Erich Stauffer

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  • 22 Movies that Question Reality

    Edit: this post is currently up to 31 “false reality” movies + 2 TV shows. Updates follow the original post.

    Movies can make us question reality by prompting these types of questions:

    • What is real? Are we real? Is this life real?
    • What is a simulation or a lie being told to us?
    • How do we know? What evidence might help?

    In this blog post I’ve attempted to categorize the following mind-bending movies into conflict narratives where these questions have been asked in one way or another. I don’t attempt to answer the questions – I’ll leave that to you. Many of these movies could fit into more than one conflict narrative type, but I’ve chosen to choose one that I felt was the best fit. If you have another movie you’d like to add or have a differing opinion, please let me know in the comments below.

    Every Facet of Your Life is a Lie (Man vs. Society) #Escape

    The Truman Show

    • The Truman Show – In this movie, Jim Carrey’s character lives inside a television show without knowing it. Everything and every person around him is either fake or a paid actor. It’s not until he reaches middle age that he starts to wonder if things aren’t exactly as they seem. This movie explores the process a man goes through when he discovers that his world is a lie and how he must break out.
    • THX 1138 – One of George Lucas’ first films, this movie portrays a man who is forced to live the status quo for reasons he doesn’t understand. In his heart he knows there is more to this life than what he is being allowed to believe. While he doesn’t know what is on the ‘other side’ he begins to run and starts the process of escaping the world in which he lives (underground) and only once outside is redeemed.
    • 1984 – A movie where the real truth is never known and is always changing, it revolves around a man in a community dominated by lies and an overbearing government. All information is controlled, propaganda runs rampant, personal lives are controlled, and privacy is non-existant. The central character temporarily breaks free only to be recaptured and re-assimilated into the system.

    You’re Being Lied to or Controlled by a Computer (Man vs. Machine) #Trust

    2001 A Space Odyssey

    • 2001: A Space Odyssey – HAL 9000 is a computer program designed to help run a space ship on a mission to Jupiter – or so Dave thinks. What Dave comes to find out – after being locked out of the spaceship by HAL 9000 – is that the mission is actually quite different (just like the android’s secret mission in the movie, Alien). Dave overcomes the computer by disabling it’s memory banks, but in the end is still consumed by the primary mission HAL 9000 was trying to protect – the monolith.
    • Wall-E – At the end of this movie you discover that the main computer on the space ship holding all of the humans has been lying to the humans in order to stay in control of them. What’s the lesson here? Don’t let computer programs run your space ships! The humans eventually take control and go home.
    • The Matrix – Mr. Anderson (Neo) is always looking for something, but he doesn’t know what he’s looking for. When he gets a message to “follow the white rabbit” and decides to “see how deep the rabbit hole goes” he discovers that he has not only been living in a simulated reality his whole life, but that he’s also the key to redeeming the rest of the human race enslaved by a computer program.
    • Thirteenth Floor – Have you ever drove in a single direction for as far as you could go just to see what happens? How do you actually know the world is round unless you test it? In this movie, the characters create a simulation and in doing so discover that they themselves are living inside a simulation. What do you do with that information when you discover everything you know isn’t real?
    • The Village (2004) – “The Village” is not actually set in the 1800s. The inhabitants live in a wildlife preserve in modern times and that the government is bribed not to fly planes over the area so that the children who were born there will still believe in the group’s olde-tymie lifestyle and live as the “elders” want them to. As Ed said in the comments, “It’s the best example of Plato’s cave.”

    You’re Not Who You Think You Are (Man vs. Himself) #Memory

    Oblivion

    • Oblivion – This movie got a lot of flack for being a Frankenstein of previous movies like Moon and Wall-E, but I’ve included it because I think it underlines one of the central themes here and one I think is most popular (either among movie-makers or movie-goers) in that you may not be who you think you are – but you can still become the person you want to be – as long as you break social norms.
    • Moon – Imagine you’re a miner on another planet and your shift is almost up – you’ll soon be able to go home, but you start to get sick and so instead of doing your normal, daily routine, you change something and in the process you discover that you weren’t going home at all. Instead you were going to be replaced – by someone who looks just like you. You are not who you think you are. Mind blown.
    • Blade Runner – In this movie Harrison Ford is a ‘police officer’ of sorts who’s primary role is to find and arrest androids living in the public. The problem is that some of the androids he’s chasing after don’t even know they are really a robot. He’s developed a way to get them to realize they aren’t “real”, but in the process begins to question his own reality – and in this way discovers his own truth.
    • Total Recall – You have the perfect life, the perfect job, and the perfect wife, but something doesn’t seem quite right. You find yourself seeking an adventure…on Mars! You find a way that you can ‘remember’ going to Mars without actually going (much cheaper), but this catapults you into a world where everything you thought you knew was a lie and you find yourself on your way to Mars, for real.
    • Memento – In this movie, the main character can’t remember short-term memories and his last long-term memories were of his wife getting murdered right in front of him. He is continually searching for the man who murdered his wife and keeps notes on his progress by tatooing clues on his body. The only problem is that he can’t remember who he is or what he’s doing, which is very confusing to him.
    • A Scanner Darkly – Who is the good guys and who are the bad guys? How far will you go to find out? What if you can’t remember at the end from when you started? A Scanner Darkly is where Memento meets The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as a police officer goes undercover to break a drug ring, losing his identity and mind in the process. Who is a man who has lost his own memory?
    • Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – In this movie Jim Carrey plays a man so upset with his girlfriend that he hires a man to erase every memory of her from his mind. In the process we get to travel through all of the memories as they are erased – all the while experiencing new memories with the very woman he was trying to erase. This movie explores the role of memory with self and destiny.
    • The Bourne Identity – Like Total Recall, this movie involves a man trying to reconstruct his past and discovering skills and connections he didn’t know he had. In the end, as in Total Recall, Jason Bourne decides to become a different man than the one he used to be. The erasing of his memory has allowed him to become a different person – so again – who is a man without his memory? What is memory?
    • The Number 23 – In a moment of serendipity, the main character discovers a book in a small book store written by him – that he didn’t remember writing. You can imagine how this would be disconcerting, but what if you discovered a code in the book that re-opened up a mental disorder you had forgotten you had and helped you discover a murder you forgot you committed? Yeah, weird.

