Russ: Good morning, this is The BusinessMakers Show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com. This is that show that champions innovation by featuring entrepreneurs.

John: Right. And these people are more than just drivers of the economy. I think they inspire a lot of people out there –

Russ: Oh yeah.

John: - that may not have the entrepreneurial talent.

Russ: Oh yeah.

John: But you know, recognize and respect what they do. Because these people, you know, create things that people want.

Russ: You bet. Creates jobs, creates taxpayers, all that cool stuff.

John: All that, yeah.

Russ: And here's our lineup for this morning. First up for the Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback, we are going to rollback to earlier this month when Rice Alliance held their 7th Annual IT and Web 2.0 Venture Forum and we are going to share five real cool elevator pitches from that event. And for our featured guest segment, I am going to sit down and visit with Scott A. Jones, the founder of ChaCha, that new happening company that will answer any question that you got. But first... That's right, it's time for The BusinessMakers School of Business. And this is our attempt to really hand our audience some very street-level education that helps them in their day-to-day business operations.

John: Yeah it is our attempt.

Russ: Okay.

John: I think we are achieving what we set out to do. And I, and I've run into hundreds of students, former and current students –

Russ: Right.

John: - and they tell me they are much better people because they listen to The BusinessMakers School of Business and they have passed their knowledge on to other people. You know, they saw – remember that movie Pay It Forward?

Russ: Right.

John: Well there's been a lot of paying forward going out there –

Russ: That's fantastic. You know, and it kind of syncs up perfectly with that first thing that we do in the school of business –

John: What is it?

Russ: - which is the quote of the day.

John: The quote of the day.

Russ: Yeah.

John: Right, yes. I like the quote of the day.

Russ: Yeah, yeah. And this morning we're according to Frank Zappa.

John: Frank Zappa.

Russ: Yeah.

John: All right.

Russ: One of the more notable intellectuals –p> John: Is he – he's not alive anymore –

Russ: I'm not sure –

John: I think he's –

Russ: - if he ever was, really.

John: I think he –

(Laughter)

Russ: But it's still a good quote.

John: I think he's in Rock n' Roll Heaven or something, yeah.

Russ: He might be. He was in a weird version of Rock n' Roll, though, too. Man, geeze.

John: Yeah, he was, yeah.

Russ: But listen to this.

John: Yeah.

Russ: Here's his quote.

John: Uh huh.

Russ: "Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff."

John: That's right.

(Laughter)

Russ: That's right. And Frank – by Frank Zappa.

John: By Frank Zappa. Right –

Russ: Yeah, that's right. All right, that brings us to this week in business history. What happened in this, like, last week of the year in business history?

John: Like – okay, this is in 1695, you know, we talked about a bachelor tax –

Russ: Last week.

John: - it happened last week.

Russ: Yeah, yeah.

John: Well in Great Britain they come up with the window tax.

Russ: A window tax.

John: Okay, causing many shopkeepers to start bricking up their windows because the window tax was a glass tax –

Russ: Yeah.

John: - and it was a, you know, significant and architectural force. A lot of class was being used there in the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and then Great Britain during the 17th and 18th century –

Russ: Right.

John: - and some houses from that. Can still be seen to this day with bricked up window spaces –

Russ: Wow.

John: - and the reason why is they didn't want to pay the tax.

Russ: There you go.

John: That goes to show you that this dynamic scoring you and I talk about –

Russ: Right.

John: - how people's behavior changes –

Russ: Right.

John: - based on what you're doing to them.

Russ: Right.

John: It's not just a modern-day phenomenon.

Russ: Right.

John: I mean people, for years, have been –

Russ: To avoid paying taxes, right.

John: - and decades and centuries and millennium –

Russ: Right.

John: - have been finding ways to resist forking over their money to people.

Russ: There you go.

John: And there you go. All right. This week in business history, in 1849, M. Jolly-Bellin discovers dry cleaning.

Russ: Discovers dry cleaning. He turned the corner, went, "Wow there's a dry cleaners!"

(Laughter)

John: Yeah, discovers a dry cleaning store. Right.

Russ: Yeah.

John: Actually, he accidentally upset the lamp containing turpentine and oil on his clothing and sees the – a cleaning effect that it had.

Russ: Wow. Whoa.

John: So he puts on the clothes and unfortunately, lights up a cigarette and he's gone, you know? So he – not only – because he died the same day he discovered dry cleaning.

Russ: What a shame.

