple should have announced today. They should have announced that they have reached a deal with Verizon to offer the Iphone 4 on the Verizon Network. The stock price would have went up $100 today instead of the $7 that it went up today.

Verizon has the largest cell phone network in the United States. AT&T is the 2nd largest and the only reason why it is the 2nd largest is because the IPhone is so cool that people will endure dropped calls and terrible phone network coverage just to be able to do all of the cool things an IPhone can do.

Meanwhile over here in Verizon land, where we can actually use our phone to make phone calls, we have to settle for Droids and Storms, which are nothing more than IPhone imitators!

The best cell phone network deserves to have the best cell phone. Apple, stop playing around and make it happen. We don’t care about ITunes 10. We want a IPhone!

I just got a text message from Verizon saying that my New Every 2 agreement is up and I can get a new phone for free or a $100 credit towards the purchase of another phone. While I would love to trade in my Storm 1 (which would be a pretty decent phone if the application memory wasn’t smaller than my infant’s son’s pinky finger), I can’t help but wonder if I should hold out in hopes that Apple will do the right thing and bring the IPhone to Verizon where it belongs.

Now I understand that AT&T has an exclusive agreement for a certain amount of time. So what Apple, you can get out of that agreement! That’s what you pay those high powered attorneys for. They can find loopholes out of anything!

So that’s my thoughts on the big Apple Announcement! Big Deal!

I would vent more, but I have to go download Itunes 10!

So this Sunday I decided to change my Twitter username. I’ve been using Twitter now for over 2 years. My original Twitter name was reverendro. The reason why I selected that name is because it was a nickname given to me by some friends in high school so I decided to use it for my Twitter account.

Up until recent history the only people that had to worry about monitoring their personal brand were athletes, celebrities and politicians. However, with the evolution of social media monitoring your personal brand is important for everyone who wants to be successful in any endeavor in life.

Looking to get a job? You better believe prospective employers are looking at your Facebook page, your Twitter account and your LinkedIn account. In fact, a number of organizations, including the White House require that you provide this information on the job application.

Building a business? You better believe prospective clients and customers are looking at your social media accounts. They want to see if you are the type of person they want to do business with. The more sensitive the nature of the work you do, the more likely they are to check out your personal brand.

Looking for a mate? You better believe prospective mates are going to be looking at your social media accounts. I’m already happily married, but if I wasn’t and I was considering dating someone, I would absolutely do some searches on social media accounts to see if I uncover some surprises that I would want to know about prior to engaging in a committed relationship.

The challenge that I’ve found with my previous Twitter name is that a number of people mistakenly believe that I am a Pastor or a Minister. Not that there’s anything wrong with being one. However, it’s very important that your display an accurate picture of your brand and you don’t want to confuse people.

I also decided to change my Twitter username because I am building a personal brand behind my full name, which is Roosevelt Cooper. Do a search on any major search engine for my name and you will see that I dominate the search results on my name, even though I know for a fact that there are other people out there by the name of Roosevelt Cooper.

Since I am branding my full name, it only makes sense that I claim my full name as my Twitter profile now while I have the chance before another Roosevelt Cooper comes along and takes my profile name.

So that’s why I decided to change my Twitter username. On the other social media sites that I use (i.e. Facebook & LinkedIn) I’m already listed as Roosevelt Cooper so there will be no need to change there. My question to you is what is your Twitter username and how does it reflect on your personal brand?

Over the weekend, I finished listening to the audiobook Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. I read and listen to a lot of books over a year. This book was definitely one of the most insightful ones for 2010. The premise of the book is about what it takes to be successful.

Most people, particularly in the United States describes success in terms of the person worked hard, make sacrifices and through sheer force and will they climbed to the top and became successful. Gladwell actually attacks this line of thinking and illustrates through point after point that success is actually a lot more complicated than that.

Gladwell agrees that success takes hard work. In fact, he dedicates an entire chapter to this concept. It’s called the 10,000 hour rule and in it he examines how some of the most successful people in the world at what they do, when you look into how much time they worked on their endeavor or undertaken, they’ve dedicated at least 10,000 hours prior to becoming successful.

However, Gladwell talks about some of the other elements that most people who write about success simply don’t acknowledge. Such as how do you even get in a position where you can dedicate 10,000 hours to your craft?

