Daniel J. Siegel, MD is a contemporary psychiatrist and writer who specializes in interpersonal neurobiology. He is credited with creating the concept of the window of tolerance.
The window of tolerance is used to understand and describe normal brain/body reactions, especially following adversity or trauma. The concept states that we each have an optimal zone of arousal, called a window of tolerance. When a person is within the window of tolerance, they can regulate their nervous system in order to deal with the natural ups and downs of being a human being on earth. In the window of tolerance, one can reflect, think rationally and calmly make decisions without withdrawing or feeling overwhelmed.
Read MoreHere are six things I've learned since deciding to start a business six years ago. A lot has changed since then. One glaring change is that I don't even offer the service I originally offered. And as of late, I mostly feel like I'm a writer, but maybe that's the season my business and I are in or the fact that I've spent the last six months writing a book.
Read MoreHere's what I've learned about pricing over the years of running my own business and being the kind of person who thinks an awful lot about money.Sell value, not time.When you can sell the value you are creating for your customers; you can charge a lot more than if you could charge on time alone. Should an expert cobbler who has 45 years of shoe-repair experience charge less because he can fix your shoes faster and better than a rookie? Hell no. What is the value of continuing to use that pair of shoes you bought for $299 and plan to keep for the rest of your life?
Read MoreA cash flow projection, or cash flow forecast, is a way to illustrate how much cash you expect to receive and spend in your business. It's like a budget, but it does more than project expenses. It estimates how money flows in and out of your business.
Let's say you have a giant bathtub with some of goldfishes swimming around. Water is flowing in through multiple faucets, but it's also flowing out through numerous drains. Your goal is to make sure there is enough water in the bathtub for the fishes to survive. In this analogy, making sure the fishes have enough water is akin to making sure your business has enough cash to keep running. The water coming through the faucets is your business' income, and the water going out the drains are your business expenses.
It's essential to understand how cash flows in and out of your business for the understandable reason that your business needs cash to run. Goldfishes need water, and your business needs cash. Sure, some startups raise money in the form of investments and then lose cash and operate at a loss for years. But these companies must still eventually generate enough money to keep the business alive.
Read MoreOver the years, I've used my fair share of finance apps and tools, both for myself and clients. I tend to like specialized tools because that means they have to be really good at the thing they do. I look for great design when it comes to form, function, and keeping the end-user in mind. And every valuable tool has to be pretty easy to use. The tool should let you focus on your finances, not on trying to use the tool.
Here are the tools that meet all the criteria above and that I use to manage my money.
Read MoreWhat is lumpy cash flow? Lumpy cash flow is a way to describe how income and expenses can fluctuate each month. All companies will have some fluctuations, but in general, project-based or seasonal businesses tend to have the lumpiest cash flow.
There are a variety of different things you can do to smooth out lumpy cash flow. In this article, I'll walk you through some of them.
Let's go.
Read MoreIn a personal attempt to understand and process what the fuck is going on right now, here are some things I'm learning, questions I'm asking, and stuff I'm thinking about during this unique time in history.
Read More"We can tell our values by looking at our checkbook stubs."โ Gloria Steinem
My therapist told me that the emotion I was most challenged and uncomfortable with is the feeling of powerlessness. So when I began to understand myself through this lens, I could see how I've built a life around trying to reckon with that feeling - from my career choice, money is power after all, to my militantly structured daily routines. Maybe other people don't feel this struggle as acutely as I do. Maybe some people have always had a sense that they had power or access to power in the world. Maybe other people are afraid of their power. Afraid to acknowledge it and wield it because when you don't allow yourself to admit that you have power, you can be exempt from using it to help others.
Read MoreI'm struggling to recall a time I've felt this much uncertainty about the future. Over the last several weeks, I've fluctuated between crowding out the outside world and frantically googling answers to the questions that no one can answer.
It's one thing to have to sit with the uncertainty concerning life's big questions. But it's entirely frustrating to have to this uncertainty when it comes to questions that should have clear answers. Questions like: can individual Americans expect additional support from the government, or is that solely reserved for corporations? And, what are the rules for loan forgiveness under the Paycheck Protection Program? And, will these rules change in a few days or a few weeks?
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