John: What a shame that we're actually – we made that part up.

Russ: All right.

John: This week in business history, in 1862 the bowling ball is invented.

Russ: Wow. I wonder if they already have bowling pins and they were wondering, "Well what could we knock these things down with?"

(Laughter)

John: Yeah.

Russ: Some guy has – I got an idea, it would work much better to use a bowling ball.

John: Okay, this week in business history in 1922, the USSR is established. Now they got the 14 republics to go along with this, so –

Russ: Right, right, in a prior week.

John: - I'm sure against their will, probably.

Russ: Yeah. Yeah.

John: But this is when it was officially established –

Russ: Okay.

[Music: "Back in the USSR"]

John: - and you know during the revolution in 1917 and there was a civil war under Vladimir Lenin –

Russ: Yeah.

John: - it was dominated by Soviet forces –

Russ: Yeah.

John: - and eventually became so powerful it was just a lot of consternation going on, but finally it all settled down because of the opponents of communism are dead or exiled –

Russ: Right.

John: - or put into prison somewhere.

Russ: Right.

John: And it allowed the establishment of this fine country.

Russ: There you go.

John: Yeah, okay.

Russ: The republic was formed.

John: You can – this week in business history in 1928, the first air conditioned office building opens in San Antonio.

Russ: Well that's cool.

John: Yeah, during the roaring '20s.

Russ: Yeah. Wow.

John: Okay, the next year the stock market crashed –

Russ: Yeah, right. They had to turn the air conditioner off.

John: That's right.

Russ: Right.

John: Okay this week in business history in 1935, Charles Darrow patents the game Monopoly.

Russ: Wow and then had a monopoly on the game Monopoly.

John: That's right and the – that's right, he made a lot of money of it –

Russ: Yes he did.

John: - I would hope he did.

Russ: Yeah.

John: They've got new versions of it out now.

Russ: Oh cool.

John: In all kinds of different things. So –

Russ: We need a BusinessMakers Monopoly.

John: We need a BusinessMakers Monopoly. All right. This week in business history, in 1937 Mae West performs her Adam and Eve skit that gets her banned from NBC radio.

Russ: So can you ima- an Adam and Eve skit –

John: My how times have changed.

Russ: - yes they have.

John: You know, Janet Jackson reveals her breast on national TV –

Russ: Right, right.

John: - and she's not banned from anything.

Russ: Right.

John: This week in business history, in 1953 Hank Williams dies. He's a very influential singer. His son is a big star these days.

Russ: Right, right.

John: Most people speculate his death may have been caused from drug and alcohol abuse –

Russ: Yeah.

John: He's got a lot of hits out there.

Russ: I think it was a car wreck but I think drugs and alcohol were used.

John: Yeah right. Yeah. I've heard, though, that there was someone, some woman chasing him with a golf club and broke into his back window and he was distracted or something. Okay.

(Laughter)

John: All right, we all know his most famous song is "Your Cheatin' Heart."

Russ: Tiger's wife's most famous song, too.

[Music: "Your Cheatin' Heart"]

John: Okay this week in business history in 1961, the Beach Boys did their debut gig –

Russ: Wow.

John: In a –

Russ: 1961?

John: Right.

John: That's one of my favorite songs.

[Music: "Wouldn't it Be Nice"]

John: sound, so –

Russ: Cool.

John: This week in business history in 1974, Popular Electronics displays the Altair 8800 computer.

Russ: Oh man. Man, one of the – the very first personal computers, man, it was –

John: And how big was it, probably as big as the room we're in.

Russ: Well it was pretty big. I mean it was –

John: It was one of those mainframe jobs.

Russ: No, no. It was one of the first personal ones, so it was like the size of a large suitcase.

John: Yeah. Yeah.

Russ: And it could like add and stuff like that.

John: It could add –

Russ: And if you were a good programmer, you could make it, I think, multiply and divide, too.

John: Oh wow.

Russ: Really getting out there.

John: Okay. This week in business history, in 1975, the first Hail Mary pass, thrown actually by a former guest of The BusinessMakers Show –

Russ: Absolutely, Roger Staubach, yes.

John: - Roger Staubach. I saw that on TV, beat the Vikings, 17 to 14 –

Russ: Right.

John: - in the last-second pass. It was quite a play.

Russ: Drew Pierson caught it, right?

John: Drew Pierson, right.

Russ: Yeah. He talks about it on his BusinessMakers interview –

John: I know, we got –

Russ: - which is still on our site.

