"He Should Of Had It"

I am really enjoying this year's World Cup. When possible I make every effort to watch the game. There's just something so exciting about guys kicking a ball around. Though, one of the things that makes it extra fun are the commentators.

First, I love their accent. There just something about a British guy calling the game that makes it more enjoyable. Also, when Jessi first started watching with me she had trouble understanding what they were saying. It reminded me fondly of my learning curve.

Then there's learning the new words like "pitch" and "nil". It's just so... proper.

My most favorite part though are the commentator's attitude towards the game. They are constantly saying things like, "Oh, he should of had that one." Or, "Oh, that's a mistake. He shouldn't have done that". These commentators make it sound like there should be a goal every five minutes. Like every missed attempt was the player some how messing up on something which should be done easily.

Seriously?!

These guys are running as fast as they can and trying to make a round bouncy ball go where they want it - with others trying to stop them no less! Think about it. That's hard! There's a reason most games are 1-0. If you just think about the goal-to-shot ratio, the commentators should be more surprised when a goal is actually scored.

Remember it's all in that British accent too, which makes it even funnier.

Of course, when a goal is scored, you can hear the commentators saying, "The goalie should of had that one." What?!  It's like they get paid to complain about how non-perfect the players are. It's just unbelievable, in an entertaining sort of way. I'm pretty sure if they didn't have a British accent it would be annoying.

It's especially great when they attack the refs. When the ref calls offsides, and they look at the instant replay - with the transparent line to make it obvious - they'll say stuff like, "He's clearly even. That's a bad call. The ref should have done better." Come on. That ref was running as fast as he could to keep up with the play and we had to slow the replay way down to see the call. It's really not that "clear".

"He should of had that." Ha. How classic. Now whenever I watch and I hear a line similar to it, I like to mimic them with my horrible British accent. In some weird way though, it does make the game more entertaining when the commentators expect every attempt to be perfect. They're so unyielding too. You'd think they'd catch on, but nope. The very next play their expectations are set for perfection once again.

On a related note, I'm going to be in Germany during the World Cup final. It should fun to watch it in a country where soccer is the dominate sport.

ESPN ScoreCenter

If you're into sports, this app is for you. ESPN's ScoreCenter does exactly what you'd think it does: it gives score updates from a variety of sports. I have four sports I follow: (NFL & NCAA), baseball, and hockey. Though ESPN does a good job of including many, many more sports (here's a full list).

What's super cool about this app is that it lets you passively follow your favorite teams. Once you pick a sport to follow, you can pick your specific teams to follow. Those teams will be highlighted within the app for you. You can also set various push alerts for each team.

The alerts are the amazing part of this app for me. There are alerts for the start of the game, and various score updates. For the most part I just get alerts on the final score (see the Alert Details screen shot). The benefit of this is that it lets me keep tabs on my teams without having to continue to check in to ESPN all the time.

For all of the teams I follow, I have the final alert set. It tells me the score along with a couple highlights from the game. Sometimes, like during the NFL post season, I add alerts for each scoring play. That is really exciting!

As the myTeams screen shot shows, you can tap on each game and get all the details. I typically only care about the score, but it is nice to have all this data easily accessible.

This app would be amazing if it did what MLB's iPad did: which is show live games right on the device. I realize this is league dependent, but this would be huge! Image live streamed World Cup Soccer games.

As I said, this app is excellent. It's great being able to follow my teams and root for them throughout the day. I recommend checking it out.

The Fine Art Of The Big Talk

After reading The Fine Art Of Small Talk, I decided to try Debra Fine's follow-up book The Fine Art Of The Big Talk. Big talk is significant, meaningful talk. Sometimes it's a difficult conversation, often it's an in-depth exploration of some subject. Big talk also open opportunities to ask for something, to sell something, to motivate someone, or to teach someone. Big talk is important.

The idea behind this book is to help "increase your language awareness." This, in turn, helps you hone your conversation skills to become more influential, better at managing conflict, and making more satisfying connections.

Like her first book, this one is full of practical advice. Here's one of my favorites: When leading a meeting set an agenda. For each item, clearly state what the objective of the topic is and, if possible, what the decision being made is. This will help to focus meetings and run more smoothly. I've already starting doing this in my meetings and I've noticed a difference. I also think this frame of thinking is appropriate for creating written reports. What's the object of each slide or paragraph? What decision is it helping drive? I've found being explicit really helps. In my meeting invites I write out: "Topic: blah. Objective: blah. Decision: blah?"

There are all sorts of goodies like that throughout the book. I'm now in the process of reviewing each chapter. When I'm done, I hope to have a cheat sheet that I can refer to when I know a big talk is coming up.

The best way to read this book is AFTER you've read the Small Talk book. I found it helpful because it got the ball rolling on conversations. If you only had time for one book, I would actually recommend the Small Talk book. However, if you're looking to improve your overall conversation skills, then I recommend checking this out after the Small Talk book. Both books are short enough that, even though there isn't an audiobook version, they're easy to get through.

Thoughts On Finding A Job

I often get asked about how to find a job. As such, I've done research, learned from personal experience and others. From that, here's the advice I give to someone looking for a job.

What I'm about to describe is not easy. Actually, it takes a ton of work. However, you're looking for a job you're going to have for at least 5 years (maybe even 40). Therefore, take the time now and make a push to really find a job you want. Believe me, you don't want to fall into a job or accept the first offer because it's easy. Then you might spend the next 5 to 40 years only looking forward to the weekend.

The other benefit of following this process is that it reduces your competition. When you apply to a job online, you are competing against, literally, thousands of other people. Your chances of finding a job this way are very small. Can you imagine what the hiring manager must feel like? You do not want to be in this group. Instead, by following this process you stand a chance of finding a job that nobody or only a couple of other people are competing for.

Create A Master Resume

I have one master resume that is a couple of pages long. It has all my work experience, all my projects, and all my leadership roles since the beginning of high school. Then, when I apply to a job, I trim my master resume down to a single page. This helps make sure it's as targeted as possible and doesn't require me to remember past activities.

Create A Master Cover Letter

When I started writing cover letters I started pooling them together into a master file. Now, the next time I need to write something, I can pick and pull to also make sure it's as targeted as possible. 