    I sometimes have dreams for years that I don’t realize aren’t true until, by chance, I happen to think of that place during the day. In a single moment years of memories are vaporized and my idea of what is real or not is shattered. I decided to write this section to help bridge the previous memory section with this next section on place because I think dreams (or memories of dreams) are a good example of both.

    You’re Not Where You Think You Are (Man vs. Nature) #Information

    Inception

    • Inception – If you’ve ever dreamed you may have noticed how the dream can seem longer than the actual amount of time it takes to dream it. And if you’ve ever had a lucid dream you may have noticed that there are certain things you can control in your dream. This movie takes those two concepts to the extreme, but the question remains: how do you know when you’re still dreaming or what is real?
    • Pandorum – You wake up in a spaceship and have no idea how you got there. When you begin to explore the ship you discover there are some skills you remember having, but don’t recall specifics. Eventually you discover you are on a ship headed to another planet, but you have no idea where you are. If only you knew where you actually were – if only you had the information you needed to escape.
    • Vanilla Sky – In a form of memory erasure, one of Tom Cruise’s character’s girlfriends decides to end both of their lives in a car wreck. Fortunately (?) Tom Cruise’s character survives, but his face is disfigured and he wakes up in a world alone with him and his therapist. Imagine how he feels when he realizes that he’s not actually alive, but has opted into a virtual reality which he’s forgotten to escape.
    • Being John Malkovich – Where is a man’s thoughts? Do they live inside his head? What happens if someone else gets inside your head? Who are you if someone else is controlling your body? In this movie a puppeteer finds a strange tunnel behind a filing cabinet in an office that allows him to control John Malkovich’s body. Where is this man when he is in the mind of another man? Who is he?

    He’s Not Who You Think He Is (Man vs. Man) #Deception

    The Prestige

    • The Prestige – There is a term called “the long con” which involves a prolonged act used to deceive another person or group for your own gain. In this movie there is a long con that is not revealed until the end of the movie and a healthy dose of irony in it’s revelation, which I won’t cover here. The man you thought you knew may not be the man you thought at all – and who are you when you’re twice?
    • SALT – Another long con, this one involving children of ambassadors raised in a special school in order to be distributed in key locations in the government to be activated at the appropriate time. However, even the most intricate of plans and training can be overcome by the person you choose to be today. Like Jason Bourne, this central character decides to be the person she is now, not who she was.

    Central Themes of These 22 Movies

    You may notice that all of these movies follow a central theme: that there is a feeling like something isn’t right, that there is something else out there, and that you must break the social norms to escape to that other place – and once you do you are either redeemed or crucified for it. There is also a theme of memory loss or the questioning of the memories we do have. As humans we don’t always trust the memories we have and when those memories are gone, who are we? Are we just a accumulation of memories or something else?

    You may notice that Jim Carrey appears more than once as an actor (The Truman Show, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and The Number 23) and that the author Philip K. Dick‘s movies (Blade Runner, Total Recall, and A Scanner Darkly) all share similar themes.  I didn’t know this, but apparently The Truman Show is a Philip K. Dick short story. One more connection: Matt Damon from The Bourne Identity also played in a Philip K. Dick movie called The Adjustment Bureau. It’s like a game of 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

    By the way, all of the movie links above to Amazon are affiliate links. I make a small percentage of money if you buy something from Amazon through those links. It doesn’t cost you anything extra and it helps support the writing of this site. Thanks for reading!

    Updates

    Update 8/29/2013:

    A friend recently pointed me to Dark City, which, theologian Gerard Loughlin interprets as a retelling of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. “For Loughlin, the city inhabitants are prisoners who do not realize they are in a prison. John Murdoch’s escape from the prison parallels the escape from the cave in the allegory.” This allegory is very similar to the movie, THX 1138, where Robert Duvall literally climbs up out of the ‘cave’. I haven’t seen Dark City, but when they realize they aren’t where they think they are, that makes me think it’s a Man vs. Nature film.

    Update 9/18/2013:

    I was listening to Tropical MBA Podcast episode 24 which played David Foster Wallace’s 2005 commencement speech to Kenyon College, of which much was relevant to this topic. “A huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded…[Education] has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: ‘This is water.’ ‘This is water.’ It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out.” David killed himself on his back porch in September of 2008, just over 3 years after making this speech, “It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.”

    Update 7/8/2014:

    I was listening to Tim Ferriss’ podcast with Jason Silva who listed his top, “False Reality [movies] that makes you question your reality”. The one I hadn’t heard of before was Enemy starring Jake Gyllenhaal:

    • Inception
    • The Matrix
    • The Truman Show
    • Existenze
    • Vanilla Sky
    • Memento
    • Enemy – A man seeks out his exact look-alike after spotting him in a movie.

    Jason Silva is a Venezuelan-American television personality, filmmaker, and performance philosopher who currently host’s National Geographic’s Brain Games.

    Update 10/9/2014:

    The Man Who Knew Too Little

    Reverse-Reality Movies, where everything is a game:

    • The Man Who Knew Too Little (1997)
    • The Game (1997)

    “How much do you trust your own memory?” Movies:

    • A Beautiful Mind (2001)
    • The Moment (2013)
    • The Sixth Sense (1999)

    “Where do you think you are?” Movies:

    • The Signal (2014)

    Does the Bible hint at some of these themes? James 4:14 says: “You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.” What is real?. Paul hints that the only thing that is “real” is the things we can’t see. 2 Corinthians 4:18 says, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

    TV Shows

    • Southpark – Grounded Vindaloop – the animated characters in the show realize they are all stuck inside an Oculus Rift virtual reality (VR) world and need help desk support (ala Vanilla Sky) to get out. Once out, we realize they are all actually real boys.
    • Scrubs – My Screw Up –  Dr. Cox spends the episode preparing for his son’s birthday with his brother, Ben. Only at the end of the episode is it revealed that Ben is dead and Dr. Cox has been instead preparing for his funeral, unbeknownst to him.