He studies Bill Gates and discovers that in high school, Gates had unlimited access to a computer that hardly anybody else in the country had access to. Because of this access, he was able to get his 10,000 programming hours in and by the time he got to college, he was prepared to take advantage of the opportunity that opened up in the personal computing explosion to become one of the richest men in the world.

If Bill Gates never transferred to that particular school that was one of the only schools, (including colleges) to have that particular type of computer at that time, there is no way he would have been able to start Microsoft and he would not be what he is today.

This is a concept that I kind of understood, but I never heard it articulated quite like this before. I’ve always found it frustrating how people fail to acknowledge (for lack of a better word) the luck factors that contribute to success. Gladwell does an excellent job at explaining this.

There are other examples of “luck” that Gladwell points out as well. For instance, did you know that an overwhelming number of professional hockey players have birthdays in the beginning of the year? Do you know why that is the case? It’s because most youth hockey leagues determine eligibility based on calendar year.

A kid born January 1st of 1997 gets to try out against kids born December 31st 1997. The January kid is likely going to be bigger and is going to have a competitive advantage. He makes the team, the younger kid doesn’t, he gets more playing and practice time, gets better and eventually plays professional hockey while the younger kid becomes an Accountant or something!

My key takeaway from this book is that we cannot fail to recognize the “other factors” that contribute to success besides working hard. There are other factors that are simply beyond our control that contribute to success. Failing to recognize these other factors is not looking at a complete picture of what it takes to be successful.

Last night, I had two of my fantasy football drafts.  The first is for a league that I’ve been in since 2007 called “Any Given Sunday.”  That’s a great movie by the way.  The second is for a league that I’ve been in since 2003 with some of my now former co-workers.

The first league is a 14 team head to head league with a QB, 3 WR, 2 RB, a TE, a flex spot where you can start a WR or a TE, a Kicker and a defensive team.  The second league is a 10 team head to head league.  The format is similar to the 1st league, only in the flex spot you can start a WR, a RB or a TE  You also get 2 defensive teams and you get 3 individual defensive players.

In both leagues I got some pretty high draft positions, #3 pick in the 1st league and #2 pick in the 2nd league, so I ended up picking Maurice Jones-Drew in both leagues.  If you can’t get Chris Johnson, he’s pretty much the guy you want.

In both leagues I had to take a Quarterback earlier than I normally like to simply because everybody seems to be drafting Quarterbacks very early this year.  In my 2nd league, FIVE out of the ten draft picks in the 1st round were Quarterbacks.  I ended up with Tom Brady in the 1st league and Phillip Rivers in the 2nd league, both very good Quarterbacks.

With my 3rd – 5th picks in my first league, I took Jamaal Charles for my 2nd running back.  While I’m concerned that Kansas City brought in Thomas Jones, and the Chief’s aren’t a good team, 1000+ yards and 8 touchdowns over the last 8 games last season was too exciting to ignore.  With my running backs secured, I turned my attention to the Wide Receiver position where I took Sidney Rice, which would have been a great pick if he wasn’t going to be out for like HALF the season!  Somebody didn’t do their homework!  I then took Mike Sims-Walker from Jacksonville who should be good as long as he doesn’t get hurt.  I then took Vincent Jackson, another bad pick.  This guy has a suspension and is still sitting out because he’s crying about getting more money.

Here’s my roster for the first league:

In my 2nd league, I took Pierre Thomas with the 3rd pick.  If the Saints actually give him the ball this year, this could be one of the biggest steals in the draft.  Coach Peyton did say that he could see giving Thomas 22 carries in a game, which is good news.  I took LeSean McCoy with my 4th pick because we can start a Running Back in the flex box and McCoy can catch passes as well, which is always a good thing in Fantasy Football.  I then decided to lock up defense by taking Philadelphia, followed by the New York Giants.  I’ve seen several games last year in this league where Team Defense had a huge impact on the result, so I wanted to make sure I was very strong at that position.

Here is my roster for the 2nd league:

I would give myself a C- in my 1st draft and an A in my second league.  I’m going to have to manage very smart to make up the gap in receiving in my 1st league.  However, I came in 2nd to last place last year, so there’s plenty of room for improvement!  I did win the championship my first year in the league in 2007 after a terrible start with smart management and playing the waiver wire so it’s not like I haven’t done it before.  As the late great Jim Rohn use to say “if I did it before…I can do it again!”