Write Out Your Dream Job
Literally, create a job description. Describe your responsibilities and what your daily activities would be. This will give you a focus and a dream. Furthermore, when someone asks you what you want to do, you now have an answer. Not sure what you want to do? I like to ask this question: If you were independently wealthy (ie. You had all the money you wanted, but didn't need to work for it), what would you do during the day? That answer will start pointing you in possible directions for your life. Still don't know what you want to do? The next few steps will also help.

Information Interviews (Talk To People)
Start talking to people. Anyone and everyone. Start with people you know and when you finish your conversation, ask if there's someone else they think you should talk to. Furthermore, make sure to ask if you can contact them again. Once again, come up with a master list of questions. Then, pick and choose the ones you want to ask for each person. I had about 60 questions to choose from. Here are a couple of general examples:

• How did you begin working for [this company]?
• What is your educational background?
• What do you like best about working here?
• What is the trend for future growth for [this company]?
• What software do you use to do your job?

If you can research the company ahead of time, it'll help you come up with better questions. At a minimum, here's what you should research on a company before you talk to someone:

• When were they founded?
• What is their principal line of business?
• Where do they have locations?
• Who are their competitors?
• What competitor or economic technology challenges do they face?
• What's been written about them in any media outlet over the last few years?

--
2019 Update
Here's my current go-to list of questions. These are unbelievably powerful.

• Thank them for talking with you. Share something funny and/or vulnerable to get them to open up.
• What do you do?
• What do you love about your job? When are you in the flow during your job?
• What is something that surprised you about this job?
• What are some big projects you're working on right now?
• Who do you work with?
• What's a big challenge you're dealing with right now? How are you dealing with that challenge?
• Can you walk me through a typical day?
• What advice would you give someone who wanted to do a similar job?
• If you were starting all over, is there anything you would absolutely do the same, or different?
• If you were to switch to a different job, where would you go and what would you do?
• What do you do for fun when you're not working?
• Do you have any books/articles you recommend I read?
• Do you have somebody else you recommend I talk to that [add a qualification so they narrow down their focus]?

Follow up each question with "tell me more". Keep them in story mode.
--

If you're unemployed and not doing anything else, you should aim to talk to at least one person a day. That can happen over the phone or in-person over food (you should always offer to pay). This is huge! I guarantee you that if you do enough informational interviews, more than one will turn into an actual interview. Even if it doesn't, make sure to follow up and thank them for meeting with you. If you find an article of interest, pass it along.

Learn About Communicating
I understand that it isn't always easy to talk to people. Therefore, spend the time to learn those skills. Notice, I put this step after you start talking to people. That's because you should start talking to people as soon as possible. The first book you should read is The Fine Art Of Small Talk by Debra Fine. It will teach you how to strike up conversations and gain the confidence to talk to people. I have a full review here. It's a fast read and well worth it. The other book I recommend reading, if you have time, is Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi. It will teach you how to reach out to others and thinking about networking. I also have a full review here.

Mock Interviews
Practice. Practice. Practice. When you're information interview turns into an actual interview, you want to be ready. There are tons of sites dedicated to providing you with sample questions. I had another huge list of descriptive ("Tell me about yourself."), behavioral ("Tell me about a time when...") and analytical ("How many dimples are on a golf ball?") questions. I wrote out answers to each of them and practiced saying the answer out loud. I also asked other people to interview me and got their feedback. It was a huge confidence builder when I was in a real interview and I recognized the question before the interviewer was done asking it.

Job Shadow
Another variation of informational interviews is a job shadow. I did this a couple of times and it was amazing. It's an opportunity to meet a bunch of people and really learn about a company. Maybe you can only shadow for an hour, but maybe you'll get the whole day. Ask to set up meetings with other people before you visit. When you're there, use your new "small talk" skills to meet people and ask if you can contact them later. Then actually follow up to do an official informational interview. If it's appropriate, ask to job shadow them. You can quickly see how this could spiral into meeting a bunch of people. Imagine how a manager's going to feel about you if you've shown up to their offices 5 times in the last 6 months to learn more about their company.

Ask About A Job
OK. You've talked to people and found a job you want to apply for. Here's my suggestion: Do not apply to it right away. Instead, come up with 5 or more questions about the position. Then, contact the hiring manager and let him/her know you're interested in applying, but you have a few questions about it. Meet with them and ask your questions.

Good questions are ones that focus on the job and show that you know what you're talking about. It's hard to give generalized questions, so here's a situation. You're asking about a forecasting job:

• What databases will I have access to and what tools are used?
• How often are the forecast cycles and what planning processes will it feed?
• Will I be expected to align with other planning processes, or will I be provided unconstrained forecasts?
• What would you like to know more about, but wish you had the data to answer it?

You see how the questions are very specific and business-focused? The last one even asks about the current issues they're having. If you really feel like you know the subject, trying offering advice and brainstorming with them. Once they've answered your questions, let them know you're interested in the job and would like to apply for it. Then ask them the best way to do it. I have been on the phone when this conversation turned into an actual job interview.

--
2019 Update
I took a class on freelancing and found the lessons learned there apply perfectly to this conversation. Imagine you're a consultant talking to a potential client. You would dive deep to understand what they're looking for and use that to later (via the cover letter and resume) to show how you can help them. Here are questions to ask:

Informational

• How would you describe this position in your own words?
• Can you describe your ideal candidate? Why are those qualities important to you?
• What are the big projects you are working on right now? What seems to be taking up the most mental energy for you in the last couple of days or weeks? How are you dealing with that challenge?

Aspirational

• Which areas are your top priorities? What are your secondary priorities?
• If you achieved [top priorities] what would that mean to you? Why is that important?
• Where would you like this team/position to be 3, 6, 12 months from today?
• On a scale of 1-10, how satisfied were you with the last person in the role? How could that have been changed that to a 10?

Diagnose

• What are your biggest sticking points right now? How have you been dealing with them?
• If you didn't find anybody for this position, what would happen?
• Who else is involved in this decision? Would it make sense for me to talk to this person?

Explore Solutions

• For the big challenge, try bouncing ideas off of them.
• I'm interested. What are the next steps?

I've asked these (not all at once, you have to go with the flow of the conversation), and it makes writing the cover letter so much easier.
--

Internships
If you don't know what you want to do with your life, get an internship. Get as many as you need to get in order to find out what you want to do. In addition to informational interviews and job shadowing, you'll really get a good idea of what you'd like to do. Obviously, the earlier you start this process the better. I wish I had started this freshman year in college instead of getting serious about it in my final year of grad school.