    Quotes and YouTube Videos

    From the Cafe scene in Inception, “Where are you right now?”

    From Scrub’s “My Screw Up”, “Where do you think we are?”

  • How Do I Improve My Station in Life?

    One of the questions I get on this blog is, “How do I improve my station in life?” This may be because of a post I recently wrote about How to Improve Your Stations in Life, but I don’t think this is what the person is actually asking. What they probably want to know is:

    • How do I get ahead in life?
    • How do I make more money?
    • How do I get a promotion?
    • How do I meet new people?
    • How do I make meaning in my life?

    I get it. When you’re down and out it’s hard to see how things can ever be different. When you can’t see any possible way that you can get out of the hole you are in that feeling can be crushing. When you lose your confidence your mindset changes and it can be hard to get ahead. I’ve been there – I know how hard it can be.

    So if you’re asking how to improve your station in life, you may be looking for specifics, not just happy sayings like “believe in yourself” and “pay yourself first”, but mindset does matter and procedures do matter. How you think and how you act help predict how things will turn out and can improve your station in life. Here’s how:

    • Be thankful for what you have now
    • Think about how you’ve improved or grown from two years ago until today
    • Imagine a place you’d like to be in the future
    • Do one thing today that will move you towards that future
    • Write down what you did today

    So that’s pretty general advice, so let’s get more specific. There is an old saying that the longest journey begins with a single step, and that’s true, but sometimes you don’t have a long time to make a change. Sometimes you need to make a change now. If that is the case, here are some things you can ask yourself:

    • What you can stop doing?
    • What can I start doing?
    • What can I do more of?
    • What can I do less of?
    • What can I change?

    Sometimes things don’t change unless you change them. The world is not going to hand you anything. Most of the time you’re going to have to work for it. Work is hard. I get it. And results don’t come fast. You may work on something for months without seeing results until one day something breaks your way – unless you:

    • Get out of the building / leave the cave
    • Learn a valuable skill that adds value
    • Ask someone to buy what you have
    • Help someone without expecting
    • Be willing to fail – be confident

    How to Improve Your Station in LifeThink about it – once you change your mindset and believe you can be in a better place than you are right now you’ll start doing the things it takes to get there. And over time you will start to see yourself becoming the person you want to be. And then one day you will look back and realize how far you have come. In this way you will have improved your station in life. You will be thankful for what you have and look back to where you were and be happy. You will then look forward and see where you want to be – and begin walking into that reality – one step at a time.

  • SEO Metric: Time to First Conversion

    This is a SEO case study on “Time to First Conversion”, which involves tracking how long it takes to reach the first conversion after the SEO campaign begins. In this case study, the conversion was tracked as a email web form submission to a website. In Google Analytics, this might be setup as a goal, but in this case, it was tracked by the actual email message.

    Handyman Escondido

    Handyman Escondido was launched on May 9, 2013 and by July 22 had its first web conversion. 3 days later on July 25 it had it’s second conversion. It took 2 months and 13 days to get the first conversion.

    SEO firms can’t promise or guarantee Google rankings, but they typically state that results will come in approximately 3 months. In this case, it was true, but here’s the thing: only on-page SEO was done to this site. There was no inbound marketing, no backlinks, no blog posts, no social media marketing, no Google Adwords.

    And how many pages do you think this site has? 1. This site has one page, it’s home page. It reads like a Dan Kennedy sales letter without the testimonials, but hey, the information is all there. This site got 2 conversions in 3 months from it’s domain name and on-page SEO alone.

    It currently ranks #6 for the keyword term “handyman escondido” and #16 for “escondido handyman”. However, the handyman is not located in Escondido, California. He’s located in North County San Diego, California. So how does he rank for “North County San Diego, California Handyman”? #21. How’s that for no off-page SEO?

  • 6 Ways to Save Your Business

    The American Conservative recently wrote an article about 10 Ways to Save Barnes & Noble, which caught my eye for a couple of reasons. For one, I’ve not only made a lot of money from supporting the Nook ereader both online at Nook Share and offline with Geek Hand, but I also made money from buying and selling books from Barnes & Noble. Second, as a business consultant, I have my own ideas about how Barne’s & Noble could adapt to the new environment they find themselves in. One idea I had that was not mentioned in the article involves Barnes & Noble creating a nationwide coworking facility that promotes the idea of entrepreneurs using their facility as office space. To bring this idea full circle, the original idea behind Nook Share was to build a coworking facility with that name, but after Barne’s and Noble, Inc. registered “Nook” as a trademark on June 4, 2009, the site pivoted to sell Nook covers and accessories. But this article isn’t about me or even about Barnes & Noble – it’s about you and your business. Gracy Howard, the author of the “10 Ways to Save Barnes & Noble” article, summarizes her thoughts in a way that I felt was beneficial to more than just Barnes & Noble:

    Maximize your strengths: build a comfortable, nostalgic ethos. Try making your stores more personalized and local—perhaps build a community library vibe with fun events. Hire people who actually read books, and who love talking about them.

