Two reasons.

More than any other entrepreneur, Bill Gates is the reason you’re using a personal computing device to look at this story right now. For that, he became the world’s richest man.

Now, Gates is no longer the world’s richest man because he’s busy spending his money trying to save the world from disease and poor education.

http://blogs.ajc.com/mike-luckovich/2012/10/30/1031-mike-luckovich-cartoon-scary/

I started rethinking about this when I watched my daughter try to tackle her new life as a working mom. I had forgotten how tough that task of being a mom could be even without adding the full-time job.

Since jobs are sometimes valued solely for their monetary yield, it’s no surprise the dollar value of running a household and raising a family full-time is debated. This year there are 5.1 million stay at home moms.

The calculation can be disparaging or romanticized, depending on who does the math.

This year, when Salary.com looked at all the jobs that moms do and what each would cost in the work world if you hired someone, it said a stay-at-home mom’s work is worth a whopping $112,962 a year.

I am sure I am leaving out something but here is a list of some of the jobs moms do: driver, cook, babysitter, janitor, housekeeper, and book keeper. Salary.com also estimated she works about 94 hours a week.

1. Listen more than you talk

We have two ears and one mouth, using them in proportion is not a bad idea! To be a good leader you have to be a great listener. Brilliant ideas can spring from the most unlikely places, so you should always keep your ears open for some shrewd advice. This can mean following online comments as closely as board meeting notes, or asking the frontline staff for their opinions as often as the CEOs. Get out there, listen to people, draw people out and learn from them.

2. Keep it simple

You have to do something radically different to stand out in business. But nobody ever said different has to be complex. There are thousands of simple business solutions to problems out there, just waiting to be solved by the next big thing in business. Maintain a focus upon innovation, but don’t try to reinvent the wheel. A simple change for the better is far more effective than five complicated changes for the worse.

3. Take pride in your work

Last week I enjoyed my favourite night of the year, the Virgin Stars of the Year Awards, where we celebrated some of those people who have gone the extra mile for us around the Virgin world. With so many different companies, nationalities and personalities represented under one roof, it was interesting to see what qualities they all have in common. One was pride in their work, and in the company they represent. Remember your staff are your biggest brand advocates, and focusing on helping them take pride will shine through in how they treat your customers.

4. Have fun, success will follow

If you aren’t having fun, you are doing it wrong. If you feel like getting up in the morning to work on your business is a chore, then it’s time to try something else. If you are having a good time, there is a far greater chance a positive, innovative atmosphere will be nurtured and your business will fluorish. A smile and a joke can go a long way, so be quick to see the lighter side of life.

5. Rip it up and start again

If you are an entrepreneur and your first venture isn’t a success, welcome to the club! Every successful businessperson has experienced a few failures along the way – the important thing is how you learn from them. Don’t allow yourself to get disheartened by a setback or two, instead dust yourself off and work out what went wrong. Then you can find the positives, analyse where you can improve, rip it up and start again.

The birth of the Breakfast of Champions was actually an accident? Well many great products started in the lab as failed experiments…Post it Notes, the legendary Slinky and yes, even Wheaties.

The legend behind this famous cereal’s creation actually begin with bran gruel, which was what a clumsy dietician at the Washburn Crosby Company was preparing in 1922 when he spilled some on a hot stove top.

The gruel drops sizzled and crackled into flakes. Once he gave a flake a taste, the cook realized his accident had created something that tasted way better than the gruel. He got the head honchos at Washburn on board, and they tried 36 different varieties of the creation before developing the perfect flake that wouldn’t crumble in the box.

Even the name could have gone another way. The cereal was released as Washburn’s Gold Medal Whole Wheat Flakes; soon after, an employee contest resulted in the name being changed to Wheaties, allegedly beating out Nukeys and Gold Medal Wheat Flakes, though who would have known 90 years ago that so many gold-medal winners would eventually don the box of that glorified gruel?

Very sad…I remember as a boy waking up early in the morning to watch it on TV…a real American hero.

The United States has a confidence problem. Our economy seems to be dormant and many Americans believe our best days are behind us.

We are constantly barraged with stories of our inevitable decline – and of the rise of other nations at our expense. Yet the United States can still maintain its position as the leader in technology and innovation, and space exploration capabilities and technology can play a key role.

When provided with a far-reaching, ambitious mission, NASA is capable of having a much more dramatic impact on our national morale and, as a result, our economy than any other federal agency.

A bold and sustainable space program has the power to inspire our students to enter into science and engineering studies, create highly skilled jobs that will fuel our economy for years and stimulate the national psyche.

To fully harness this potential, the United States should commit to the goal of landing a crew on Mars by the year 2030. A human mission to the Red Planet would be one of the most important and inspirational events in world history. It would show in no uncertain terms that we again are taking forward-looking, inspired steps in science.

The world would take notice. To gauge the impact a Mars landing could have, one need recall only that when Mars Pathfinder landed in 1997, the NASA websites received 550 million hits in a single week – at a time when far fewer people had Internet service. Imagine the level of online activity that would be wrought by a human Mars mission.