Volunteer
This is one of my favorite pieces of advice. If you're looking for a job, you should volunteer somewhere. I recommend trying to get as close to your desired job as possible, but do anything. Here are some benefits of doing volunteer work:

• You get out of the house and give back to the community. That will help give you a positive outlook.
• You're gaining work experience that can be added to your master resume and talked about during your interview.
• You will meet people who also believe in giving back. Furthermore, volunteer coordinators tend to know a LOT of people. If you really contribute to the organization, this could open up many doors. 

I would volunteer 2-3 days a week. Long enough to really get involved, but leave time for your job search. If you're in school, you might only be able to give a couple of hours a week - do it. My wife volunteered at an elementary school near our college a couple of hours during the week and it helped her land a teaching job.

Join A Local Professional Organization
Along the lines of volunteering is joining a local professional group. Don't just join though, get involved. Show up and help. This will help you meet people are who doing jobs similar to what you want. This could prove to be super helpful. I personally favor the volunteer route, but this could be excellent.

Find A Partner
Like working out or losing weight, it seems to go better when you have an accountability partner. Find someone who will ask you how many people you've talked to. Someone who will help you practice answering interview questions. Someone who will stand there while you dial the phone or write an email asking to meet for lunch with a new contact. By creating a plan with this person, you will increase your chances of success. If you're going for your dream job, isn't it worth the extra effort?

Personal/Professional Website
In this web-enabled world, I think having a personal website is a bonus. I mean, Facebook and LinkedIn are great, but I think there's value in having your own branded space. I know before I meet with someone I do a search on their name. Why not impress them with something you've made? Lifehacker did a roundup of their reader's top five best personal landing pages. I think flavors.me looks sweet and is easy to set up. I also made business cards with my contact information and a link to my website. I designed them in Word, had Kinkos print them, and I cut them myself. They look great and cost less than $10 for a few dozen (and I had them done in 1 day). If you're curious, here's what my site looks like: JamesFurlo.com (2019 update: it now goes to this site)

I'd like to loop back to LinkedIn one more time. If you're going to do anything on it, the best use of your time is to write recommendations for people you know. Do not ask for anything in return. Simply give to others - especially those who give you an informational interview. By giving freely you'll find that people are more willing to help you in the future.

Professional Blog (Added Aug 2011)
Some people think that the blog is the new resume, and I'm inclined to agree. What's cool about a blog is that it lets employers know that this position/industry is meaningful to you. You get to showcase projects you work on and talk about news in the industry. This is especially great if you don't have a ton of work experience. Here's what you do to get started: Go to blogger.com or wordpress.com and set up a site. Spend the $10 to get a custom URL. Then start posting 2-3 articles a week. One of my favorite techniques to get started is this: find another article, write a quick intro to it, post a snippet, then make a final comment with a link to the full article. Done. MacDailyNews.com and LifeHacker.com are experts at this type of writing. Then, as you work on projects or have thoughts about the industry/position, post those too. Once you have 20 posts, you can start sharing your blog with others.

Final Thoughts
That was a lot. I told you it wasn't easy, but it is worth it. Whatever you do, DO NOT apply blindly online. If you don't have someone to call to check on the progress of your application, don't apply. Therefore, get on the phone and start talking to people. Get to know them and let them experience how great of a person you are. That is the true value of doing informational interviews. Everything else revolves around doing those interviews.

Finally, my intention is to update this as I, and others, learn more. So please provide your feedback so I can make this better and more relevant.

May Update

I'm trying out yet another series. This one is a monthly recap. I'm planning on sharing things we've done and then share a few interesting items I've found on the web in the past month.


What we've been up to
The first half of the month was spent hanging out with friends. We watched Iron Man 2 and ate out a ton. We probably ate out too much. I haven't created our monthly financial summary yet, so I don't actually know. Though, I think it was worth it because we got to be with friends. This time also marked the finish to a very long planning process at work. In previous years it only lasted two weeks, but this year it was closer to two months. It was a long process, but we had the best review with senior management that I've ever heard of.

Jessi has been putting on monthly Women's Health Nights. I hear they're going great. They're all learning how to live healthier amidst busy lives. Jessi really likes giving fun little tips and tricks to make women's lives easier.

The second half of this month was characterized by a lot of travel for me. I went to Boise for a few meetings. It was good getting to see my team. I especially liked our team-building activity: go kart racing. Then I got to go on the Meat Retreat with our church's youth group. I talk about that exploit here.


Information of interest
I saw this article and shared it with Jessi. It shows you how to make bags out of old shirts. Jessi went ahead and made a couple and they turned out great. She has photos somewhere. I'll try and get her to upload them to Facebook.
Quick Grocery Bag From an Old Shirt

I'm kind of attracted to graphs and I really like Back To The Future. So, when I can combine the two together, I really have something special. So this article isn't really an article as much as it is displaying visually a great line from a great movie.
Famous Science Fiction Quotes in Graph Form


Videos I liked
This first one is inspirational. It's a Nike ad which makes you think. (link)



The second one should blow your mind. It's Back To The Future I & II running together (I told you I liked it). A couple splits were made to make it work, but it's pretty fun to watch. (link)



That's it for this month. I hope you enjoyed it.

Meat Retreat

This last weekend I had the opportunity to participate in something truly unique: Meat Retreat. This is an event put on by our church where a bunch of high school boys go on a camping trip and eat pretty much nothing but meat all weekend. It was a ton of fun, and also tested my insides. We camped at Tumalo State Park in Bend, OR. Here's what we did:

Highlights

• I started off the trip enjoying a root beer float from A&W.
• Friday night was horrible. By 2am I was so cold I couldn't go back to sleep. My toes were frozen and all I could do was toss and turn while I waited the night out. When I got up, I found I wasn't the only one who couldn't sleep (almost everyone froze).
• Brauts for breakfast.
• Frisbee golf at Sister's High School in the morning (another group went mountain bike riding. It sounded like they had fun too).
• Turkey cold cuts for lunch.
• An epic softball game in the afternoon. Imagine getting up to bat and seeing 18 people sprinkled across the field. Surprisingly, the final score was 18-12 despite the plethora of people. I also managed to slip and fall while trying to stop at second and tore up my left knee.
• Played the weirdest game of Texas Hold em Poker ever. One person's strategy was to keep his chip stacks even. It made for massive bets before any cards were laid out.
• A Bacon Explosion for dinner (more later).
• Went to Safeway to buy ice cream (I got Ben & Jerry's S'mores). Sat in the eating area and watched Chopped. It must have looked weird to see 40 guys glued to a small TV watching a cooking show.
• I put Little Hotties in my socks to keep my feet warm the second and it did the trick.
• On Sunday, more Brauts for breakfast.
• Went on a hike up Smith Rock (more later).
• Had our final meal at Panda Express (their Lemon Chicken is great).