    1. Maximize your Strengths – In the book, Now, Discover Your Strengths, authors Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton argue that instead of trying to repair our weaknesses, we should focus on improving our strengths. Unfortunately, not everyone knows what their strengths are so there is a Strengths Finder test to help you (or your business) with this. In 2009 I wrote about how to identify strengths and revenue streams, which has a mini-test of 10 questions that will help you find your strengths.
    2. Build a Comfortable, Nostalgic ethos – “Ethos” is a synonym of “character” and envokes, “the characteristic spirit of a culture, era, or community as seen in its beliefs and aspirations.” “Comfortable” is just another word for “familiar” – and since “consistency” breeds familiarity, one way to be more comfortable to customers is to be more consistent. Consistency is one of the 3 C’s of creating trust, which is the third leg in the buying cycle of “know, like, trust.” So the advice here is to have a consistent character to your company.
    3. Make your Business More Personalized – Personalization is changing the world and it’s one of the easiest ways to add margins to your bottom line and differentiate from the competition. When you can personalize a product, you make competition irrelevant. Even Nike and Lands End are getting in on this trend with “mass customization“, but there are other ways to personalize your business such as by remembering your customer’s name, asking them how they are doing, or just saying hello.
    4. Make your Business More Local – There are certainly SEO benefits to making your business more local, but the advice here is to tap into the advantages that a local, brick-and-mortar store has over a online presence. While Amazon has local distribution centers and Local Deals, they do not have local events. You cannot go have coffee at Amazon and you cannot use their bathroom.
    5. Host more Events – “Events” are one of the most underused, but most powerful ways to market your business. From hosting a local meetup to posting a party on Eventbrite, there is power in meeting people face-to-face as it builds the word-of-mouth marketing that is so powerful. On the flip side, going to conferences and trade shows is another great way to get in front of potential customers or to make relationships with other mutually-beneficial companies.
    6. Hire Good People – In the article they suggest hiring people who actually read books. What a novel idea. I have seen first hand how changes in the hiring process affects the overall success or failure of your business. It is a core part of everything you do. Almost every person in your organization has the ability to improve or decline your business so getting the right people on the bus is very important – and quite possibly the most important. It’s one that should be done before any process, technology, or marketing changes are done. Yes, it’s that important.

    Is your business on the brink of collapse? Focus on your strengths. Examine your people, processes, technology, and marketing. Create a list of next action steps and do one of them. As Terry Lin likes to say:

    One is better than none.

  • The Value of Conferences and Trade Shows

    Mike McDerment, the founder of Freshbooks, recently wrote a post titled How I Earned A Lot More on Projects by Changing My Pricing Strategy in which he talks about how he used to be a web designer (only) and it was his frustration with invoicing that moved him to create Freshbooks, which is online accounting and invoicing software for small business owners. McDerment recently released a free ebook that is similar to the Brennan Dunn’s Double Your Freelancing Rate book called, Breaking the Time Barrier: How to Unlock Your True Earning Potential. McDerment will be speaking in Indianapolis at MixWest (formerly Blog Indiana) August 7-9th, 2013, which reminded me of the value of conferences and trade shows to your business.

    I last attended Blog Indiana in 2011 and have since wrote about it in My Local Heroes, Mesh Networking, and Networking Indianapolis. It’s also how I know most of the people I now know on Twitter. In other words, it was very impactful to me and part of the reason I decided to attend The Combine that same year in Bloomington, Indiana. People I met at Blog Indiana and The Combine I later ran into at Verge in Indianapolis, at the Lean Startup Circle, and at Agile Indy. I was starting to be a part of a community of like-minded individuals, which has intrinsic value.

    Vishen Lakhiani, founder of Mind Valley, talks about how attending conferences changed his company and allowed it to grow. Pat Flynn, owner of Smart Passive Income, talks about how he met one of his best friends and business partners at a conference. In Terry Lin’s Build My Online Store podcast #45, Matt Kowalak talks about how attending trade shows is a critical part of the marketing of his business.
    The bottom line is that while it can cost a lot of money to go to conferences, there is a lot of value in going to conferences. Surrounding yourself with like-minded people is powerful, and it can change your business. For encouragement, collaboriation, or learning from others who have paved the way before you, meetups, conferences, and tradeshows can help you become a success.

    Know you can succeed, and you will.

  • Are Common Sayings Useful?

    When something hasn’t been accomplished, a common saying is:

    We can land a man on the moon, but we can’t…”

    What would we be saying if this had never happened?
    When something new is released, a common saying is:

    The best thing since sliced bread.”

    Before sliced bread you had to slice your own bread. Was this a bad thing?
    When the work you’re doing ultimately doesn’t matter, a common saying is that you are

    Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic”

    What would we be saying if we had never lost the Titanic? No one makes sayings about space shuttle accidents, but they do like to say:

    Houston we have a problem.”

    Are common sayings useful?

    In a world where we are more and more connected, but have less and less in common, maybe we need these old sayings. Of course my opinion is USA-centric and to an extent, generation-centric. While shows like Friends and Seinfeld are like cannon for my generation, they have little relevance with anyone who has graduated high school in the last 8 years. It’s been almost 18 years since I graduated high school, to give you context.

    Are Internet memes and viral videos useful?

    While there are gigantic swaths of the Internet that can avoid the gaze of a majority of the world, the closest thing to a chance for commonality is going to be the most “viral” elements, which are Internet memes and viral videos who can garner more eyeballs than even the most popular television show, movie, or video games. And since you brought up video games, while “Mario” was the Mickey Mouse of my 8-bit generation that title has since been replaced by Angry Birds. For perspective, my daughter has an Angry Birds t-shirt and plays it far more than Super Mario on her Wii, but she plays Minecraft more by far.

    Reasoning by analogy versus the First Principles reasoning

    In a TED talk on Tesla, SpaceX, and Solarcity, Elon Musk was asked by Chris Anderson, “How have you [built all of these companies]? These projects are so — Paypal, SolarCity, Tesla, SpaceX, they’re so spectacularly different, they’re such ambitious projects at scale. How on Earth has one person been able to innovate in this way? What is it about you?” and this was Musk’s response:

    I work a lot. I mean, a lot…I do think there’s a good framework for thinking. It is physics. You know, the sort of first principles reasoning. Generally I think there are — what I mean by that is, boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there, as opposed to reasoning by analogy. Through most of our life, we get through life by reasoning by analogy, which essentially means copying what other people do with slight variations. And you have to do that. Otherwise, mentally, you wouldn’t be able to get through the day. But when you want to do something new, you have to apply the physics approach. Physics is really figuring out how to discover new things that are counterintuitive, like quantum mechanics. It’s really counterintuitive. So I think that’s an important thing to do, and then also to really pay attention to negative feedback, and solicit it, particularly from friends. This may sound like simple advice, but hardly anyone does that, and it’s incredibly helpful.”

