I'm feeling a bit philosophical today, so here's a bit of an unusual theme for me: speculation about my generation's longevity.

My grandfather is 93 and is in great health. My grandmother is in 90 and she too is in great health. Can my parents beat that? Can my generation beat that?

(Grandpa Geraldo, then 89, now 93)

I hope so. But I wonder. I think these two generations -- my parents and mine -- may be the exception and our longevity could be less (on average) than my grandparents.

Why?

Well, it's a pure guess based on a few casual observations (i.e. totally unscientific guesses -- you've been warned).

First, let's think back as to why my grandfather, who was born in 1918, is in great health today. Many will point out to advances in medicine. That would be correct. But I think this is only part of the story. And a small part, since my grandfather has never had any kind of serious disease nor been operated on (no fake hips or knees nor heart bypasses or anything). He also doesn't take much medicine. Not because he's stubborn or anything, but because he doesn't need any.

So, okay, from this sample of one, I'm saying medicine didn't play a huge role on his longevity. Then, it's just good genes and coincidence, right?

Well, maybe not entirely.

His generation was born at a much different time. A time when abundance wasn't the norm. Food was simply food. Unprocessed, natural, local grown plants and animals.

It's not that there weren't cookies, Pringles and Coca-cola back then -- well, some of that didn't really exist back in 1918 -- but if they did exist, they were expensive. And again, this generation was not used to having plenty. And specially they didn't have lots of choices either. Again, they were limited -- and grew accustomed to -- simple foods, in modest quantities.

But diet alone was probably not the only reason.

Back then, if you wanted to visit a friend who lived 10 blocks away from you, what did you do? Did you call him up on the phone and then drove there? No and no. There was no phone, and when there was, it was expensive to use. They simply walked everywhere.

My grandfather's generation was more active than ours and my parents, on average.

Video games didn't exist. The iPhone and the internet hadn't been invented yet, so to stay in touch with people, you actually had to go and meet them.

Okay, but when Pringles, margarine, corn-fed beef, cell phones and cars were invented, why didn't they become fat and sedentary like the rest of us? My theory is that habits formed during this generation's youth persisted for a very long time. My grandfather still eats simple foods and does not have a cell phone. And meanwhile, medicine improved. So he got the best of both worlds.

My generation and my parents' generation got used to medicine bailing them out. Pain here? Take this pill! Deficiency there? There's a pill for that too! And while that was happening, food became a chemist's concern and herbicides and pesticides became more of a necessity in a mass-produced food market. All while food prices plummeted, making it cheaper and easier for people to load up on calories. And empty ones at that.

Let's not forget about modern-day stress that was a little less prevalent back then: my grandfather didn't have to worry about who could see his pictures on Facebook nor did he check his stocks holdings daily, in real-time, obsessing about tomorrow's economic indicators.

So, I do wonder if the two generations between my grandfather's and mine (inclusive) are doomed to have an average longevity that is less than that of my grandfather. And whether this next generation will be the one to truly benefit from a new conscience of health eating and living, while taking advantage of the continuing improving medicine.

Or will it take yet another generation to hammer home the message that medicine can only fix what is broken, but it's our responsibility to prevent things from breaking in the first place?

Stay smart. Stay healthy. And live a long and prosperous life. Like my grandpa.

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Some lessons I've learned a few times over. Sometimes, when I think I have learned a lesson and am practicing it to its fullest, I can, to my surprise, be caught re-learning it the hard way -- by making a new mistake.

One of the most powerful lessons is applicable to business as well as life. It is pretty simple.

Ready? Here it goes.

You are responsible for everything you do.

Okay, let me explain this with examples.

If you build something and it doesn't work, it's your fault.

If your life is not going the way you wanted it, it's your fault.

If you start a company and it fails, it's your fault.

You see where I'm going...

That's not to say that if you get hit by a bus while happily standing in your front yard, that that's your fault. No, I'm not saying this. Even when I say "if your company fails it's your fault", I'm not saying you're in full control of everything. Sometimes shit happens.

What I'm saying though, is that you're responsible for making sure that the best outcome you envisioned for yourself actually happens. And if it doesn't, there is no point in blaming others for it, because others probably don't care or won't fix it for you.

So, even if you do get hit by a bus, you can choose to be miserable about it or accept it and make the best of it. You're responsible for your own happiness, not others.

Why am I saying this? Why now?

I wanted to write this ever since I produced the first can of my energy drink, Entropy.

Let me go back to that day, in September 2010. It was an exciting day. I had done all the art work for the can with a top-notch graphical designer specialized in cans. I reviewed the art work several times. The design had been sent to an engraver for post-processing -- these things are carved onto metal so they can be spray-painted by a machine that produces the cans.

Once everything was ready, I went directly to the floor of the factory at Ball Corp, in New York, to supervise the production of the first real can. My product was going to take off.