Bacon Explosion
Right before the Meat Retreat, I was shown a site that detailed how to make a Bacon Explosion. It really is over the top, but given that this was a Meat Retreat, I made it. I'll let the pictures and video tell the story of this one.

Smith Rock

On Sunday we went for a hike up Smith Rock. As the picture on the left shows, it has some pretty steep edges. You can't see it, but there are rock climbers all over the place. There's also a trail off to the left that we hiked up. It took about a half hour to get to the top. The day was absolutely beautiful. Below are some more pictures and a short video showing the view from on top. It would be fun to hike up to the top again and have a picnic lunch.

TripIt

I guess I should add to my 2010 goal list: I'd like to make 52 posts this year (or average one a week). The closest I got was back in 2008 when I had 50 posts, and I probably would have made it if I didn't slack off that November with only one post (about pirates no less). Still, I'd like to maintain some semblance of quality instead of only going for quantity. Now, in order to write once a week, I need a topic. Unfortunately, I'm not great at that part. I mean, I could talk about what we're up to, but most of the time it's really boring to read about (I worked this week... on lots and lots on graphs that I'm not allowed to share). So, my standard fall back has been talking about things I'm reading and I've got a nice book review series going. Today, I'm expanding that. For some of you, it will be very helpful. For others, it'll just make you jealous. Sorry.

Today I'd like to talk about an iPhone app I've found really useful called TripIt (iTunes link). My boss shared this app with me and it's pretty sweet. It helps you easily manage your travel information. It can handle flight, car and hotel information all together in an easy to use interface.

To see how it works, let's pretend you're traveling to Boise, ID (which, as luck would have it, I'm doing right now). Here's what you do:

First, sign up for TripIt at TripIt.com. I choose to use Google, but you can also sign up with Facebook, or create a whole new profile just for this service. Then, go to the upper right hand corner and select your user name -> "Settings" -> "About You". In the very first section is a spot called email. Since my travel is through HP, I added my HP email (you'll see why in a second), but your normal email should already be there. Now your one-time setup is done.

Then book your travel just like normal. Make sure you have whatever you book it with send you an email. Then, add your trip to TripIt. When adding your trip to TripIt, you can either manually enter the information or email the itinerary that was sent to you earlier to plans@tripit.com. TripIt will take that email and parse out the details of your trip. Then, you can login and edit the details and fix any mistakes that might have been made. I have found it to be extremely accurate. The only editing I've done is remove information I don't care about it. Here's what your trip looks like:

OK, now the really cool part. Download TripIt and login. The app will automatically sync with your account and list all your up coming trips. Clicking on a specific trip will display the details of that trip. You can see your flight information, your confirmation code and more. You can also see your rental car and hotel information - with links to the map app to easily get from one place to another. You can also sign up for the pro account and get additional up-to-date information (like if your flight is delayed) and even check in right on your phone.


I've used the app a few times and find it really helpful. I no longer have to carry paper around or keep old emails in my inbox when I travel. I highly recommend trying it out.

Duplex Update

With May in full swing, I thought I'd take a break and give an update on our duplex. I think the last time we talked explicitly about it was back in November when we shared a video us of installing a Water Back Flow Prevention Valve. We're 6 months later and much has happened.

Kitchen Remodel
If you subscribe to my YouTube channel, you've probably noticed I've discovered Qik. The video quality isn't great (because I only have the iPhone 3G, I hear the 3GS is much better), but it's so easy to capture and upload video with a device already in my pocket, I can't help but use it frequently. Here's a video we made of the final product. It's my brother giving a quick tour of what we did.





As described in the video, here's what we did for the kitchen remodel:

• Created a dinning area by replacing carpet with bambo lamenent flooring.
• Added a dish washer
• Added a garbage disposal
• Added a Microwave shelf
• Doubled the counter-top space
• Added more storage for larger pots and pans

It was a wirlwind project that took 3 [long] days. My dad brother and sister drove up Thursday, we worked Friday, Saturday & Sunday, and they drove back home on Monday. Jessi did paint and replaced all the cabinet hardware the following day just to finish it up.

New Tenants
We had already moved over to the other side (remember the garage?), and so once that project was done it was time to put it on the market. We ended up finding an excellent family who were able to move in right away. I think it's been a good match. With the weather turning nice, it's been fun to watch their two sons playing in the font and back yard.

New Toys
Speaking of nice weather, Jessi and I have gotten two new toys. The first is a lawn mower and the second is a weed hacker to get the places the lawn mower misses. The following Qik video shows off the lawn mower.




You can't see it in the video, but by the time we bought the mower our grass was out of control. In some places the grass was as high as my knees! As you can imagine, it took a while to cut the grass our first time round. In this next video of our weed hacker, I point out some grass which is super long. Now imagine having that for your entire back yard.




Future Plans
This summer we have 2 major projects and a couple minor projects planned.

• We need to regrade the font and back yards. Currently it's either flat or towards the building. If we can figure out a way to get a small tractor in the back, I think that'll be the easiest instead of us trying to do it with shovels and rakes.
• We need to paint the outside. This will be good to seal all the cracks and change the colors.
• Once we regrade the yards, Jessi wants to plant flowers and even start a garden.

So, that's the update on our duplex. It's been a lot of fun and we're learning a lot.

The Go-Giver

Both Jessi and I read The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann. It's a short book and a very fast read. You could easily finish it within a week, and day if you have a 2-3 hours available. Our real estate agent share this book with us and we are so thankful he did. It's been a blessing in our life.

The subtitle describes the book well: "A little story about a powerful business idea". So, as I'm sure you guessed, the book is written as a short story. It starts off with a man who is a "go-getter" - very driven, works hard, but just can't seem to get ahead. More importantly, something seems to be lacking in his life. He asks another man in the office how he is so successful without looking like he's working hard. He gets directed to another, this time famously successful, man and his journey begins. It's the classic story where he gets spoon fed information and you get to grow along with him. It reminds me of The One Minute Millionaire which was co-authored by Mark Victor Hansen (the Chicken Soup guy). So if you liked those, you'll love this story.

