This is not a rant about Google’s policy of disabling accounts without a human review process. These are steps that saved me during one of the angriest days I’ve ever had.

The Problem

Google prohibits people under the age of 13 from having an account with them. More specifically, Google’s account software disables your account if you enter a birthdate that falls within 13 years past of today’s date.

Summary: If you accidentally tell Google that you’re under 13 years of age, your account will be disabled until you verify your age, or it will be deleted after 29 days.

(In my case, I attempted to add YouTube to my Google Apps account and forgot to change the birth year. I had not activated Google Checkout, and could not login to activate it because my account was disabled).

What You Need To Do

Activate Google Checkout

Go activate Google Checkout for your account. If your account gets disabled because of a stupid mistake, and you don’t have Google Checkout enabled, the other options for unlocking your account take days, and you’ve only got 29 days to get this right.

Create A Backup Administrator Account

If you, like me, signed up for Google Apps as a one person company, you may be tempted to use your own account as the sole administrator account. Do not do this.

Go right now and create a backup administrator account that you only use for emergencies. This is the only thing that saved me. Because my account was locked, I could not log in to enable Google Checkout. Remembering that I had a backup administrator account allowed me to login, enable Google Checkout and proceed with age verification.

Become a Paying Member

Before this happened, I was using the free version of Google Apps. Unfortunately, free means ‘no telephone support’ because to use telephone support with Google Apps, you need a customer ID. And unless you’re paying, you don’t get a customer ID.

Once you’ve signed up for a paying account, find your Customer ID, and record it in Evernote, or somewhere outside of your Google Apps dashboard. In the event you need to call support, you don’t want to depend on being able to login to your account to get this information.

Most of you are smarter than I am, so you’ll never find yourself with a disabled account. But after a brief moment of mindlessness, it’s terrifying to think of being locked out of the account from which you communicate with customers.

On a related note, I watched a documentary tonight about the rise in consumer debt in America. What a fantastically complex issue. I am not an economist. I know only enough to know that pure, unrestrained capitalism is as bad as whatever -ism is being attributed to Obama by Fox News this week.

Is it the government’s job to protect us by regulating credit card companies? Or are we to fend for ourselves? It’s really too bad that those are the choices we’re presented with in so much political rhetoric. Either choice, taken to its extreme is an awful reality.

As much as it makes my skin crawl to hear how blatantly the banks target the poor in this country, at the end of the day, people make their own choices, buying things they can’t afford. But….given the right amount of regulation, some of those people would never have had the option to get into that big of a mess. And I’m not sure I think that that amount of government regulation is a bad thing.

It’s easy to blame someone for getting themselves into a big financial mess. And it feels good to blame a bank for making it possible. But it’s a shared responsibility.

There’s also an education angle as well. How much of the financial trouble we see in poorer families is the result of poor financial literacy. There are things that are obvious to financial experts that seem a mystery to me. Likewise, simple principles of credit and debt, obvious to me, are a mystery to others. But who’s responsibility is to teach them? The government? The schools?

In the end, the only thing I’m sure of is that people need to act ethically, morally, and use common sense when dealing with money. Yes, banks would make less money if they didn’t troll for bankrupt individuals. Yes, people would have less stuff if they learned to act their wage. But it’s the right thing to do.  When people in any wealth bracket decide to do the wrong thing because it pays better, we all lose in the long run.

Listen To The Google Juice – Episode 005 “The Company Of One”

It’s called “The Company Of One” and we discuss the kind of fake business that seems to have increased with the rise of easy to use CMS’s for websites, and a host of trendy buzzwords people can substitute in place of examples of real work.

I like people who have the desire to go out and do big things. I like people who like to build websites.

But I don’t like it when people are afraid to be honest with their customers about who they are. A person starting out, not a “firm” or a “company”. Just…a person.

There’s nothing wrong with being just a person. That’s the real meat of this issue and why I’m such a jerk about it in this episode. There’s nothing wrong with being someone who’s starting out. There are things you can do to still get hired to do real work.

But throwing up a website with some stock photography, a list of buzzwords, saying “we” and not “I”, and artificially inflating the work you’ve done is wrong. That’s dishonest, that’s bad business, and in the long run it’s a terrible way to attempt entry into the world of self-employment.

From the tender age of 12 to the slightly less tender age of 32, I worked at jobs where I answered to bosses. For the past two years, I’ve been my own boss. So I’ve worked in teams, and in isolation. In retrospect, I now know that certain decisions I made, and the kind of impact I had at those jobs, was not dictated by my intellect, but by my insecurities.