In my second league, I think I have one of the best teams in the league and I should easily make the playoffs and be very competitive for a championship.  I haven’t won one yet, although I make the playoffs almost every year in that league so it is about time that I make it happen!

I got one more draft coming up, still waiting for the details on that.  There’s talk of an auction draft, which would be cool because I’ve never done one of those before.  I’ll let you know what happens!

This morning I was invited to give a brief 15 minute talk on a conference call of independent sales associates.  The title of my talk this morning was “Love What You Do.”  I spoke about the importance of loving what you do for a living, identifying the elements of it that you love best and how this translates into success in your chosen profession.

This is something I’ve done a good job at throughout my life.  For most of my life I focused on finding employment and business opportunities that allow me to do something for pay that I love and enjoy doing.  My mother and I have a running joke that I don’t go to “work” I go to “play.”

The reality is we spend anywhere from 20% to 50% of the hours of our week earning a living.  We spend more time earning a living than we do with our own families.  Yet according to a recent finding by The Conference Board Research Group only 45% of people like their jobs.

That to me is insane.  There’s no way in the world I’m going to spend 8 to 12 hours a day away from my family working at a job that I hate and cannot stand.  I will go and get a minimum wage job at a video game store before I stay at a job that I hate and despise.

If you hate your job so much do something about it.  Find out what it is exactly that you hate about it.  If you like the work but hate the environment you can fix that by going to work at another company doing the same type of work.  Some people hate the big corporate environment and would do better at a smaller entrepreneurial company.  Others can’t take the fast pace of a small company and would prefer the structure of a big company.

The reason why I tend to find jobs and business opportunities that allow me to do what I love to do is because I take the time to find out what I like to do. I then find a way to get a job doing just that.  I’ve enjoyed computers since I was 8 years old.  So I got jobs helping people with their computers.

I use to play school as a kid and I was always the teacher.  So I got jobs training people.  I enjoy internet marketing and social media.  So now I’ve gotten jobs and projects helping others to market themselves on the internet and social media.

I don’t enjoy washing dishes so why in the world would I get a job as a dishwasher?  The problem for some of you is you are doing jobs because you are trying to make other people happy.  Your daddy was a doctor and pressured you to be a doctor so now you are a doctor but you hate it.  That’s just not going to cut it if you want to live a happy and fulfilling life.

So ladies and gentleman, love what you do.  If you don’t love what you do, you will never be successful at it and you will be miserable for the rest of your life.  Life is too short to be miserable, so I am committed to only doing things that I enjoy doing for a living.  I hope you are committed to that as well.

I hear a lot of people in business talk about the hard work and the sacrifice necessary to build a successful business.  It is hard work.  It is sacrifice. However one of the things that makes me cringe is when I see business owners that “work their face off” as Gary Vaynerchuck likes to say, yet they absolutely have no life.

One of my mentors, David Byrd is one of the foremost experts in the world on the subject of leadership and next level performance improvement.  One of the statements that he says all the time that I firmly believe in is “you can have it all.”

People have this huge misconception that in order to be successful in business they have to sacrifice every other area in their life temporarily in hopes that their business success will free up more time to work on the other areas.  Usually, the opposite happens.  You don’t succeed in ANY area.  If you are fortunate enough to succeed in business, it’s pretty much worthless because you do it at the cost of your family falling apart or your health deteriorate so you can’t enjoy it.

I use to have that mindset myself.  I thought that if I could just get my business to be successful, the money that I would make will help me to fix all of the other areas of my life.  It didn’t work.  I was just miserable and unhappy all the time and I probably came closer to losing my family because of it than I care to admit.

Now I have a different philosophy.  My philosophy now is “Work Hard, Play Hard.”  I have no problem putting in a 8, 10 even 12 hour work day if that is what is required at the time.  However, I also have no problem sitting down like I did last night and watching the NBA finals.

Yes I work hard at my career and profession.  However I now make time to exercise because the bottom line is a great career can come to a crashing halt if I destroy my physical body creating that career.  Yes I work hard and sometimes don’t get home until midnight because I’m out doing a business presentation.  However, I also make sure that at the beginning of every month I plan date nights with my wife, family days with my wife and daughter and Daddy & Daughter days with my daughter.  I have no intention on being one of these businessmen that make a bunch of money and yet is divorced three times.