By the end of the book, you learn about 5 laws. These are guidelines to help you conduct yourself in the workplace. I won't go into the five laws (you have to read the book to see them), but they all revolve around giving more of yourself to others. And not because you expect them to pay you back, but because it's the right thing to do.

Jessi, who is a natural gift giver, loved this book. I think she might have read it twice just to make sure she got it. The book laid the framework for us to talk about our business - to make sure we are giving instead of taking. It was a great conversation and resulted in a change of how we conduct business. I know it made Jessi's last Women's Night a success.

Like I said, it's a fast read and worth your time if you're looking for a way to reach another level of success in your life. Almost oddly, you won't find a reference to God and talk about how he blesses those who give. But I would say the message is implied throughout the book.

The Power Of Cult Branding

I came across this book back during my internship at Alliance Credit Union. My manager had it on her desk and was in the middle of reading it. She said it was good and so it found it's way onto my reading list. Eventually, I got the book as a present and it stayed on my shelf for a couple years. I'm sure this sounds all too familiar. And, just like all those other books, now that I've read it, I can't believe it took me this long to get to it. You'd think I'd learn...

The Power Of Cult Branding was written by Matthew Ragas and Bolivar Bueno. They set out to find out why some brands had a cult-like following while other brands struggled to be recognized. Similar to Built To Last and Good to Great by Jim Collins, they pick 9 companies to study. As you read each of these names, you'll probably have a similar experience I did: you'll recognize all of them, and for at least a couple, feel good towards the brand. The companies are:

Oprah Winfrey, The Volkswagen Beetle, Star Trek, World Wrestling Entertainment, Jimmy Buffett, Vans Inc., Apple Inc., Linux, and Harley-Davidson

The book starts off with Maslow's hierarchy of needs. They found that each company focuses on the high-level needs of the pyramid while at the same time fulfilling lower-level needs. How do they do it? The book identifies 7 properties each company shares. The following (which can be found in the last chapter of the book) are those properties, and questions you can ask yourself to help your brand become more cult-like (in a good way, of course).


7 Cult Brand Properties

1. Consumers want to be part of a group that's different
• How is your company's product or service already different from the competition?
• What are some ways you can make your product or service stand out even more from the rest of the marketplace?
• List your craziest ideas for product differentiation.
2. Cult brand inventors show daring and determination
• What is the biggest branding-related risk your company has taken in history? In the past year?
• What's a marketing idea that your company has decided was too risky to pursue? Does it challenge conventional wisdom?
• Write down your brand's marketing failures. Be honest. Learn from them.
3. Cult brands sell lifestyles
• Is your brand fun? Does it make your customers happy and make them feel good about themselves? List everything fun about your brand.
• What are the passions and dreams of your customers? How can your brand help fulfill these wants?
• What is the lifestyle your customers are really seeking?
4. Listen to the choir and create cult brand evangelists!
• Does your company really listen to the feedback and suggestions of it most loyal followers? What are they saying? List them.
• Customers want to be appreciated. How do you reward your best customers?
• What are new ways you can show your customers that you "listen"?
5. Cult brands always create customer communities
• How do you communicate and stay in touch with your customers? Newsletter? Mailing list? Fan festival?
• What are new ways you can create a "sense of community" around your brand?
• Cult brands always give back. What are some organizations and causes that your customers would love to see your brand support?
6. Cult brands are inclusive
• Is your own brand already open and inclusive - or have you focused only on targeting ideal customers segments? Why?
• Cult brands help fulfill deep human needs that customers of all backgrounds share. What human needs can/does your brand fulfill?
• How can you take the human needs you just identified and make them even more intertwined and visible within your brand?
7. Cult brands promote personal freedom and draw power from their enemies
• Does your company's brand provide your customers with feelings of freedom and liberation from "the system"? How? List them.
• Is your brand experience consistent? Do you take advantage of your brand's nostalgia? How can you improve in both of these areas?
• Who is your brand's enemy? What is your brand fighting against for?

If you find these qualities interesting, and if you find your brand lacking these, I recommend reading this book. It gives great examples from each company on how they execute each one. The questions asked are geared more towards companies who already have a brand, but that doesn't mean you can't set your brand up this way from the beginning. I found it was a pretty quick read, and easy to follow. The last chapter's summary was really helpful too. Enjoy.

What Do You Care What Other Peope Think?

Here is a book I've had sitting in my library for a couple of years: What Do You Care What Other People Think? by Richard Feynman and Ralph Leighton. I read Feynman's first book, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, and loved it. He is so smart, yet had a great sense of humor which leads to some pretty entertaining stories. My friend, Brian, who gave both books to me thought I would enjoy them, and I definitely did. We've had our share of crazy adventures, and so we both identified with some of the craziness (imagine two boys in middle school walking around, in the city's underground storm drain pipes, just looking for interesting items. Or attemping to roller blade, for the first time, on a hilly road while sharing one pair of protective gear. Or trying to hide a massive hole in a garden with plywood. Or later using the same plywood to build a fort which we spent a grand total of ONE night in because it was too large to keep.) We're definitely not on the same level as Feynman, but we probably had as much fun.

Anyways, the first book focused on Feynman's more crazy stories. He shares lots of his pranks and adventures as a kid, as well as some of his goofy stories while at Los Alamos. The second book is broken into two parts: Stories and letters from when he was older and his experience with the challenger shuttle. For example, one of his interesting stories happened while traveling in Geneva, Switzerland. He was looking for a hotel to stay at for a Physical Society meeting he was attending. Unfortunately all the hotels in the area were booked. So, Feynman decided to stay at a place called Hotel City. It's the type of place that only as a door way on the street and a cloth divider for you personal room. They don't even take reservations! He said he had a blast staying there. They were blown away that a professor would be with them. And every time he got a message, they would race to his room to let him know. As far as he was concerned it was great. Even though the bedspread had a few holes, the place was clean and the people were friendly.