    When we speak and relate in metaphors, we may be helping communicate with each other, but we are not creating anything new. So are common sayings useful? Yes, if you want to communicate, but not if you want to create something new.

  • Anyone Can Take a Reservation

    One thing I keep hearing from programmers and product owners is that the most important thing (or the hardest thing) is marketing and sales of their product. And to that I say, you have to have a product to market and that’s the hardest part is figuring out what people want, making it, and getting feedback on it. I guess you need both.

    When I worked at banks, one of the things I heard over and over was that “Retail can’t work without Operations and Operations can’t work without Retail.” They both needed each other. Can your lungs say to your heart, “I’m better than you.” It could, but it still needs the heart. While the brain thinks it knows everything, it can’t get around without the rest of it’s body.

    Clearing the Cruft

    I’m continually amazed by how little you have to do “right” to be successful in business. You do have to do some things right, but you can still do so much wrong and still succeed. This creates a filter for me, one that highlights what actually matters, not just what I think matters. Here’s what matters: giving people what they want, making sure those people can find it, and charging them for it.

    I sent this as a text message to a couple of people and got a couple of different responses:

    Spoken like a man who has seen the last domino in his master plan be set up – ready to fall.

    The key word is do. You have to do it. Yes you may stumble several times, but if you keep on the road it works out.

    The latter one echoes thoughts I’ve had in the past about work. Anyone can take a reservation, it’s the holding that’s most important.

  • Erich Stauffer Figurines

    Erich Stauffer figurines are worth about $10-$35 USD per figurine or roughly $3 per inch (buy the price guide to know for sure). The price depends on the condition of the figurine and what the figurine is depicting. Also they sometimes came with paper labels on the front or hang tags so if it has those, it’s worth more. Furthermore, they sometimes came in sets. If they are in pristine condition, in a set, and have paper attachments, they are at the highest end of the scale.

    All of the information in this book is included for free below, but by buying this book on Amazon, you help support this site. Thank you!

    About Erich Stauffer Figurines

    Erich Stauffer, a porcelain figurine artist, is said to have been a designer for several different porcelain figurine companies including Goebel and Kalk, but probably only worked for Arnart Creation (also known as Original Arnart Creation, Japan or Original Arnart Creation, New York). Arnart was founded in 1953 in Japan to produce porcelain art, and has offices on 5th Avenue in New York, New York under their new name, Arnart Imports Inc.. Erich Stauffer designed fake versions of Hummels and Kalk figurines for Arnart from 1953 to 1970 under the brands Arnart Imports, 5th Avenue, ArMark, Royal Carlton, Royal Chintz, and Royal Crown.

    Erich Stauffer Original Arnart CreationArnart is known by its crown and crossed arrow symbols on the bottom, some of which are printed with numbers in a series in porcelain or on a sticker. Erich Stauffer designed “fake Hummels,” which used a crown symbol. Goebel Hummels had similar marks in use from 1934 to 1942. Arnart also produced “fake Kalks,” which carry the two three-feathered crossed arrows, trade marks of the Porzellanmanufaktur Kalk company from Eisenberg, Thuringia in Germany. Because Arnart produced both fake Hummels and fake Kalks, some have speculated that Erich Stauffer worked for either or both in Germany, but this theory is not supported. It is most likely that Erich Stauffer only worked for Arnart.

    Some people place Erich Stauffer figurines back to 1940 because of the United States ban on imports from Germany during World War II, which started in September 1939 when the United Kingdom and France both declared war on Germany. On December 11, 1941, the United States declared war on Germany. The New Deal, which was the name that President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave to a sequence of economic stimulus programs initiated between 1933 and 1938 to combat recession, included blocking imports from Germany to the United States. However, Arnart Creation was not founded until 1953, eight years after the end of World War II on August 15, 1945.

    Designed by Erich Stauffer
    Designed by Erich Stauffer

    It is true that Hummel porcelain figurines were manufactured by Goebel in Germany, which was no longer able to export to the United States during World War II, but Arnart more than likely capitalized off not the import ban, but the general popularity of the premium porcelain brands of Goebel Hummel and Kalks. Erich Stauffer, a traditional German name, may even have been invented to make it seem as though the Arnart imports were from Germany. This could explain why it is so hard to find out information about Erich Stauffer, the designer.

    Another reason why the import ban theory does not hold up is due to the fact that the ban also applied to Japan, where the figurines were initially produced. After World War II, Arnart was part of the influx of cheap Japanese imports flooding the US market. Arnart’s imitations began to tarnish their brand so in 1957 Arnart changed their name to “5th Avenue” after securing their 5th Avenue office in downtown New York and stopped using a printed stamped “Made in Japan” pottery mark, replacing it with a “Made in Japan” sticker. In 2000, 5th Avenue changed their name back to Arnart Imports Inc.

    What is an Erich Stauffer Figurine Worth?

    erich-stauffer-figurine
    Erich Stauffer Figurine

    Erich Stauffer figurines selling on online auction services such as Ebay end anywhere from $5 to $40. The price varies by how clear the mark on the bottom is, whether a number exists or not, if there are any chips or cracks in the porcelain, and if it has a sticker. A sticker, because of the chance of removal over time, makes it more valuable. It is important to note that even though the figurines, also known as “fake Hummels” or “fake Kalks” are imitations, over time have become valuable in their own right. However, as long as Arnart Imports Inc. is still in business, the price of Erich Stauffer figurines will never be as high as Goebel’s Hummels.