John: Still on our site.

Russ: Thebusinessmakers.com, yeah.

John: Yeah, yeah. Okay, this week in business history in 1991, the – what do you know? The last day of the USSR.

Russ: Wow, so this week they were formed in what year was the –

John: Yeah, 1922.

Russ: - two and they died in 1991.

John: '91, 1991.

Russ: Wow. Wow.

John: Right, yeah.

Russ: How sad.

John: Yeah, well, I don't know about that.

Russ: Yeah, I know.

John: Of course the guy they got in there running now's a former KGB guy –

Russ: Yes he is. I think they're back.

[Music: "Back in the USSR"]

John: He's trying to reestablish the former greatness of that deplorable –

Russ: You bet.

John: - political system. This week in business history in 1994, Bill Gates, who was 38 years old at the time, marries Melinda French. Who's thought boy, I've got – this has got to be the luckiest thing I've ever, ever done.

Russ: Yeah.

John: She's 29 years old.

Russ: Probably was.

John: And the, you know, and it's 1994. Bill was – he was making some decent money at that time.

Russ: Yeah, I think he was already a billionaire.

John: Yeah, so Melinda –

Russ: So it's their 15th wedding anniversary.

John: - g- you know, yeah, the luckiest, probably the luckiest woman – but you know all the money doesn't really mean a whole lot.

Russ: Yeah.

John: I mean it's nice to have.

Russ: Yeah.

John: But you know, there's a lotta sad people out there that make a tone of money.

Russ: Yeah, yeah.

John: But you can handle it better if you make the money.

Russ: Yeah.

John: I'd –

Russ: Well, I've heard people say I've been unhappy with money and without money and it's much better to be unhappy with money.

John: With money, right.

Russ: Yeah.

John: Yeah, I agree. Okay, this week in business history in 1999, Boris Yeltzin resigns as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the Acting President.

Russ: Wow, there you go, man. It's a Russia day today.

[Music: "Back in the USSR"]

John: Yeah, okay and this week in business history January 1, 2000 –

Russ: Yeah, yeah.

John: - probably one of the bigger scams that ever came along, you know, there with global warming and, "We survived Y2K."

Russ: We survived it, man. Unscathed.

John: Uh – yeah, no scathing.

Russ: Totally.

John: Nobody was scathed.

Russ: Nobody was even scratched.

John: Scratched, I know it's just a –

Russ: No elevators fell through –

John: No, no airplanes flew, you know, crashed from the air –

Russ: Yeah.

John: I was just a –

Russ: What a success!

John: What a success!

(Laughter)

John: Right.

Russ: Of course it cost billions of dollars but what a success.

John: Billions, yeah. It was a – it cost more money than what those federal employees owe in taxes.

Russ: That's right.

John: Which is our dumb moment from last week.

Russ: There you go. There you go.

John: They owe three billion. Yeah, okay.

Russ: All right. And that wraps up this morning's history lesson?

John: Yeah, uh huh.

Russ: Good lesson.

John: Thank you, thank you sir.

Russ: Good as always. All right and that brings us to navigating business jargon.

John: All right.

Russ: Our vocabulary lesson.

John: Okay.

Russ: And the way this works is I pick a word.

Russ: I say the word.

John: The word –

John: And I have to guess the word.

Russ: You bet.

John: Right, yeah.

Russ: All right and –

John: Some things never change.

Russ: That's right.

John: Okay.

Russ: Are you ready?

John: Yeah, and I got to tell the audience, I do not know what this – what he's got cooked up, here.

Russ: That's right.

John: I just try my best to – on the spot and in an impromptu fashion –

Russ: Right.

John: - extrapolate his mumbo jumbo into something that makes sense.

Russ: Right.

John: All right.

Russ: And here's today's word.

John: Okay.

Russ: It's a noun.

John: And that's person, place or thing.

Russ: Right.

John: Okay.

Russ: Meformer.

John: Meformer.

Russ: It's one word, meformer. F-O-R-M-E-R.

John: Okay. Okay, reformer is someone who reforms society or a system or –

Russ: Yeah.

John: A meformer is someone who reforms themself – who changes themselves for the better.

Russ: Boy, you're close.

John: Okay, all right.

Russ: But I don't know if you're there.

John: All right.

Russ: It's a –

John: Well, lemme be the judge, here.

Russ: - right, you be the judge.

John: All right, okay.

Russ: I'll let you do that.

