Picture this. You’re back in 5th grade. You’re standing in a line with your fellow classmates, facing an open field. And you’re all about to be humiliated because you’ll now be ranked by your kickball skills.
There are two team captains and they’re staring you all down and sizing you up. The first picks start and of course, the kids with the most kickball skills are picked first. Then the kids with the moderate skills are picked. They don’t even need hard kickball skills, they can have skills like morale building, being a team player or not getting in the way of the star players. And then the last picks are the kids who might not only lack skills; they might be a liability. On the dusty field, it’s not about feelings or friendships, it’s all about skills. After all, it’s not called friendship ball.
Read MoreI got clocked in the head about 200 times in a recent boxing sessions with my trainer. I don’t remember how many hits I took to the body because it was really the face punches that stood out to me that day. He wasn’t even hitting me hard, there were just so many. It was very disorienting. Ask someone to lightly slap you all over your face 200 times and you’ll see what I mean.
Read MoreBefore we begin, I’d like to introduce you to the pyramid of financial awesome.
The pyramid of financial awesomeness, lays out everything you need to do to get your personal financial life together. You start at bottom and then progress upward.
In this post, I’m going to walk you through the three things you can do to build a solid foundation.
Read More"We are what we repeatedly do.” - Aristotle
There was a time in my life where I was running about six miles a day, nearly every day. I didn’t become that annoying person overnight.
The first time I went out on a run, it was on a track at a community college near my childhood house. The loop was one-quarter mile, so I had to run around it four times to complete a mile. The first time I went out, I couldn’t run around the loop once without stopping. I only ran/walk a mile that day.
Then the next day, I woke up and ran/walk another mile. I slowly progressed, but before I realized it, I could run a mile without stopping. And eventually I could easily run six.
Read MoreI usually hate Maroon 5. But it’s Saturday night in Little Tokyo and a stranger is absolutely slaying his version of ‘Sunday Morning’. The crowd is feeling it and the next thing I know I’m totally grooving to the only thing crappier than an actual Maroon 5 song - a cover of a Maroon 5 song. But I don’t care that I look like a loser. After all, it’s a karaoke bar.
Read MoreI really enjoy being married to an interior designer. There are a lot of perks: We spend a lot of our time engaging with the culture in whatever city we find ourselves in. Nearly every industry party is impeccably designed with delicious food. The bins and bins of fabric samples mean I have access to thousands of potential pocket squares. Since so much of my wife's work relies on being inspired, we’re constantly looking for beauty in the world.
Read MoreImagine a room full of people running the odds on how long a stranger will live or die and then making bets on those odds. It could sound like an interesting scene in a movie, where questionable characters indulge in some casual underground gambling, but what I’m actually describing is a room full of underwriters in the life insurance industry.
When you look at it that way, doesn’t the insurance industry sound fascinating? It’s one of the biggest industries in the world and it’s all based on risks and making bets.
Read More"I have an app on my phone and it reminds me 5 times a day that I’m going to die,” is exactly what one of my friends told me recently. I stopped and thought about what she said, coming to the conclusion that I didn’t find it morbid. In fact, I think it’s a little weird that we don’t talk about dying more often; that we go around living our lives, putting things off as if we have all the time in the world.
Read MoreIt’s a common misconception that the tax code is rigged so the rich benefit and the poor are penalized. While the uber wealthy can definitely afford shrewd accountants and savvy tax attorneys to help, there’s another perspective to consider. The tax code favors employers versus employees. As a small business owner, you’re an employer. Employers have considerable more strategies available that can help you save money.
Read MoreMy favorite dad-joke about being a freelancer or small business owner is how we end up getting jobs that we never applied for.
No matter what you do, when you first start out, you do it all. You’re the head of marketing, the VP of sales and the director of finance.
If you’re in business, and you’re a little lost on what you need to be doing to stay on top of your finances, here are the things you should be looking at every week to make sure your business will be sustainable in the long run.
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