I’m developing a new website that I just decided to name Crowdkindle.com. It’s one of the more basic websites I have in development, but it has me excited! It’s very much me!

I plan on merging the digg.com concept with my own ideas. I hope to turn Crowdkindle into a place where those garage tinkering dreamers can share their thoughts and connect with like minded individuals.

In a nutshell, users will have the ability to post their ideas/inventions/schemes/dreams and their fellow peers will have the ability to vote and comment on those ideas. They will then be ranked in a digg type fashion. Forums, wiki-guides, how to videos and a user contributed blog will be some of the additional features.

The concept is creativity and innovation, my hope is collaboration and my goal is to free everyone’s minds. I think it will be a lot of fun and this is only the beta version.

Follow me as I take you through the steps of creating your own fully functioning website! I’ll be posting articles as I develop the site and show you the little tricks I’ve learned.

What do you think of the logo?? I greatly appreciate any feedback and ideas for the site!

I feel a dilemma approaching! I’m a Verizon customer and I love their service. However, until recently, they had a serious lack in cool smart phones. So I jumped on the Blackberry bandwagon, but I always felt inferior to iPhone users. Then the Droid was released. I immediately switched to it, and I’ve seen the benefits in both my personal and business life. I’m all about organization, ease of communication, web browsing and sexiness (I’m being honest!).

Now the Nexus One is rumored to be coming out on March 23rd for Verizon. Do I ditch the Droid and nab the Nexus? From the reviews I’ve heard….YEP!

But if Google keeps coming out with better phones every three months, I’m going to be pissed, and so will a lot of other Verizon customers. They haven’t timed the release of their new products that well. They could take a lesson from Apple in that regard. I see Google as the excited little kid with lots of new toys who wants to show off to all the other kids on the playground.

Nevertheless, bring on the Nexus!

I recently began reading a book called The Power of Focus (Les Hewitt, Mark Hansen, Jack Canfield). The authors wrote the Chicken Soup for the Soul series as well, which has sold more than 50 million copies. This is a great book! I actually put all ten of my other books away and have been FOCUSING on absorbing the material in just this one.

It has definitely affected me in a positive way. It is teaching me how to focus on the most fulfilling things in life, give up some control, delegate more and develop great habits.

It is geared towards anyone in business, but I think it is especially helpful for entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs tend to be highly fragmented, unable to focus on a single thought or task. I am, which is why I started reading this book. It’s helping and I’m really enjoying it!

Business partners are going to go through a lot together. That’s just the nature of business. The partnership will be tried, tested, stretched, pulled and stressed to the limit. Therefore, compatibility on multiple levels is crucial. Partners should be comparable in reliability, intelligence, financial stability and character. Those are the four big ones I’d focus on, but there are many more.

Don’t let the excitement of starting a new business cloud your judgment when considering a partner. I’ve seen many people make fatal decisions because of hope and inexperience.

Here are a few pointers for finding and maintaining a good partnership:

• Family members don’t make good business partners. We’ve all heard it, but most of us ignored it until it was too late.
• Make sure the risk is split fairly between partners. Financially lopsided partnerships experience even more pressure.
• Don’t be afraid to run a background check. If I had done that with my very first partner, I would have saved myself a fortune.
• Ask around town. A person’s reputation can tell a lot about them.
• Clearly state the goals, duties and expectations of each partner (in writing!) before commencement of the business.
• Create a strategy to maintain high levels of communication and interaction between the partners. Weekly or even daily meetings are a must.
• Maintain non-business interactions as well. Periodic dinners and recreational events are great ways to ease any tension that may be present.

Remember that good partnerships can be beautiful while bad partnerships can be ugly and life altering. So tread carefully, don’t rush into things and always trust your intuition. You wouldn’t marry a stranger (I hope!), nor would you enter into one of the most important business relationships of your life without doing your due diligence. This is probaly the most important advice I could ever offer an entrepreneur.

(You can also find this article at MoreThanMary.com as well as more very helpful articles on life, fashion, fitness and travel.)

People start blogs for a variety reasons. Some start a blog to generate an income, some do it out of passion and many businesses create blogs to engage their existing customers. Blogging, which is an integral part of  any social media marketing strategy, can do wonders for a business, whether it be brick and mortar or virtual. The first question a potential blogger should ask is what are their motivations and expectations. Determining this will make choosing the correct blogging platform much easier.