The prospects for innovation over the upcoming decades are numerous and would give the United States a chance to take the helm during what could be one of the most exciting periods in human history.

Computer technology, nanotechnology, medical science, biochemistry and many other scientific disciplines are moving at break-neck speed in laboratories, universities, hospitals and companies all across the country. This means commercial companies are competing like never before to help create efficient new space capabilities.

But this progress could hit a brick wall if we don’t assure the private sector and the public that we have a skilled and well-educated work force capable of keeping this momentum going. One way to create assurance is to guarantee a sufficient number of American students enter the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

Space exploration can encourage STEM in a way no other activity can. What we need is a catalyst to motivate our leaders and the nation to commit to ambitious new space goals.

A potential catalyst for change took place this August. The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) landed on Mars on Aug. 6. MSL is by far the most ambitious mission to ever be sent to another planet. It should not only send back the most dramatic images ever taken on the surface of Mars, it could move us much closer to learning whether Mars has ever been able to sustain life.

The landing also comes close to the 50th anniversary, in September, of President John F. Kennedy’s famous “We choose to go to the moon” speech at Rice University. It is time we recommitted ourselves to courageous and difficult goals.

Last week’s landing serves as a reminder of John F. Kennedy’s exhortation that space exploration should be attempted for the very reason that it is difficult, and a goal “that will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.”

It is time to explore.

I read an article in the New York Daily News this week and thought some of the tips from two Aurora psychologists with expertise treating children were icertainly worth passing on to parents of young children.

With a comic book hero, a movie theater, and a helpless crowd of young people enmeshed in last week’s tragedy in Aurora, it’s no wonder that parents across the country have begun grappling with how to help young ones deal with the incident and its aftermath.

Dr. Jeffrey Dolgan, a senior psychologist at The Children’s Hospital of Denver – where six victims were taken in the wake of the shooting – said parents should really take three major steps when broaching the subject of this or any traumatic event with their children.

“First, parents have to compose themselves,” Dolgan said, stressing that parents should think carefully about what they want to say to their children before they begin what will likely be a difficult conversation.

Tough task, in my generation our parents never talked about these types of events but with the massive news coverage and kids that are more wired today even on the web those days are gone.

Second, Dolgan recommended that parents actually let their children lead the way.

“Kids are all over the place with where they are developmentally,” he said. In order to deal with these differences, creating an atmosphere in which your children feel comfortable approaching you with questions would be optimal.

As a parent I would like to not discuss things like this but with today’s media coverage and so many other kids talking about it Aurora’s tragedy is impossible to sweep under the rug.

Dr. Richard Marafiote, another psychologist who has worked in Aurora for many years, stressed how important it is for parents to “tune in” to their children in moments like these.

“By and large I think about the importance of parents allowing their children to speak about how they feel rather than having those parents put on their children what they believe their child may think or feel,” he said.

Finally, Dolgan suggested parents should try to “normalize” the situation as much as possible, while limiting media exposure.

“What we’ve found with many studies is the more kids and parents see the same kind of visuals, the more traumatizing it is,” Dolgan said.

Both Dolgan and Marafiote said it is not out of the ordinary for children, even far from a tragedy’s epicenter, to display anxious behavior following a traumatic event. That has to be true, even I was a bit apprehensive going the the multi-plex for the first time.after this tragedy.

I would have loved watching the opening ceremonies for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, it is always exciting. This year I won’t be watching.

Every host country does its very best to put on an amazing presentation to wow the crowd and dazzle the fans back home watching on TV. But when the United States athletes come marching out this time, it will be disappointing.

It is not be the athletes themselves, I will be rooting for each and everyone of them to do well. It is what they will be wearing that has made me so dismayed.

Our United States athletes will be wearing specially made suits by Ralph Lauren. Certainly a great choice right? Wrong, very wrong. The uniforms designed by Ralph Lauren, one of our greatest clothing designers, were made in China.

It has sparked quite a controversy and if I cannot do anything about it at least I can join a small but vocal group of disgruntled citizens by not watching the ceremony.

This is where we are now in America. The richest, most powerful country in the world can not even provide uniforms for their athletes on the global stage that are produced at home.

You would think even Ralph Lauren himself would have had second thoughts on that choice, after all he wasn’t trying to get the unit cost down to compete at Macy’s.

Maybe our athletes could join my protest and wear simple USA track outfits…if they can even find a setr NOT made in China?

I sure hope the next company that volunteers to make the U.S. uniforms learns from this. Hopefully Ralph Lauren does not get another chance to produce uniforms for our athletes again.

The Chinese at least certainly have a great deal of experience making uniforms though, especially those berets like the ones pictured below.

Today is National Hot Dog Day! Hot dogs are one of the most iconic American foods. No cookout or baseball game would be complete without a delicious hot dog served on a bun and covered in ketchup, mustard, onions, relish, or chili.

Hot dogs (which are also known as frankfurters, franks, wieners, dogs, and red hots) have been around since the late 1800s. Today, the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council estimates that Americans consume 20 billion hot dogs a year!

I will have one at Chris’ in Montgomery, Alabama today!