My 30s thus far have been one uncomfortable trip after another into the deepest insecurities and fears I’ve lived with for much of my life. I studied the accidental success of my hobby-turned-business on a daily basis, trying to figure out what the heck was happening. Learning along the way what works, and what doesn’t work.

The spooky success of my hobby, coupled with daily introspection at the deepest levels had an interesting side effect. I began doubting that some people knew what they were talking about. I began to see empty words where I once saw wisdom. And those empty words came from a place I knew well. A place where you feel small, insignificant, and you just want people to accept you, believe you, and tell you you’re OK.

As I began to see my own insecurities in so many other people, I became very fascinated with just how massively the insecurities of a leader can damage the company they work for.

When a company fails, the news coverage will likely highlight strategic mistakes that were made by management. But what they don’t often discuss is why those mistakes were made. I’ve always just assumed that bad strategic mistakes were made by someone without enough experience.

But what if some of those fateful decisions are made by managers who have massive emotional insecurities? People who need to feel important, respected, validated. Those kinds of issues put an entirely different lens on your eyes, making all the wrong things seem right. Deals that don’t make sense on paper sound right in person, choices that should be based on facts are instead based on feelings.

Why do companies just assume that their employees and managers are fully matured adults, without these kinds of emotional hangups? Someone who walks in perpetual insecurity can hide it at times, but it is darn near impossible for them make the right decision when it touches an area of their psychological makeup that has been deeply damaged.

I wish this kind of thing were talked about more, it seems that the success or failure of a company can depend on the emotional makeup of a few key people.

Before this issue became public, I purchased a Drobo with 4 of these drives, and soon became aware of the issues. I replaced the drives in the Drobo with others before they completely failed, but somehow, one of these drives became my main working drive in my Workstation.

This drive contained all my current client A/V work, free lessons for StevieSnacks, and any work on unreleased premium lesson series. I was supposed to backup this stuff to my Drobo fairly often, but I did not.

Thankfully, when this drive magically disappeared from my system, it did not contain anything I absolutely had to get back. But I would lose my last 6 free lesson projects, some finished client work, and various miscellaneous projects I had started.

So, like a jerk, I posted a jerky tweet about it:

The Seagate SD15 firmware has caused its last problem for me, and taken my last month of work with it. Never forget.

I then quickly realized the futility of such jerkiness, so I asked a fair question:

@Seagate Once an SD15 Firmware drive has bitten the dust, there’s no recovery, correct?

@AskSeagate responded:

@anthonystauffer I’d contact us via chat/e-mail to determine options on SD15. We have to verify issue then review options http://ow.ly/4kWyj

So over to the support chat I went.

The support agent asked some questions about the drive and whether the firmware had been updated. I told him it had not (because I am on a Mac). The support agent quickly gave me instructions for sending the drive to them, free of charge, where they would apply the firmware update, and return the drive. This should, theoretically, allow the drive to be seen by my computer again.

I downloaded a prepaid shipping label, boxed up the drive, and sent it off. I received email confirmation of the drive’s delivery, status of the repair, and a personal notification when the drive had been successfully flashed with the new firmware.

In addition to flashing the drive, and returning it free of charge, Seagate also made a backup image of the drive in case anything would happen to it during shipping.

I received the drive, put it back into my Workstation, and it worked normally. As I write this, SuperDuper!  is duplicating the drive onto a new WD Caviar Black 1TB drive.

The forums contain stories of people who have had this drive lock up after the firmware was updated, so I won’t be using it again. However, I am exceedingly pleased with the speed and professionalism with which Seagate acted.

I assume the drive was out of warranty, and they had no obligation to even respond, but they saved my drive anyway. That’s customer service at its best.

My default argument is that time spent on SEO would be better spent on quality content. Tonight, I saw a living, breathing example of how SEO can change someone’s life.

A local charity, A Woman’s Concern, provides free services, counseling and support to young women who find themselves unexpectedly pregnant. It is one stellar example of what I believe to be the most effective way of practicing pro-life convictions.

Tonight, while attending a fantastically organized fundraiser, I saw a young woman standing on stage, holding a 14 month old boy, talking about how and why chose to have her baby.

She was under much pressure to get an abortion, but she knew that if she could just get an ultrasound, she would see the heartbeat and that would give her the resolve she needed to fight for her baby’s life.

For whatever reason, the doctors would not give her an ultrasound at that stage (5 weeks). After doing a Google search, she found A Woman’s Concern, had a free ultrasound, saw the heartbeat, and made up in her mind that keeping her baby was the only option for her.

You can say what you want about abortion, women’s rights, privacy, and whether or not a fetus is a real person. I’m not going to convince you that you’re wrong.