Do you plan on creating an income generating website, or do you simply want to share your life, talents, expertise and opinions with the world? If the latter sounds more to your liking, then I would suggest checking out Tumblr or Posterous (a great mobile blogging platform). Simply sign up for an account and you will be blogging in less than two minutes. Seriously! However, these types of platforms have their strengths and weaknesses. See below:

• Strengths: Simplicity, ease of use, ease of cross-platform integration (facebook, twitter, etc.) and a built in audience. These platforms are built more for “lifecasters,” which many predict to be the future of social networking.
• Weaknesses: A lack of flexibility, they are very difficult to monetize, they don’t optimize well with search engines, they don’t have very much design potential and they lack features and add-on applications. These platforms operate in giant, semi-closed networks of  fellow bloggers that interact with one another, but have minimal contact with “non-bloggers” that are just surfing the net.

Now for everyone else out there that wishes to venture into the wild (the wild web that is), I would suggest checking out Wordpress. Wordpress is a blogging platform that requires more work and effort, but offers a lot more flexibility and potential. Here’s a simple breakdown of what you need to do to create your own self hosted blog:

1. Choose a hosting service. I use Godaddy, but there are a lot of these types of services out there. I like Godaddy because they’re a one stop shop for everything, they offer Wordpress specific hosting plans and they have good customer service.
2. Choose a domain name. I think people over emphasize choosing a name for their website sometimes. Create good content and people will find it no matter what. Food for thought: Myspace was actually a furniture website before becoming a social network and Google was supposed to be spelled “Googol.” They messed up the spelling when registering the domain. Oops!
3. Install Wordpress. If you don’t use Godaddy, you’ll have to install Wordpress. Go here for simple installation instructions.
4. Choose a theme. This is the fun part. Wordpress is incredibly flexible. Check out Themeforest, Rockettheme or Wordpress Themes. You can choose any theme you want for your blog and it requires no programming and little design work on your part.
5. Get some plug-ins. Wordpress has thousands of free plug-ins / add-ons that range from creating a chatroom on your blog to adding a shopping cart to automatically optimizing your site’s SEO.
6. Start writing! - And that’s it. Check out Mary’s post, Blogging 101, for great tips on how to successfully engage your readers.

For a great comparison of different blogging platforms, check out this article as well. It’s clear and concise.

Now get out there and start sharing. And if you need any help, don’t forget I’m always just a click away.

(You can also find this article at MoreThanMary.com as well as more very helpful articles on life, fashion, fitness and travel.)

Yep...that's me...dreaming as usual...

Hey everybody…I’m moving up in the world of blogging and have just landed my first major writing gig at MorethanMary.com! Check it out!

Not only will you find very useful information about business (compliments of me!) but there’s a great deal of advice to be had in many different categories. Fashion, fitness, beauty, food, nutrition, travel and wine are just a few!

Follow each one of Mary’s “guides” as we talk about our experiences and interact with our amazing readers.

I may have gone to USC business school, but my real schooling came from what you see above. This was the first major business I began. This is where a boy became a man, where the young Michael Mulhall was replaced with the harder, wiser and stronger Mike Mulhall. I may not have fought in any wars, but I waged a great many battles in the business you see above.

I exited the business about 5 years ago, but the mark it left on me will last forever. I experienced more owning and operating this business than most would experience in two life times. The business itself was based on a faulty plan which I relied on my ex-partner in the venture to develop. Unfortunately, I was very young and very naive. I wish I knew then what I know now.

While I had many positive experiences, it’s the negative ones that I learned the most from. I lost some money, but more importantly, I lost family and a piece of myself. It’s those losses that put tears in my eyes. Fear, confusion and guilt are an entrepreneur’s worst enemies, and they must be conquered and controlled to attain success. Here is what I learned from these experiences:

• Hope and excitement can seriously cloud your decision making ability. Learn to recognize that.
• NEVER have family involved in your business. But always heed their advice, especially your father. He knows a thing or two about life. Trust me.
• Perception is reality. But as an entrepreneur, it’s unhealthy to hold everything inside.
• Always trust your gut…no matter what.
• Always let life and love come before business. We’re not here that long, so enjoy it.
• Don’t waste time hoping for the best. Just plan for the worst. And if the best occurs…celebrate.
• Bad things happen, whether it’s your fault or not. Don’t dwell on it. Just keep moving forward and I promise things will get better.
• If you don’t have a real, no bullshit business plan, you don’t have a business. You have simply placed a bet.
• Lastly, it’s ok to fail. Anyone who has succeeded or done anything great has also tasted the bitter flavor of failure. That is normal and should be expected.

