Notes

Joe Mansueto - Morningstar

In the early 1080s, mutual funds were a relatively small phenomenon, and there was no single source of information on them-performance, holdings, and the like. The only way to get that...

You Can Drown in Opportunity

There are few things more exciting than starting a business and getting things rolling. The fear, the adrenalin, the excitement, the hope that every entrepreneur feels, are all intoxicating. In...

Borrow from Other Industries

When you spend all your life in one industry, all you know well are the common success practices of just your industry. You only understand how people in your field market, sell, advertise, or...

How to Market an Unpublished Book

Specifically, how to spread word about a book and gather a following for it, potentially even before you've written a single word.Step One: Establish a Presence on the WebSet up a page on the...

Lack of Talent = Lack of Memory

Most people stop drawing at six years old and while still in school. Often, those stick figures are their only memory. It's also why most of us draw like six-year-olds. To improve your memory,...

Freelancers vs. Agencies

I don't think agencies are bad, but for most work I've ever needed I think just hiring a freelancer first, seeing if they're good, then hiring them some more is far more effective than going...

Those Who Can't Do, Teach

Although I don't think the above quote is true, it's bothered me ever since I started this blog. One of my biggest concerns was becoming a talker instead of a doer. I wanted to have this...

A Few Lessons from My Career

Matt Paulson, who is the founder of MarketBeat has some great business advice. Distribution matters more than product. Build your audience using platforms other people are ignoring. Email is...

How to Complete Big Projects

The big “doers” in life tend to be those who are consistently working, piece by piece, on at least one or two big projects at any one time. They get it done. Not in a week of caffeine-fueled...

Keep At It

The road hasn't been easy. It took over 16 months to bring a product to market. When we launched no one cared and 24 months after starting we had only 10 paying customers and revenues of $99 per...

Should You Have an Email Newsletter

If you're willing to put in the work, a newsletter can be one of the most powerful ways to convert readers into customers. You’ll have an opportunity to gain direct access to your audience,...

Work for Yourself

The higher up you climb the corporate ladder, the more subservient you’ll have to become. If you strongly dislike being told what to do, the stress of high ranking employment will erode you...

Partners in Profit - Referrals

Use the existing goodwill and strong-bonded relationships that other companies have already established with people who are prime prospects for your product or service. Determine who in your...

Are you an AI automations expert?

A whole cottage industry has popped up of people branding and marketing themselves as AI automations consultants, fractional heads of AI, etc. targeting small-to-medium businesses, just because...

Tom Selleck: Magnum P.I.

After over a decade of commercials and guest appearances on other people’s shows, Tom Selleck finally got his big break. In 1980, he won the part of Thomas Magnum in the new series, Magnum...

Focus in Bursts

Focus hard. In reasonable bursts. One day at a time. For a long time. From: Cal Newport

Blogging Increases Your Luck Surface Area

It’s hard to overstate how many opportunities come out of having a well constructed, long term blogging presence. Most of the jobs I’ve had in my career can be attributed at least partially to...

Winning the Lottery Before You Die

I am now at a real impasse, towards the end of my career and knowing I could happily start it all again with a new insight and much bigger visions for what I could take on. It feels like wining...

On Starting an Agency

Get a client as a freelancer. Do an amazing job. Get a few more clients. Keep doing consistently great work. Start finding your unique strengths and special skills. Refine who that customer...

Eight Marketing Maxims

Trust is worth more than attention. Helping people get to where they seek to go is more effective than hustling people to persuade them to go where you’re going. Choose your customers, choose...

Obscurity is Your Friend

Also, I think obscurity is your friend when you’re just starting out. People want to get rid of the obscurity so everyone knows who they are and what they’re doing, but it’s nice to have that...

Path to Compelling Work

Don't expect fireworks on your first day. Glass, for example, talked about the importance of forcing yourself to develop skills when you're new to a job. "That's the hardest phase", he...

He is Busy Working

Charlie Munger once talked about how sensational Costco founder Jim Sinegal’s career was. Podcaster David Senra asked Munger: Why are there so few speeches or interviews with Sinegal? “He was...

Knowing What to Code

Agentic AI means that anything you know to code can be coded very rapidly. If you know just what code needs to be created to solve an issue you want, the AI will give you that code at the cost...

Build Your Own Brand

It didn’t take long for me to figure out that I should start to build my own content brand instead of getting paid a flat-fee per article to build someone else’s brand. From: Matt Paulson at...

Document Everything

Whenever you run into a problem, document it. Whenever you find a solution to the problem, document it.  Whenever you find something helpful, document it.  You might think you will...

Knives and Battleships

There's nothing at all wrong with honing in, developing your craft, making variations of things you're good at, and getting better each time. Nothing small about it. Nothing unfulfilling about...

Your Life as a Book

Imagine your life as a book. What title would you give to the current chapter, and what is going to be the next?

Get Specific

When you don't know you next step... When you're feeling unmotivated... When asking someone to help you... When you're ready to make a dream come true... Get more specific about what's...

The History that was Never Written Down

The history that was never written down, the thoughts that were never spoken, the beliefs too controversial to share. We have so much information, and we know so much about the world. But no...

Mark Cuban on Success and Motivation

Every night I would take home a different software manual, and I would read them. Of course the reading was captivating. Peachtree, PFS, DBase, Lotus, Accpac… I couldn’t put them down. Every...

Your Blog is Like a Bamboo Seed

Did you know that when you plant Chinese bamboo seeds in the ground, that it can take up to 4 or 5 years for the first shoots to show? And did you know that as soon as the first shoots emerge,...

How to Recognize Profitable Business Opportunities

Knowing the industry very well. Most people think it’s all about the idea. It’s not. EVERYONE has ideas. The hard part is doing the homework to know if the idea could work in an industry, then...

Understand the Code AI Wrote

AI is fantastic for learning, and equally fantastic for avoiding learning. If you don’t understand the code your agent wrote, you’re using AI to avoid learning, as sure as any hapless...

Learn with AI

Lots of talk about building with AI, not enough on learning with AI. It's crazy how easy AI has made it to learn whatever it is that you want to learn. The key is to keep asking questions,...

Service over Sales

It’s amazing how many people and companies will say and do whatever it takes to make a one-time sale rather than taking the time to understand the clients’ desired outcome. And then having the...

How to Complete Large Projects?

Reduce from a project to a reasonable task. Construct a habit-based plan. Complete and repeat. From: Cal Newport

Really Good Content Does 3 Things

Shows off expertise: With each piece of content you write, your audience should become more confident in your core skill. Builds authority Authority is a little different than expertise....

Build an Audience

When you have an audience, everything changes. Instead of chasing opportunities, they come to you. Instead of proving your expertise, people already know what you're good at. Instead of starting...

Steve's Comeback

Just about everything was headed in the wrong direction. In Apple’s fiscal year ending September 26, 1997, the company lost a whopping $816 million. Its annual revenues had shrunk to $7.1...

Internet Business Model

Create compelling content, find a way to be discovered, and then generate value from the resulting traffic. Whether that was through ads or subscriptions or selling things or just the ego of...

Try a Pop-up Instead of a Soft Launch

By launching as a temporary "pop-up," entrepreneurs and business owners will be able to see potential problems and inefficiencies at a smaller scale before it's too late. It also gets around any...