The second half of the book focuses on the Challenger explosion. After the Challenger exploded, Feynman was asked to be part of a commission to find out why the accident happened and make recommendations on how to fix it. Feynman was the one who broke the story about the O-rings not expanding properly because of the cold weather (the picture is of his experiment at a press conference). He also found many other organizational issues that could potentially lead to all sorts of problems. Throughout the whole story, he talks about how he wandered around just talking to people about what they did. The amazing part to me is how he retained information and was able to put the pieces together.

If you're looking for an entertaining biography, this series is a fun read. You'll want to start out with the first book, and it's well worth your time.

Touchdown Alexander

I recently read a surprisingly good book: Touchdown Alexander, an autobiography by Shaun Alexander of the Seattle Seahawks. I won the book in a drawing at our church. Normally, I'm not a huge fan of physical books that I didn't explicitly pick, but I thought I'd give this one a go during our 30 hour bus drive down to San Felipe, Mexico.

It started out kind of slow, beginning with Alexander's childhood, but then picks up when he starts college. Half the book follows his football career and the other half follows in walk with God. My expectation when I started reading it was that it would be a ho-hum story about a guy who became a celebrity and managed to NOT lose his faith. Instead, I discovered a man who has the type of deep relationship with God I desire. Throughout his life, God is always talking to him. I'm sure God is always talking to each of us, but Alexander is really paying attention. Let me give a couple examples.

Alexander tells the story of one of his best college football games. To him, the game itself is a blur. The touchdowns and success came easily to him. Instead, he remembers coming up with his life verse right before the game: "Delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of our heart" (Psalm 37:4). Alexander realized that his success had nothing to do with him and that it was all enabled by God.

Another story was with his girlfriend, Valerie, who later became his wife. When they started dating, he had a dream warning him of being too physical. It turned out that Valerie had a similar dream. So, both of them decided to not even kiss before they got married. I mean, I'm impressed about the no kissing part, but I'm blown away by how he was able to pick up God's message.

Finally, one summer Alexander wanted to sit around and just hang out with his family since he hadn't seen them in a while. However, God had other plans in store for him. Alexander was constantly asked to got to an FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) leadership camp. Even though he didn't want to go, he finally realized that God wanted him to be there and went. That trip turned into a lifetime of service for Alexander. Today, he has his own foundation, The Shawn Alexander Foundation, with a mission to "empower young men through education, athletics, character programs, and leadership training; inspiring them to reach their full potential as the mentors and role models of the next generation." It would appear that Alexander is managing his finances pretty well.

There are stories like that all throughout the book. If you're looking for inspiration on how to live a Christian life while succeeding in your field of work, this is a great read. You won't find a broken person who fought his way back to being a moral man. Instead, he demonstrates how to consistently live for God from a little boy to adulthood. For someone, like myself, who has thankfully avoided a huge breakdown in life, this is an encouraging story.

Enjoy What God Has Given You

This is the final post of our finance series. Here are the others:

Managing Our Finances

Dedicating Our Finances

Spend Less Than You Earn

Giving As An Act of Worship

Saving and Investing

God's Solutions To Debt

I started this post a while ago, but didn't finish it before we left for Mexico. Better late than never I supose...

We are God's managers. Recognizing this is very powerful. It frees us to take our eyes off "our" earthly possessions and live life with eternity in mind. The good news is that God wants us to enjoy the resources he has given us. There are four ways we can enjoy these resources.

First, you can take care of your family. You can rejoice in the goodness he has shown you and your family.

Second, you can rest and relax. Think about it, when you're able to relax, you're able to show that you trust that God is taking care of you.

Third, when you enjoy God's blessings, you bring Him glory. I think Ecclesiastes sums it up excellently: "Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him - for this is his lot. Moreover; when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work - this is a gift of God. He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart." (Ecclesiastes 5:18-20 NIV)

Fourth, we are to enjoy blessing people God puts into our lives to serve. Ultimately, we are to use what we have to benefit others. I'm not saying you need to give everything away, but God does want us to realize it's His stuff. Therefore, we need to be willing to let them go in order to help others.

On the flip side, there are 4 four thieves of joy. By over coming these, we will be able to better enjoy what God has given us.

Worry

When you worry about something, you're inherently not trusting in God. You are trying to think of ways to solve your own problems. Instead, when you do worry, think of that as a sign to trust God and pray. When you ask Him for help, you will get it and it will lead to peace and joy.

Comparison

Comparing ourselves to others leads to one of two outcomes. We either think we're better (pride), or that we're worse (self-pitty). Neither one of these are good, or appropriate. Instead, simply be content with what God has given you. Remember: it's about you & God, not about you vs. everyone else.

Selfishness

You know how Scrooge became bitter because of his selfishness? That's because he was always on the defense to protect himself. Instead, be willing to sacrifice and share what you have. You will feel a joy that is uplifting and gratifying.

False Guilt

Sometimes we feel guilty for the things we have. As long as you earned them honorably and are managing your finances well, there's no reason to feel guilty. Instead, be thankful and give credit to God for your things. It will free you to fully enjoy the things you currently have.

Obviously, replacing these thieves it not a one-time, over night, transition. It's a moment-by-moment choice that takes time to develop.

So, this is the end of our finance series. If you're interested in learning more, I recommend checking out the series and going through it with some friends. Jessi and I found ways to improve how we manage our finances and feel more on purpose with our decisions.

God's Solutions To Debt

This is a continuation of our finance series. Here are the others so far:

Managing Our Finances
Dedicating Our Finances
Spend Less Than You Earn
Giving As An Act of Worship
Saving and Investing

Before 1958, people were basically limited on how much they could spend by their paycheck. Then in 1958 Bank of America figured out how to create the all-purpose charge card, called the BankAmericard. Before then, each individual company had it's own card, but it was a pain to keep track of and therefore credit wasn't readily used. With this new card, people could instantly use it at 20,000 stores across California. Bank of America realized that like the telephone, the power of their card was the network: the more users the better. So they began to license their card and system to other companies in the US and eventually across the world. As this system got bigger and bigger BofA eventually gave up control of their system to a third party who's sole job was to manage the system. In 1976, that group brought all the independent licenses together and changed their name to one brand: VISA. Since then VISA has continued to be the largest credit card in the world. This, in part, lead to massive economic growth because people could buy something today based on future income earned.

On a personal level, when I started my shirt printing business I was mailed a credit card. It had great terms even though they knew nothing about me. Suddenly, my business had more credit than I did personally. It was crazy! Still, I used the card to buy the equipment and materials needed to get going. Within a few orders, I had made enough money to pay off my card and start saving for Legos. Had I not had the card, I'm not sure how I would have gotten going so fast. So I fully appreciate the power of credit and debt. However, I also know that there can be downfalls. Specifically, I'd like to talk about three potential pitfalls.