Here is my old business as I walked by it today. This is what inspired me to write this post. After I stepped away from the business some years ago, it declined rapidly and closed soon thereafter. Now they’re ripping it down to build a WalGreens. Standing in the parking lot, watching the bulldozer rip apart everything I built, I felt numb. I felt strong. But I also felt sad. A piece of me was being buried in that rubble.

As the dozer’s arm turned, I saw the main wall and caught a glance of the last remnants of the business I built. I had scrolled our motto, “A New Beginning,” across the walls in large letters to remind my members that we can always start over. As I saw that phrase for the last time, I smiled as I whispered it to myself. I had forgotten the importance those three words hold.

A healthy mind requires a healthy body. That goes for everyone, whether they’re an entrepreneur or not. These days, most don’t have the time or energy to actually make it to the gym. They use that as an excuse for not working out.

But who says you need to workout in a gym?? You can turn your office, bedroom, living room or just about any other room into a temporary workout area.

Here’s what you need:

• Set of combo dumbbells
• Jump rope
• Door jam pull-up bar
• Some good workout music
• Will power

My workout routine consists of 15 minutes of jump rope to get my heart pumping, followed by 3 to 4 circuit training cycles consisting of:

• Leg lifts
• Push-ups
• Regular sit ups (use your couch to anchor your feet)
• Pull ups
• Stationary lunges while holding dumbbells at side
• Standing shoulder press with dumbbells
• Bicep curls

Try not to rest in between exercises, but allow yourself 2-3 minutes of rest between circuits. As you progress you may add repetitions or weight to each exercise, but always remember quality or quantity. Ten repetitions in perfect form will be much harder and more beneficial than twenty repetitions in bad form.

Do this 3 – 4 times a week and I promise you will be feeling better and thinking clearer in less than a month.

Well if I had seen this before I opened a bakery / cafe, I may have thought twice! I came across this while surfing google images looking for funny bakery artwork.

I had a meeting with a friend of mine today who happens to be a business consultant, and who also happens to be doing some work for me. He brought up a term that I had to laugh at called “Pop Ups.” And while we weren’t discussing the internet, these pop ups are just as annoying.

He was referring to the sometimes relentless pace at which problems can arise while operating a business. Now I’m not talking about big problems. I’m talking about the little tedious tasks that can sometimes swallow up your time like a fat mid-westerner at a hot dog eating contest.

A quick summary of my day today: We’re out of receipt paper, we need it quick…a customer just called in and wants a different cake, they’ll be here in 3o minutes…repair guys are here to fix the walk-in freezer, wouldn’t it be funny if the health inspector came today…the health inspector just got here…we ran out of lettuce, can you get some…oh, we’re out of sugar too, can you go back…the phone lines are down…there goes the internet…what!? Our credit card machine is hooked up to the internet…one of your vendors is here to yell at you…make that two vendors…can you go to Home Depot real quick…oh, you already went, can you go back? I forgot about payroll, oh well…gotta do the books, pay the bills, count the drawers, open the mail, get change and somewhere in there consume about 4oo calories for the day.

Yes, this was my day today, and this was only half of it. The point of the story is this, get an assistant! Ha ha…I’m just kidding. The truth is, all business owners will have to deal with this in one way or another. The restaurant business just happens to be one of the best at creating these problems. But there’s always problems in every business, whether it be brick and mortar or virtual. This is where delegation comes into play. If one were to focus entirely on these tedious little tasks, you would never get anything done.

Sometimes I feel so discouraged from having to deal with these problems over and over, but that’s where the strength of being an entrepreneur and a self starter comes into play. Learn from everything! And never stop fighting…running your own business is not an easy task, and it’s much harder to give effective orders than to take them.

I wanted to share one of my favorite movies with you. It’s definitely in my top 5! This is the true story about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and their respective businesses. If you don’t already know the story, this movie will change the way you view a lot of things!

These guys are geniuses. There’s no arguing that. But I sure as hell would never turn my back on one of them if they had a knife in their hands.

Business can be cutthroat, especially if one plans to make it all the way to the top. This story does an amazing job of displaying that.

I’m sure you can find it on Netflix or in Blockbuster. Definitely worth the buy if you can find it on Amazon.