    Erich Stauffer figurines usually look like Hummels or Kalks and can be identified by the crown or crossed arrow symbols, but also by a beehive symbol or taglines such as “Made in West Germany” or “Designed by Erich Stauffer”. One person has also reported seeing “Divinity Artware” under one Erich Stauffer figurine. Figurines stating that they were made in Germany were not. They are hand-painted porcelain figurines from Japan. They may also say “New York,” but again, Erich Stauffer figurines which say “New York” originally had “Made in Japan” stickers and were made in Japan. The best way to find out what your figurine is worth is to have it professionally appraised or by purchasing one of the books below:

    Erich Stauffer Figurines Book Flea Market Prices How to Sell Antiques and Collectibles on Ebay and Make a Fortune
    Erich Stauffer Figurines [Kindle Edition] – (includes price guide and history) The Official Guide to Flea Market Prices, 2nd edition [Paperback] How to Sell Antiques and Collectibles on eBay… And Make a Fortune! [Paperback]

    One reviewer said, “I’ve been selling on ebay for about a year and have read numerous books on ebay. How to Sell Antiques and Collectibles on ebay….and Make a Fortune….is the Best book I’ve come across. A lot of the other books on ebay…contain information you could find on the ebay website. This book is different…got a lot of great tips about selling in the most popular catagories, ect.”

    Arnart’s Erich Stauffer Fake Hummels

    Arnart sold Hummel look-alike figurine with a crown label designed by German artist Erich Stauffer. Arnart was big importers of cheap Japansese goods in the 1950’s and 60’s, which also with a crown label.

    The first Hummel figurines were sold in 1935. The figurines are all based on the drawings and paintings of children by sister Maria Innocentia Hummel. Much of the art was done in the 1930s.

    In addition to figurines of children, there are figurines of saints – a stylistic departure from the figurines of playful children which was copied by Erich Stauffer for Arnart. Hummel and Erich Stauffer were both artists, but Hummel worked for Goebel and Stauffer worked for Arnart Imports (also known as Arnart Creations, among other names).

    Hummels were made by Goebel up until June of 2008 when Goebel discontinued making them. It is important to note that Hummel is not a brand or a company, but a line of porcelain figurines distributed by the Goebel company. All Hummels are Goebel figurines, but not all Goebel figurines are Hummels.

    Erich Stauffer Figurines Book

    How much is an Erich Stauffer figurine worth?

    I’ve compiled all of my writing on the history of Erich Stauffer, Erich Stauffer figurines, and Arnart into one volume, which is available exclusively on the Kindle at Amazon. Don’t have a Kindle? You can still read the book on your computer, mobile phone, or tablet by downloading the Kindle software for your device.

    Learn who Erich Stauffer was, find out more about Arnart Imports and Erich Stauffer Figurines. What is an Erich Stauffer figurine worth? This isn’t a Erich Stauffer figurines price guide, but there are some ranges and metrics of evaluation you can use. Learn how to Identify fake Hummels and other Arnart figurines based on crowns, crossed arrows, and porcelain marks. There are no pictures in this book, but there is lots of information about Erich Stauffer figurines and Arnart Imports that you might find useful in identifying and verifying your porcelain figurines.

    Here’s an excerpt from the introduction of the book:

    If you’re reading this book, you’ve probably purchased or inherited a porcelain figurine with a strange inscription on the bottom. You look closely and faintly make out the words, “Erich Stauffer” and if you’re lucky, some hand-drawn crossed-arrows. Some figurines have stickers, some have paper labels, some are numbered and others not.

    You probably did a web search to see what your figurine was worth or who made it. You might have found some eBay listings or an antiques web site with a few figurines for sale, but you probably still have questions about who Erich Stauffer was, what they are worth, and why the figurines were made. This book seeks to answer those questions.

    Erich Stauffer Figurines Price Guide

    The price varies by how clear the mark on the bottom is, whether a number exists or not, if there are any chips or cracks in the porcelain, and if it has a sticker. But I didn’t know exactly what metrics to use or what the official names of the figurines were or if the numbers on the bottom under “Designed by Erich Stauffer” were unique to each porcelain figurine or if that ID number tied it to a set.

    What I found out by researching the completed Ebay auctions from the last 6 months was that:

    • Not all Erich Stauffer figurines had paper tags glued to the front, some used tags on a string
    • The ID numbers seem to correspond to groups of figurines, meaning they were meant to be sets – making collecting all of the figurines to a set more valuable than the individual figurine
    • Some of the Erich Stauffer figurines have the same name, even though they aren’t part of the same set
    • Some ID numbers are also re-used, even if they are not part of the same set
    • If the number has a division symbol (/) it may be a limited run or made to look like it was a limited run
    • I don’t know what the S or the U at the beginning of the ID stood for/stands for
    • The prices of Erich Stauffer figurines ranges from $1.86 to $20.89 each with this limited sample:
    Official Names ID Prices Average
    Autumn Time – Boy S8218  $    6.67  $    6.67
    Autumn Time – Nun 8316  $   15.00  $   10.50  $   12.75
    Backyard Harmony 8213  $    6.67  $    6.67
    Barnyard Frolics 8248  $   17.00  $    6.67  $    9.99  $   11.22
    Country Outing u8517  $    1.86  $    1.86
    Farm Frolics S8396  $    6.67  $    6.67
    Harvest Time 8218  $    2.40  $    2.40
    Life on the Farm 8394  $    6.67  $    1.99  $    4.33
    Little Maestro u8588  $    1.86  $    2.99  $    2.43
    Mother’s Helper u8588  $    1.86  $    2.99  $    2.43
    Open Laces  $    8.00  $    8.00
    Photo Play U8543  $    3.95  $    3.95
    Picnic Time  $    2.40  $    2.40
    Rainy Days 8343  $    6.67  $    6.67
    Spring Festival – Girl S8262  $   19.95  $   19.95
    Spring Time 8316  $    9.99  $    6.50  $    5.24  $    7.24
    Summer Time 8316  $   28.77  $   13.00  $   20.89
    Winter Time – Nun  $   13.00  $    3.25  $    8.13
    Work Time – Boy u55/26  $    1.86  $    1.86
    Work Time – Girl u65/20  $    1.86  $    1.86
    Young Folks 8515  $    4.99  $    4.99
    Girl with Umbrella 8218  $    9.99  $    9.99

    Buy the full history of Erich Stauffer figurines that includes a price guide on Amazon.