Expected Income

When you buy something on credit, you do it based on an expectation that you'll be able to make the payments later. However, there are a couple problems. First, sometimes we don't actually have as much as we think we should (due to a cut in pay or an increase in another expenses). When this happens, you fall short and a hole starts to get dug. This is the risk of credit. Unfortunately, our bet works out so often that we get lazy and make assumptions (yeah, I should have enough this month). It's when (and believe me, it's "when", not "if") we lose this bet that we get into trouble. By avoiding debt, you avoid this risk.

Fake Money

I remember when I first started working for Arby's my whole outlook on spending money changed. If something cost $20, it no longer represented a single green bill, but over 2 hours of my life! It really made me stop and think about each purchase because the idea of trading time for money was VERY real to me. However, over time I stopped making that comparison because I became deadened to the idea of trading time for money (just like watching violence on TV).

Making purchases with a card removed me one more step from that idea. Now instead of at least having to count out the bills, I swipe a card. It's painless and there's just a number on a screen for a few seconds. It many ways, it's fake money. It has no real meaning. I have to work REALLY hard to connect it to my time. As a result, it makes it easy to buy things. It's only $20? What's that? Nothing. Swipe.

One Master

Unfortunately, it is easy to get caught up in our debt mentally. We focus on having it, paying it off, and let it rule our lives. The Bible even points this out when it says, "... the borrower is servant to the lender" (Proverbs 22:7b NIV). As our debt increases, the likelihood of this happening increases. Since God wants us fully devoted to Him, you can see why debt could be an issue.

Given these pitfalls, it's important to try and reduce your debt as much as possible. We talked about 9 steps you can take to reducing your debt.

1. Pray: Part of dedicating everything to God is also dedicating your debt to Him. So start with prayer.
   
2. Develop a debt-free mind set: Decide you will no longer rely on credit cards and that you'll wait until you have the money actually saved.
   
3. List all your debts: Also write down the interest rate on each debt. It will help you decide which debt to pay off first. Then focus on paying off one at a time.
   
4. List everything you own: Is there anything you can sell which can be applied to paying off debt?
   
5. Establish a spending plan: Can you do something for less? Where are the areas you can cut?
   
6. Establish a debt-repayment schedule: know how far you have to go and see where the goal is.
   
7. Consider earning additional income: See my early post on Saving and Investing for some ideas.
   
8. Consider a radical change in your lifestyle: Many people temporarily lower their cost of living to become debt-free.
   
9. Don't give up!
   

Finally, I'd like to share two practical ideas.

First, here's what you do to escape the auto debt trap: Decide that you're going to keep your car three years after it's paid off. Then, continue to make the same monthly payment to your savings account. Then, when you're ready to replace your car (which could be another 5 years if you're really careful), you can use your savings plus anything earned from a sale on Craig's List, it should be enough to buy a good, low mileage used car. Then repeat the savings.

Second, learn to distinguish between good debt and bad debt. Good debt puts money into your account each month and/or goes up in value over time. An example of good debt is a piece of investment real estate because you earn money and it tends to go up in value (especially if you fix it up). Bad debt takes money out of your account each month and/or goes down in value over time. An example of bad debt is a car because you typically don't earn money off your car and it goes down in value the second you buy it. By learning about good vs. bad debt, you change your focus (like in step #2) on why you're making the purchase. You start to think about the financial impact instead of just the potential enjoyment or dissatisfaction of taking on the debt.

Debt can be a powerful tool, and something that destroys your life. When managing your finances, the 9 step plan can help you reduce your debt to a manageable level. When this happens, you open yourself up to more options and flexibility.

Never Eat Alone

Never Eat Alone, by Keith Ferrazzi, is a book about connecting with people. Ferrazzi himself is a master connector. A connector, as Malcolm Gladwell describes it in The Tipping Point, is someone who links the world together. Someone who has a knack for making friends and acquaintances. In real life, their social network is at least 100 people. On Facebook, it's probably closer to a minimum of 1,200 friends. I'm sure we can all think of one or two people like this (that's the nature of it... they're already you're friend). By the way, I just looked up his profile on Facebook and he has an extremely active Fan Page with about 8,900 fans.

In the book, Ferrazzi talks about the skills and habits he's acquired that has helped him connect with people. He starts off talking about how to create a mindset of a connector - to always be on the lookout to help someone. He emphasizes how critical it is to memorize people's names and something special about them. And how doing that can lead you to meeting people you never thought possible (by, for example, getting to know the gatekeeper of some super-busy executive). When meeting with someone, Ferrazzi likes to share his passions with them and learn about their passions. Then, take it a step further and try to figure out a way to help them with their passion. Can you do something yourself? Do you know someone who might be able to help? One of his favorite things to do during a meeting is say, "I know someone you absolutely must meet." Right then he opens his phone and dials the person and says, "I'm sitting with [name] and you have to meet him. He's interested in [his passion]. Would you be willing to meet with [name]?" Then, during the critical follow-up, he makes sure the two of them were able to get together. Ferrazzi also goes into detail about what he does at conferences and how he handles small talk. The big take-away I got was this: be an active person and invite people to join you. It's these activities, and shared experiences, that create the raw material to form a relationship. Oh yeah, and always follow-up.

Ferrazzi finishes up the book talking about larger issues. He talks about creating your own personal brand, finding people in your life to ground yourself, and pinging people constantly. It is packed with advice. In some ways it's like a textbook that can't be read casually because there's too much to take in. Actually, that would be my one criticism of the book: Since connecting comes so easily to Ferrazzi, he tends to touch on one piece of advice and then jump to the next instead of staying on a few topics and really diving down into the details of each one. My next steps are going to be to go back and focus on a couple areas I'd like to improve upon and learn how to do those better.

Overall, I thought it was a good book and worth my time. I'm glad I read The Fine Art Of Small Talk first because it gave me a solid rolling start into this book, and would recommend others read them in the same order too.