But a woman who wants to keep her baby should never be pressured to have an abortion. Thanks to a clean, SEO friendly website, some awesome staff, and a simple Google search, a beautiful, fat, smiling baby boy has a mother who loves him, and his life ahead of him.

The park ranger discovered our little party and had a stern talk with the couple who had brought us there. Several of us waited on the other side of the pavilion. Most people were quiet, but I, I had jokes.

“Maybe I need a permit to sit here” I remember saying. The other kids thought it was hilarious so I kept going. I mocked that ranger out of disgust for his stupid rules which I had no appreciation for. Mostly, I mocked his demeanor for being so serious over something as trivial as a boat permit.

When he got done with our leaders, he came towards me, and my stomach churned. His eyes glared at me from under the brim of his ranger hat. “I understand you have some questions about permits” he said, as my eyes nervously darted to the ground.

The funny thing about pavilions is that sound goes up, but not straight back down. It bounces off the slanted roof in another direction. Although he gave no indication at the time, he could hear every mocking word that came out of my mouth. He proceeded to embarrass me in front of my friends with a variety of rhetorical questions, and recitation of laws concerning whether I did, or did not need a permit to sit there.

Something died inside of me that day. It was not the last time my big stupid mouth got me in trouble, but the chilling fear of being humiliated took root in my very soul that afternoon.

For most of my life after that, I avoided confrontation, rarely speaking my mind to people when I had something negative to say. Placating anyone who found fault with me, apologizing for things I need not apologize for, and selling myself out to avoid embarrassment.

Yesterday, an unstamped envelope with no return address was in our mailbox, along with a message from the Post Office asking for  $.44. It was an advertisement for a landscaping service. Without hesitation, I calmly dialed the number and left a message for the owner. “I apologize if this was an accident, but if you intentionally sent these, knowing the Post Office would deliver them, charging us for the postage, that is sleazy, and you’ll never be getting any of our business”.

It’s taken close to 20 years, but the part of me that died by the lake that day is coming back to life.

Obsession is usually easy to identify. My biggest problem is learning to tell the difference between something I’m truly obsessed about, and something I’m just opinionated about….today. On most days, it’s pretty clear what I can’t stop thinking about, and that I’ve been thinking about it for some time.

But voice….that’s a lot more challenging. Sometimes voice comes naturally. When I teach lessons at StevieSnacks, my voice is one of encouragement, reassurance, and just down-to-earth “let me show you how I do it”. Like a guitar buddy showing you something he figured out. That’s my teaching voice.

But outside of guitar lessons, I’ve struggled to find my own voice. Perhaps because I’ve been afraid to really speak my mind on issues that I’m passionate about.

I’ve discovered that my true voice is the one that speaks when I’m not afraid of the consequences, the voice that responds when asked “how do you really feel about this?”.

Here are four ways I see Obsession and Voice being expressed:

Real Obsession / Fake Voice
Speaking in a safe, generic way about something you’re really passionate about. Essentially diluting the odds that anyone will notice or care. When I’m doing this, it’s easy to feel because I’m fighting back words in my head.

Fake Obsession / Real Voice
This is your real voice being used to write/talk about something you have a temporary strong opinion about, but no really obsession with. Usually followed by embarrassment and apologies or retractions when you realize that you’ve said something stupid because you’re not an expert, just another guy with an opinion.

Fake Obsession / Fake Voice
This is the worst kind, and unfortunately, the most prevalent on the web today. People writing about stuff they really don’t care about, using the safest, most generic voice. No one likes reading this crap.

Real Obsession /  Real Voice
This is the sweet spot, and the one that takes the most courage. The courage to use your real voice when writing or speaking about something you’re truly obsessed about.

Finding that sweet spot is challenging and takes courage, but it’s so worth it. Knowing that you were true to yourself, didn’t give in to fear, or undersell your passion, that brings a deep satisfaction that outweighs the temporary discomfort of upsetting a few people.

On one hand you’ve got companies like Lexus and Mercedes doing refined, subtle advertising that is both stylish and beautiful, in the middle, car companies like Ford and Chevy use a mix of tactics, and far on the other end, local car dealers wear clown hats, shout a lot, and give away free puppies.

Where is the rule that says car dealers need to act cheap, gimmicky, and cartoonish? Certainly they don’t have large enough budgets to create advertisements dripping with style and beauty, but you don’t need much money to act classy.

When it comes to online business, you have a choice. You can be refined, classy, and stylish, or you can be loud, pushy, and cheap. No one is forcing you to pick a side, but honestly, if you’ve got the opportunity to be classy, refined, and stylish, why would you do anything that places you closer to this guy?