Fearless Money

Now that I am working full-time in my new interactive web agency, SolidSiteSolutions, I am even more committed to something I first started doing casually about a year ago. That is, I make a discipline of “planting a seed” every day.

Each day, in my morning planning/emailing time, I do at least one thing which is purely intended to create future business for myself or my company. I got this idea from Dan Kennedy’s book “No B.S. Wealth Attraction for Entrepreneurs”, where he says:

It may be a small thing: tearing out a magazine article that should interest one of my clients, scrawling a note on it and mailing it. It may be answering one item of correspondence, getting one fax sent, identifying a new, potentially useful contact, jotting a note or sending a book.
[…] Most professionals stop selling while they’re delivering, so they have dry spells, roller coaster ups and downs. I have had more demand than supply of me and waiting lists of clients for many years because of my daily discipline of doing at least one proactive thing to attract business every single day.

For me, I find that this site and my programming blog are incredible sources of contacts and opportunities. So, doing a simple blog post like this one definitely counts as my seed for the day.

When I mention my new business venture to peers, many say “I did that, but I went and got a job after a few months. I just didn’t like the roller coaster ride.” I believe that this discipline is a key part of avoiding those problems. It is so tempting to just dive right into the mountain of programming I need to accomplish for my current clients, but it is a mistake. I plant the seed, and only then dive into the coding, letting the day pass by in pleasurable obsession.

Technorati Tags: entrepreneur, sales, time management

I’ve been using David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” method for just about 18 months now. Without wanting to sound too gushing, it really has been a life changing process for me.

The two main areas of my life that I’d been neglecting up until then were my finances and my ability to get projects done. I always made good money, and I always managed to get a lot done, but somehow I rarely had anything to show in either area. My money was being wasted and my efforts as well.

I don’t use the GtD techniques exactly as presented, at least not all of them. If you listen to his audio seminar “Getting Things Done Fast”, you realize that he doesn’t intend that anyone really should. The ideas are meant to be adapted to the needs of the individual. As I’ve changed jobs and responsibilities, I’ve also had to adapt my working routine to reflect my changing needs. This is a good thing, since each time I do that, the system gets more integrated into my life.

Following are the four main elements my GTD practice that work astoundingly well for me.

[Read more →]

With three days on my own now under my belt, I think I am in the perfect position to talk about some of the differences. While employment is still fresh in my mind, everything is still new to me. I’m having so much fun learning and growing into my new phase of working life.

One observation which is a bit different than expected is just how many people are out and about during the day. When I was working, I guess it was just natural for me to think that “everyone works during the day”. Now, I’m noticing that this is just not true. I attended a kickboxing class on Friday at 9:30am, full. I tried going to Costco at noon, and it was just as busy as it is on a Saturday afternoon.

Another observation is just how much time there actually is in a day. Cutting out the hour commute to Dotster sure adds a lot of productive time to my day.

I’m also quite pleased at how much better I am at my daily “contact” tasks. Call this person, email that one. I set aside a time every morning to take care of those tasks and then I do it. No coworkers come by to chat, no “fires” start burning out of control, and I get things done. Amazing and so satisfying.

Technorati Tags: entrepreneur, employment

I’ve resigned my job. The Universe truly is a benevolent place.

This is the first time in my life I’ve quit one job without having another fulltime one lined up to replace it. It is truly a leap of faith for me to go 100% on my own.

The Universe hasn’t let me down

Contract jobs and opportunities are lined up to the point where I can pick and choose. I literally could not do all the work offered to me, were I to accept it. I’m not saying this to brag, although I am proud of it, but because it is validating a belief I’ve been building for some time. Take a committed step, and the Universe will arrange itself to fulfill your needs.

I have two more days to finish up at work and then I will be working from home full time. I am so eager to get going, and to regain some family time. You see, that’s how I knew I was ready to transition from employee to consultant, when I’d made more consulting in my off-hours than from my job. I needed to do it, to make sure I enjoyed the work and to build my portfolio, but the toll on my family life was more than I want to bear in the long term. I just can’t take 20-30 hours a week away from my family and stay happy for long.

Technorati Tags: consulting, freelancing, resignation

ETF’s can be confusing for many people. I often get a blank stare if I talk about one of my favorites, like FXI. I know that I would have been in exactly that boat just a couple years ago, before I decided that being comfortably disengaged from finance was not working well.

An ETF is like a Mutual Fund Stock

That’s really the simplest way to think about them. Basically, they are like mutual funds in that you are investing in a “basket” of stocks. They are like a stock because you buy and sell them in units instead of whole-dollar amounts. [Read more →]

I continue to be astounded at how well the ETFs I bought for my IRA this this summer are performing.

I thought they’d be good

I was sure they’d do well, I just didn’t know I’d see this kind of result so quickly.

• FXI: Up 33.58%
• EWW: Up 22.54%
• IVE: Up 11.35% (it is my “conservative one”)

Technorati Tags: IVE, FXI, EWW, investing

It has been about a year now since I decided to break out of the month-to-month trap. In that time, I’ve started a business, and begun a partnership in another business venture. It has taken all of my attention, effort, and passion to make these things happen.

I know they would not have happened if I was playing World of Warcraft. [Read more →]

Today I was talking with a coworker who was lamenting his recent run of overdraft fees. I happen to know that most banks routinely sort the days checks high to low to ensure that they’ll get the maximum chance of an overdraft, and thus the maximum amount of fees.

I told him that, but also said he could probably get the “extras” from today reversed if he just went and spoke nicely to a branch manager. He then boggled my mind. [Read more →]

I never, ever, thought I would “do” sales. At least I haven’t since my disastrous first (and only) sales job 19 years ago.

Just out of college, living with way too many people, I took a sales job with Radio Shack. I made nothing. I just couldn’t push the terrible “Coco” computer to people who I knew would be better served by anything else.

[Read more →]

A happy, hopeful post for Thanksgiving.

I first read about “the phenomenon” from Dan Kennedy’s book “No B.S. Wealth Attraction for Entrepreneurs”. In a nutshell, it is when you make more money in 12 months than in the previous 6 years.

Now, I haven’t done that yet, but I’m beginning to see how it might happen for me. [Read more →]