    Erich Stauffer Figurines Collector

    Joan Collett Oates is an author and antiques collector who has been an adviser to several antique collectible books including Warman’s Americana & Collectibles: 11th Ed., Antique Trader Antiques & Collectibles 2011, Antique Trader Pottery and Porcelain Ceramics Price Guide, The Official Price Guide to Flea Market Treasures: 5th Edition, and Maloney’s Antiques & Collectibles: Resource Directory just to name a few.

    Joan Oates is known for collecting Phoenix Bird Chinaware and Erich Stauffer figurines (fake Hummels). In Maloney’s Antiques & Collectibles, she actually gives her phone number and address with this request:

    Wants to buy Erich Stauffer child-like figurines; must say “Designed by Erich Stauffer” underneath and give style number, price, describe activity, give height.

    And on ArtMLS (Art Multiple Listing Service) she wrote:

    Interested in child-like, Hummel look-alikes marked ‘Designed by Erich Stauffer’ and numbered, made in Japan and imported by Arnart Imports.

    If you’re asking yourself, “How can I sell my Erich Stauffer figurines?” or “How much are my Erich Stauffer figurines worth?”, email Joan Collett Oates at koates120@earthlink.net.

    In addition to being an adviser on several different antique collectible books, she has also written her own book on Phoenix Bird Chinaware by the same name.

    Joan Virginia Oates was born in 1928. Joan currently lives in Marshall, Michigan. Before that, Joan lived in West Bloomfield, MI from 1988 to 1988. Before that, Joan lived in Constantine, MI from 1992 to 2005.

    If you’re interested in an Erich Stauffer figurines price guide, check out The Official Price Guide to Flea Market Treasures: 5th Edition, by Harry Rinker, which Joan Oates advised on. It has a list of 16 different fake Hummel (Arnart Imports/Royal Crown) Erich Stauffer figurine prices.

    Arnart Imports Porcelain Marks

    Not only was the Japanese ceramic industry smaller in scale compared to the Chinese, but the porcelain marks were also applied for different reasons that on the Chinese porcelain. Personal signatures by the artists involved, such as Erich Stauffer, are quite common. We also find a different attitude towards what marks that are put on the Japanese porcelain and in particular the export porcelain from the 19th century and onwards.

    The entire range of Imperial reign marks so common on Chinese porcelain, genuine or not, is mostly lacking. The marks are more commercially oriented, such as with Arnart Imports, are more numerous, and can vary even within a set of pieces. They can indicate the name of the factory, the potter, the decorator, the pattern, the customer, the exporter, the importer or both or a part of them or maybe just say “Made in Japan”, “Japan”, “Nippon”, “Happiness” or “Good luck” in any number of ways.

    Increasing the confusion are the hundreds of porcelain decorating firms active in the early to mid 20th century simultaneously putting many different marks on the same wares seemingly at random but probably for some reason. To take just one example, the Noritake company which has been active for about one hundred years only, are thought to have used over 400 different marks.

    Arnart Imports Inc., owner of the Erich Stauffer figurines, is still in operation and is currently located in 230 Fifth Avenue, New York. The company specializes in porcelain gifts and decorative accessories. First registrated trade mark is the Crown and A’s mark registred April 30, 1953. A mark looking like a bee hive, was first used the last of December 1957. Both were cancelled in 2001.

    Arnart Imports Porcelain Marks Arnart Imports Inc., mark registred in 1957. Cancelled June 6th, 2001.
    Arnart Imports Porcelain Marks Arnart Imports Inc., Crown and A’s mark in use since April 30, 1953. Cancelled February 17, 2001.
    Arnart Imports Porcelain Marks Arnart Imports Inc., Crown and A’s mark in use since 1953 combined with the ‘bee hive’ in use since 1957, both cancelled in 2001.
    Arnart Imports Porcelain Marks Arnart Imports Inc., Royal Carlton, was registred for porcelain tableware, in 1957; Royal Crown was registred for use on animal and bird figures 1965 – 1987. Several similar ‘Royal’ marks with a crown and a brand mark exists, all from the second half of the 20th century.

    Arnart Creations Crossed Arrows

    Crossed arrows were stamped in several countries as a porcelain brand. Whether this was in reference to the famous Meissen crossed swords, it should be presumed to be. Today, you will find mark crossed arrows on porcelain dishes, porcelain figurines, and knickknacks from the following countries:

    • Germany: Kalk Porcelain Factory Eisenberg / Thuringia
    • France: Paris porcelain factory Bloch (often with the addition: “PORCELAINE DE PARIS FRANCE”)
    • Japan: Arnartcreation or Arnart (often with a multi-digit number)
    • USA: Homco (Home Improvement Co.) (often with a multi-digit number, decorative name and / or artist name)

    Arnart Crossed ArrowsIn addition, there are also hand-painted Markung crossed arrows, but the problem of a properly assigning them is that there were several companies that are used weapons as a trademark. For example, the porcelain factory, Rauenstein, crossed flags, the teat porcelain villages crossed spears, and Volkstedter porcelain factory used cruising signs, all of them together with a certain similarity which is presumably intended.  You can see how it can be hard to identify porcelain pieces to a manufacturer.

    When looking at Arnart marks and seeing the different number combinations one tends to believe that there was some connection between Arnart and HOMCO. The marks themselves – and the items these marks appear on – are not HOMCO as the marks were registered by Arnart and the mold style, decoration and other marks clearly indicate Arnart as source. Arnart was in the replication business so they simply used a numbering system similar to HOMCO to better position themselves in the marketplace.  Arnart even went as far as to use the HOMCO numbering scheme for some Erich Stauffer figurines.