Saving and Investing

This is a continuation of our finance series. Here are the other's so far:

Managing Our Finances

Dedicating Our Finances

Spend Less Than You Earn
Giving As An Act of Worship

Saving and investing is a very important piece of our financial plans. Here's a classic exert from the Bible that speaks to the importance of saving and investing:

The servant to whom he had entrusted the five bags of gold said, "Sir, you gave me five bags of gold to invest, and I have doubled the amount." The master was full of praise. "Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let's celebrate together!" - Matthew 25:20-21 (NLT)

How we manage our money is practice for later. It's like when we practice our "times tables" in grade school - we did it so we could do more complicated math easier. As the passage indicates, managing our money, and investing it wisely, is very important. Before we can dive into the wonderful world of investing, we first need to talk about saving.

Saving

Part of being a good steward of your finances is saving. Believe me, this is tough to do because it requires patience and a very long term view. In our world where instant gratification is highly rewarded and encouraged, it's hard to go against the flow. For me, I have to remember the numbers are in my favor if I wait. Here's a simple example showing a $1,000 purchase. One is by saving for the purchase at 1% APR (currently ING is offering 1.1%) where you make the purchase when you have enough money (in month 11). The other is using a credit card at a rate of 10% to purchase the item right away (month 0). Both assume you are able to contribute $100 each month toward the purchase.

Making this purchase using a credit card will cost you $53 more - that's like an additional 5% tax on your purchase! Now imagine if the purchase was $30,000 and lasted about 5 years - the difference would be substantial! Of course, if you need the item right away, it might be worth going into debt. Deciding whether you need it, or want it, is very important. Jessi and I want another computer, and so we're going to wait and save for it (believe me, it's tough waiting, but it's worth it). Another huge difference, which you can't really quantify is that by saving you have options. For example, Jessi needed to pay to get official credit for a class she's taking to keep her teaching licence updated. We were able to take part of our computer fund money and use that to pay for her credit. That's peace of mind that is worth many percentage points!

We open saving accounts for everything simply because of this principle. We save for travel, car maintenance, Christmas and birthday gifts, impulse shopping (I know... ironic), etc. Basically, we save regularly for expenses that tend to happen in big chunks and are sporadic. This helps us avoid using our credit cards, earn a little interest in between, and thus actually save money. To be clear, it's hard, if not impossible to save for huge purchases. For example, we took out a loan for our duplex because otherwise we would have never saved enough, and the alternative, renting, wasn't really saving us money anyways. A car might be another example, but you really need to evaluate whether you want or need it to be new. OK, let's get more tactical.

The recommendation we were given for saving were these steps:

Step 0: Spend less than you earn - if you don't do this, nothing else matters.

Step 1: Pay off your consumer debt - specifically, pay off your credit card debt and personal loans. At this time I wouldn't worry about paying your car or home loan faster.

Step 2: Set money aside for an emergency - the amount you want to save will depend on your tolerance. Jessi and I are aiming for 3 month's worth of expenses, plus 3 months worth of rental income. What counts as an emergency? There's no strict definition, but you really want to only use it for things you need and don't currently have saved for.

Step 3: Save for major purchases - set up a separate savings account and add to them. It's so much fun to see the balance tick up! Great examples are computers, cars, furniture, appliances, TV's. For some of ours, we automatically deduct somewhere between $10-$100 monthly and then add on top of that as we're able.

Step 4: Diversify your investments to meet your long-term needs - start saving for retirement. By the way, when have you saved enough for retirement? When the principle and interest can pay all of your expenses from when you stop working to when you pass away. Do you know who much that is? Are you saving at a rate that will meet that goal? Obviously, the huge unknown is when you're going to pass away, but don't let that stop you (pick 120 years old if you want to be safe). I HIGHLY recommend getting together with an expert and figure out those numbers. The sooner the better too because you'll get to take advantage of compounding interest over time (more later).

Now it's time to switch gears to investing.

Investing

The very first thing we learned about investing this week was that there's no such thing as a perfect investment. In business school, they always said the perfect business was a mailbox where people show up and drop off their money on a regular basis. No work required, no risk, and a practical infinite return. Clearly this doesn't exist, but I think it can lay the framework for how you evaluate the types of investments you want to make.

When looking at investments, I typically think of two components, and two multipliers: (Money & Time) X (Leverage & Market). The choice of your investment will most likely be determined by what you have available.

Money

If you have money to spare because you spend less than you earn. Awesome! You can choose investments that require money. Classic choice = mutual funds.

Time

Maybe you don't have money, but you have time to spare and work on a side project. Sweet! Pick an investment that doesn't require much, if any, money. Instead trade your time. Classic choice = a job.

Leverage

This is the degree to which you can use other people's time and/or money. The more you can leverage those, the more powerful your investment will be.

Market

This is the risk side of the equation. Part of your investment's success is determined by the market in which your investment is in. Some markets are growing, some are shrinking, some have too many competitors, some are brand new. By doing your research, you can reduce much of this risk.

This is why starting a business can be so powerful. If you identify a need within a market and create something to fill that need, you can get a business loan from a bank and then with that money you can hire others to help you. That's doubly powerful! Of course, it requires a lot of your time and your money, so it isn't perfect either.

One of the reasons I decided to start up my shirt printing business was because I didn't have much money, but I had the time (sounds crazy for grad school... I know). Unfortunately, this business had zero leverage: it was only me and I used money I already had. When I started working full time, it didn't make sense to continue to invest in this business: I had less time and more money. So I changed my focus to investments that could leverage my money and my time. Now we own a duplex which is leveraging our money. We also have Univera which allows us to leverage our time as we build a team around us.

By the way, Jessi and I don't have any kids, and don't live near our family. So these investments make sense for us because we have a lot of time. Perhaps you work full-time and want to spend time with your kids. Investing in your company's 401K might be perfect for you. Later down the line, we'll probably change our focus as our situation changes (but that's not any time soon... for family who's reading).

Speaking of investing in your 401K, I can't talk about investing without bring up the power of compound interest. Compound interest is when you gain interest off of your interest - another example of leverage. Here's a table from The Automatic Millionaire which shows how profoundly different investments can be when you combine compound interest with time:

I realize that a huge drop in the stock market can negate most of these gains (that's part of the risk of that market), but assuming everything is the same, you're much better off investing a little bit up front instead of trying to play catch-up later in life. Much like giving, you should start investing now, even if it's only a very small amount.

There's so much to talk about when it comes to investing, and a simple blog post is just the tip of the ice burg. Hopefully, you've been intrigued enough to do your own research on saving and investing.