(On the floor of Ball, with the very first empty can of Entropy)

Then, boom, I saw it. It was there staring at me: a spelling error. On the first real can.

Everything was done by professionals. At least four different people had seen the design before it went to production. How could it have happened?

Turns out, everyone, including myself, had missed it. But it was there, printed on the can, in the supplement panel: "daiily value". Double "i".

I actually had caught this error on the very first version of the design, still in time for fixing it. I had told the designer about it. But I failed to verify. Guess whose fault it was? Yep, not the designer's nor the folks at the engraving shop. Nope. Mine.

That day, my heart sunk. It was a terrible feeling. How could I possibly have overlooked this?

Turns out, months later, I would discover that this was not the only mistake I had made in conducting my business. It certainly wasn't the most important error nor one that contributed to Entropy's failure.

In fact, to this day,  no one noticed the spelling error. Not a single person  has ever mentioned it to me.

But it exemplifies the lesson very well: I'm responsible for everything. After all, everyone else got paid. They didn't have to live with this. I had. Daiily, if you will. So it's my fault.

And that is the end of the lesson. You're responsible for everything you do.

Why Entropy failed

Okay, but people still ask me why I stopped producing Entropy. And if this small typo is not the reason for Entropy's failure, what is it then?

There are many reasons. Reasons that are specific to the beverage industry. But they're all incarnations of this very lesson, one way or another. So, it makes sense to discuss them here.

And here are some of the main reasons. There are probably many others, including also timing and luck, of course.

1. Flavor and smell. Comments varied from "putrid stench" to "cold, rotten turkey flavor" and "acid pee substance". One of these was said by a Googler who tried it and answered an internal survey. I still get hate email from people who say they hated the taste or smell. Sure, there are the lovers too, and I'm very thankful for them. Many are my personal friends, many are strangers. But, sadly, Entropy didn't please the masses nor any specific niche that would support continuing production.
2. Can size. Only Red Bull still sells 8.4oz. Monster, Rockstar and everyone else have all given up on this size. The market wants it big (16, 24 or even 32oz) or tiny (2oz shot). I insisted on an 8.4oz can, because that's the perfect size for me.
3. Energy. No distributor wants to touch energy drinks anymore. Fuze was an energy drink. They removed the word energy and nothing else and now they sell like hot cakes. While Entropy can be an anti-aging or weight loss beverage, the can doesn't say this. And so people don't buy it for that, they buy it for the energy. Niche beverages still work, but the energy market is saturated. These days, it's better to focus on specific segments, like "all natural", "relaxing", "body building energy (protein)", etc. Energy alone is done.
4. Niche / Theme. Beverages are getting more targeted. A beverage for "latinos" or "women" or "skaters" or "computer geeks" is more likely to succeed than one targeted to everyone.
5. Price. A small company can't compete on price. And lowering only hurts the brand. Entropy was about the same price as others, but when it came to unknown brands, there were brands selling 32oz can for 99c, while an 8.4oz of Entropy would cost no less than $1.99 in retail.
6. Middle of the road on caffeine. I didn't want to shove a lot of caffeine into Entropy and I thought people would appreciate the right balance (and natural caffeine also, from guarana, not the synthetic caffeine that is more common). But the typical energy drink customer doesn't appreciate the moderation that much. Most people want either zero caffeine or tons of it.
7. Technically, not 100% natural. I wanted a healthy beverage and healthy means two things to me: no synthetic ingredients (colors, preservatives) and no sugar. So, I went out of my way to get no preservatives, which meant I needed a specific pasteurization technique, and the expiration date would be only a year, as opposed to 2 or 3 or more that artificial beverages can last. But when it came time to avoid sugar, well, I should have gone with stevia or a low-glycemic sugar substitute like agave. Instead, I used ace-K and sucralose (Splenda-like). That's artificial. So, it meant Entropy wasn't 100% natural. That meant WholeFoods wouldn't take it and so many other places didn't want it. I missed another important niche.
8. Lack of marketing skills. Enough said.
9. Lack of market research. This goes back to the flavor and smell above. What pleases me won't necessarily please a lot of people. My customers can't all be people like me, because, I found out, there aren't very many of them out there. But there were other things I could have gathered from more market research: what do people want in their drinks? Or don't want? In what sizes, flavors and shapes? Basic stuff that, in hindsight, I should have done.

Conclusions

I learned a lot with Entropy. A lot of the stuff I learned reinforced the same lesson I had learned a few times before: you're in charge of your life/company/career/happiness/etc. Go make it work. Find a way. Don't blame others. All my mistakes were solely mine, no one else's.  (I wrote a convoluted version of this lesson before, as an analogy where people are all floating in this ocean we call "life" and we have to find a way to our islands.)

When I see Rupert Murdoch saying he didn't know about the phone hacking scandal going on at his company, I say, WTF? He's the CEO isn't he? Guess who should have known about it?

Thanks for reading.

Peace.

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