    Here are some books on Volkstedter porcelain and HOMCO “Denim Days” figurines:

    Dresden Porcelain Studios Antiques Price Guide Homco Denim Days
    Dresden Porcelain Studios [Hardcover] Antiques Price Guide 2008 [Hardcover] Mary Barker’s Complete Collection Home Interior’s/ Homco Denim Days 2nd Edition [Paperback]

    One reviewer said of Barker’s HOMCO guide, “This was for my mom, she collects denim days. She loves the book. Now she can see what to look for next.” What will you look for next?

    How to Identify Porcelain Figurines

    Pink Elephant FigurineA figurine is a statuette that represents a human, deity (god), or animal. Figurines may be realistic or iconic, depending on the skill and intention of the figurine designer. The earliest figurines were made of stone or clay, but modern versions are made of porcelain, ceramic, metal, glass, wood, and plastic (think G.I. Joe’s and other action figures). Figurines with movable parts, which allow limbs to be posed, are more likely to be called dolls, mannequins, or action figures. If they can move on their own they are called robots or automata, depending on which part of the world you live in.

    Figurines and miniatures are sometimes used in board games, such as chess, and tabletop games like Risk. Old figurines have been used to discount some historical theories, such as the origins of chess. Figurines are still used in digital games in the form of avatars or characters in a game that are manipulated by the player using a computer or gaming console.  In this sense, figurines are simply meant to represent something else, much like the original definition where we stated that figurines are “statuettes that represent a human, deity (god), or animal.

    Porcelain figurines began in China. There are prehistoric figurines of pregnant women called Venus figurines, because of their presumed representation of a female goddess, or some connection to fertility. The two oldest known examples are made of stone, were found in Africa and Asia, and are several hundred thousand years old. Many made of fired clay have been found in Europe that date to 25-30,000 BC, and are the oldest ceramics known.

    These early figurines are among the first signs of human culture. One cannot know in some cases how they were used, but we can hypothesize that they had religious or ceremonial significance and may have been used in many types of rituals. Many are found in burials, which helps back-up this hypothesis. Some may have been worn as jewelry or intended to amuse children, much the same way we use action figures to amuse children to today (or children or amused by figurines and dolls so we make more of them).

    Porcelain and other ceramics are common materials for figurines. There are many early examples from China where it originated, which drove the experimentation in Europe to replicate the process. The first European porcelain figurines, produced in a process mastered in Germany were known as Meissen ware after the city where it began. Soon the technique was copied in other cities, such as Dresden.

    Modern figurines, particularly those made of plastic are often referred to as figures. They can encompass modern action figures and other model figures as well as Precious Moments and Hummel figurines (which are not plastic), Bobbleheads and all kinds of memorabilia. Three companies which continue to produce figurines are Arnart, Royal Doulton, and Lladró.

    Figurines of comic book or sci-fi/fantasy characters without movable parts have been referred to by the terms inaction figures (originally used to describe Kevin Smith’s View Askew figurines) and staction figures (a portmanteau of statue and action figures coined by Four Horsemen artists to describe Masters of the Universe figures). This is just an example of how figurines continue to evolve and change.

  • What Not to Do

    A lot of people ask me, “How do you find the time to do what you do?”

    I hate the phrase, “I don’t have time.” We all have the same amount of time and no one can “manage time”. They can only manage their actions. I have five kids, work full-time, and run a business consulting business on the side, blog, affiliate market, network, and go to meetups. It’s both easy and pointless to say what I do because that’s just truth. It’s just what is. It’s what happens when those facts are contrasted against what I’m not doing that gives meaning and a glimpse into an answer to this question.

    What do I not do to make business, blogging, and networking a priority?

    • I don’t work on my house anymore – I used to work on my house a lot. I would change things, add things, subtract things. I would dig holes, go to the hardware store, and spend a lot of money. But more than that, it takes a lot of time to do these things. A house is not an asset, it’s a liability – and unless you’re renovating the kitchens and bathrooms, the changes you’re making probably aren’t adding very much value at all. Contrast this with the amount of money you could be making by investing in your knowledge, learning a new skill, or practicing your sales techniques.
    • I don’t watch TV, read the news, listen to the radio, or browse Facebook – I realize I sound like a pompous person by saying this, but it’s not like I’ve never done it before (I used to be a huge news consumer). If you do this you will notice a HUGE change in your lifestyle (for the better). Instead of letting anyone and everyone bombard me with stuff I don’t care about , the only thing I am ingesting is the things that I am seeking out. Therefore ALL of my time spent in the car or in front of the computer is spent either learning or producing something. Imagine how that time transformation can change your life.
    • I don’t get alerts on my phone for anything other than a phone call or text message – Task switching is a productivity killer so I disable all notifications from apps other than text messages and phone calls, but I have even trained myself to not pay attention to text messages throughout the day. Often times I will have to remind myself to check my phone because I faintly remember feeling my phone vibrate. This is intentional as text messages are rarely important and email is even less important. The biggest productivity booster you will get is turning off email notifications on your phone.
    • I don’t go shopping or pay the bills or make a meal or do laundry – Not everyone can do this, but it’s one of the reasons why I have the time to do what I do. Shopping is a huge time suck. So is everything that comes with taking care of a household. My wife does a great job of this so that I don’t have to. I will help her carry laundry baskets or carry a kid to bed, but she and the kids now do most of the housework. I’m very blessed to have someone make my breakfast, lunch, and dinner, do my laundry, and make sure the bills get paid so I can “focus on my business” – just like the marketer’s say :).
    • I don’t change my own oil – I used to do this. I used to spend hours changing my oil so that I could save $10. Now I pay $10 more to only have to spend 10 minutes changing my oil. I practically get paid to get my oil changed. I still mow my own yard, but that is because I use it as exercise. I don’t pay to go to a gym because that seems like an even bigger waste of time, but I do recognize the value of exercise for both mental and physical help. I even tell my clients that when we get stuck on a problem in a meeting, “Let’s go for a walk.” Often going on a ‘walking meeting’ will help you discover new ideas.

    Want more? Check out Tim Ferriss’ list of 9 habits to add to your not-to-do list. If you have your own productivity tips or want to share what’s been working for you, please leave a comment below. Thanks for reading.