John: All right. Okay.

Russ: It's a social network user – so it's a person – who posts updates that mostly deal with the user's activities –

John: Uh huh.

Russ: - thoughts and feelings.

John: Oh yeah, it's on – okay.

Russ: So you got it wrong.

John: I got the me part right.

Russ: Yeah you did.

(Laughter)

Russ: So you're a loser today.

John: I'm a loser two weeks in a row.

Russ: But there are – but Twitter has really brought out a lot of meformers, hasn't it?

John: Oh yeah.

Russ: Yeah.

John: Oh it's brought out a lot more than that.

Russ: Yes, right, it has.

(Laughter)

Russ: All right.

John: Brought insanity.

Russ: All right. So that brings us to dumb moments in business. Do you have one for us this morning?

John: Yeah, I guess you could call this sign of the coming apocalypse.

Russ: Okay.

John: Okay.

Russ: That's refreshing.

John: Because you know, you know Ronald Reagan even said if a country ever falls or declines –

Russ: Yeah.

John: - it's going to be gradual.

Russ: Right.

John: - and it's going to be, you know, you'll see certain things happen.

Russ: Right.

John: Like last week the federal employees not paying their taxes –

Russ: Right, right.

John: - even though they survive off of tax revenues.

Russ: Right, right.

John: Well here's one. A couple of post offices up in Waterbury and Wallingford, Connecticut.

Russ: Okay.

John: They've discovered that the managers and the employees there have been hiding the mail.

Russ: Hiding the mail?

(Laughter)

John: Right and –

Russ: Why were they hiding it? It's like a game or something?

John: Well workers have been stuffing – workers, actually the workers have been stuffing mail into closets and unused rooms at the mail facilities because they don't know how to keep up with the high volume of mail. Ray Arcovio, President of the Waterbury Area Postal Workers Union, is quoted by saying, "They were just pushing it aside for the next day," and but they did admit they've had issues with them hiding the mail. It's a real problem and –

Russ: Yeah, well I guess if they were unethical, they would've been throwing it away.

John: Uh huh, yeah.

Russ: So they weren't unethical.

John: No, they were just sloppy, I guess.

Russ: They intended to catch up one day.

John: Yeah, it's – yes. It's interesting the way you say that, you know, because you – that's how people get into debt you know?

Russ: Yes, it is.

John: They think well, "I'm going to borrow the money but,"

Russ: Yeah.

John: "you know, to buy my whatever it is I want to buy, and I – I'll pay it back."

Russ: Yeah.

John: Well they never do because somebody –

Russ: I think that's the way these ponzi schemes, many of them, get started. "Well, we'll catch up next year,"

John: Yeah, right.

Russ: We're just – right now we're just dole some of this out so they'll think we're doing okay.

John: Yeah, so right now, they're just, "Well I can't get to this mail, I'll just put it over here." You know, it's kind of like, you know, there's that – that character in Seinfeld, Newman.

Russ: Yeah.

John: You know, that's a Newman kind of thing.

Russ: Yes. All right.

John: All right.

Russ: Good story.

John: Okay.

Russ: All right before we wrap up this morning's School of Business, it's time for the very popular PKF Texas Entrepreneur's Playbook. So let's welcome Mr.  Greg Price on the piano.

Greg: This is Greg Price with PKF Texas' Entrepreneur's Playbook.

Previously we talked about acting with integrity to obtain success beyond success. It's one thing to say that we choose to act with integrity; it's another thing to do it. How do make sure we follow through? In a word: discipline.

Discipline allows you to regulate and direct your energy toward your goals in alignment with your values. Discipline is the capacity to maintain awareness and choose consciously in the face of instinctual pressures. The ability to self control yourself to subordinate immediate gratification to long-term objectives is essential for success beyond success.

In his study of companies that went from "good to great," Jim Collins found that key common factor was the existence of disciplined people, producing disciplined thoughts, and taking disciplined actions. Disciplined companies responded to challenges effectively; they were able to maintain flexibility on a tactical level while remaining firmly anchored in their core mission and value.

As Fred Kofman has written, discipline is a direct consequence of conscious choice and response-ability, the capacity to enact a course of action that is congruent with our purpose and values.

To read and comment on the PKF Texas' Entrepreneur's Playbook, visit my blog, fromgregshead.com. PKF Texas – The Fit That's Right!

Russ: All right and that wraps up The School of Business. You're listening to The BusinessMakers Show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com.