When I was 23 years old, I was given a pretty potent journalism award. I thought I was a dynamic genius. By the time I was 25 I was a news director. I was unstoppable. By the time I was 30, my unflappable ardor had cost me everything. I was literally penniless and homeless. Arrogance is not a virtue. Instead of using my alleged genius and showing respect for colleagues, I acted the role of mad scientist.

Ten years later (It is hard to believe it has already been that long), I can look back to the help and support I received from the very people whom had suffered under the lash of my acid tongue and shallow hearted actions. The human capacity to forgive is amazing to me. It is a virtue I sometimes lack.

Overcoming these shortcomings is not an easy prospect for me. I am still arrogant; the willingness to acknowledge my limits continues to grow, however, which has placed me in some very good company in the past few years. With great pride, I believe I work well with people like Rick Schwartz, Howard Neu, David Clements, Viju Krishnan and others, and my single-domain web development clients and I get along very well. It is still a struggle for me, though, to not cross boundaries.

The problems I encountered as a snotty 20-something can easily resurface when I think my success is born entirely of my own volition. Certainly I believe I have a genius quality; everybody in the domain industry does. Each has talents, insight and aptitudes. Many in the industry have these qualities in such great measure they cross multiple disciplines.

But whatever talent and experience I may have can easily be overlooked by instructing others in the domain industry or in the content development world of their ambiguous insights or skills. There is much I know about media and content development. I very strongly believe in the entrepreneurial spirit that created the domain industry; but there are many things I still do not know, and it is critical to remain aware of these facts.

While I have enjoyed some success whilst associated with people in the domain industry, for instance, I have only in the past year begun to grasp the fine line that exists between content development and domain development. Indeed, any content developer who wishes to be a successful domainer must understand this. Successful domainers have embraced content developers, but they do so with the understanding that they are not creating specific items for a domain, they are building a business online.

It is difficult to read some of the material that is written by others in this industry or on its fringe who believe they are the masters of their domain or of the domain industry. We all know who the real heavy-hitters are, for they were in this game before many of us knew there was a chess board.

Had I not been so short-sighted, myself, during the mid 1990's, I would have thought of buying a generic domain name or 20 or 100. Instead, I championed my superiority, which was to sell me down the river. Strengths are God-given, and learning to discipline those strengths is the stuff of heaven! Bitter experience still teaches that lesson.

There have been horrible mistakes along the road to becoming a human being, and I will make them until the day I draw my last breath. In the interim, nothing shall be so lovely than to share what I have learned and to learn from you. Working together we all enjoy success. In such a spirit, there is little room for condescension or envy.

;-)