Yes I work hard.  But now I also play just as hard and feel no guilt about it. What’s the end result?  I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my entire life!

Today I took my wife and daughter to go check out a Christian private school that we are considering sending my daughter to in the fall of this year.  I am a big proponent of the importance of education.  However, I am also very realistic about the limitations of education in creating a lifestyle of happiness and fulfillment.

In the age of our grandparents, a good education was truly worth its weight in gold.  A college degree pretty much guaranteed that you would be able to get a professional job making a great income for a major company.  You work on that job for 30 to 40 years and then retire where a combination of a guaranteed pension, social security and a paid off mortgage ensured that you could support yourself.

Those days have come and gone.  Forget a bachelors degree.  There are a lot of unemployed and underemployed workers out here with Master’s degrees. Colleges cannot keep up because new industries pop up overnight.  For instance, I specialize in Social Media.  Most universities don’t even offer social media in the curriculum yet. However, there are a lot of major corporations looking to hire social media experts to help them launch their corporate presence using these tools.

The other problem with organized traditional education is that it doesn’t necessary teach you all of the skills necessary to function in life.  Traditional education does a good job at teaching our kids basic academic fundamentals such as reading, writing and mathematics.  However, our kids learn practically nothing about finances.  No wonder why our country is trillions of dollars in debt!

While I am a firm believer in education, I am not necessary referring to education in a traditional sense.  I believe it is important that our young people learn basic academics and I will stress that for my daughter as well. However, the most important education, in my opinion is SELF EDUCATION.  This is your ability to identify the knowledge and skills that you need to get where you want to get and to find educational resources to provide the knowledge and skills necessary.  In many cases, you will need to look outside of the traditional education system to acquire these skills.

Most of the experts in social media like myself are SELF educated.  We didn’t learn these skills in a classroom.  We learned them through trial and error as well as by reading up on what others in the industry were doing and applying those principles as well.  Financial knowledge is also another topic that I am self educated on.  I didn’t take a class about balancing my personal budget or saving and investing.  I acquired this knowledge by reading books, listening to CDs and attending short 1-3 day seminars on the subject.

Self education is the future to success in the information age and while I will stress academic education in my children, I will stress self education even more because I know that without it, they will get left behind in the dust. Especially in a global economy, such as the one we are in where we now have to compete with people in China, India and Eastern Europe for jobs and opportunities.

This weekend I went to visit one of my best friend’s house to celebrate his 40th birthday, which is technically tomorrow. Now most people would have probably planned a big celebration. However, my friend’s wife did something very clever.

My friend is not necessary the type of guy that’s into big parties and stuff like that. However he has a circle of friends that he really enjoys. Most of his friends live at least 3 hours away from him so its rare that he gets to see more than one friend at a time.

So his wife arranged for a few of us to come see him for the weekend. One friend in particular he hasn’t seen in a while. So when that friend got there she had him close his eyes and when he opened them the friend was in the room.

I wasn’t there to see it but I heard the smile on his face was priceless!

Now there are a lot of material possessions she could have brought him that I’m sure he would have enjoyed. He likes to golf so she could have got him something related to that. He loves jewelry so I know she could have gotten him something really nice.

However my gut tells me this gift meant more to him than even if she would have brought him a Rolex watch!

That’s the way it is with life sometimes. You think that you need to do something elaborate and expensive but many times the best way you can show your appreciation is in a way that is simple and free.

Sometimes the “little” things are best because while they may seem “little” the reality is they are bigger than you can even imagine.

I’m currently testing out the WordPress application for the BlackBerry Storm. I really want to start doing some heavy blogging for the 2nd half of this year going forward. Plus I absolutely despise blogging in the editor that WordPress provides.

If this application works the way I want it to work it will kill two birds with one stone. First, it will give me the ability to write from anywhere as long as I have my phone on me. Don’t worry, I won’t be blogging doing 85 mph on the Southern State Parkway!

Second, it will give me a much better interface than the terrible interface that WordPress provides.

Welcome to my personal blog.  It is here where I will document my thoughts on a wide variety of different subjects, as well as highlight some key events in my life.  My goal with this blog is to establish my digital legacy.  This will be a place that my children and future generations will be able to look back on one day and learn who I was and exactly what I was all about.

It is also my goal that I can use this blog as a vehicle to entertain as well as inspire my readers.