Category: Uncategorized

How I Blog

Since I’ve started blogging regularly I’ve become very aware of how people, especially journalists and media outlets, post articles. They’ll write a catchy headline, you’ll be able to see the first few sentences (all fluff) and they’ll try to get you to click on the link (aka clickbait).

I don’t see how that’s worthwhile, other than trying to gain website traffic (usually full of spammy advertisements). It’s not informative and doesn’t help me gain value from the author. I try to label my posts as concisely as possible, include the main takeaway of the post in my Facebook status and hope the first two sentences that are displayed are enticing. I get it might not lead to the most “clicks” but I don’t think that’s the most important. If I have something worth saying, people should be aware as soon as they look at my Facebook post.

I will continue to be upfront about my posts. Not everything I post will be of significance to everyone, and that’s okay. But for those that it is significant to, and don’t have the time to read my every word, I think it’s my duty to convey my message in as short a way as possible.

What I’m Reading

Buddha Plain and Simple – you can see my post about it here.

Self Control or State Control – I blog about this book a lot. Almost through all the chapters, a must read if you want to take control of your own actions.

What I’m Excited About

Attending Voice and Exit (for the first time!)

When: November 11-13

Where: Austin, TX

What it is: Part TED talk, part Burning Man – Voice & Exit is a festival for the future with an emphasis on changing the world for the better.

Escaping New England

As a junior in high school I knew I wanted to get out of New England, Maine especially. There was nothing “wrong” with living in Maine, but I needed to explore a different culture and lifestyle. My parents were understanding, we went on college tours all over the country, and I ended up applying to three colleges: Louisville, Temple and George Mason University. My parents pushed me towards George Mason for a few reasons, mainly the cost was in-line with any other out-of-state four-year college Maine, and the campus was to their liking. That is how I ended up in Fairfax, VA, and the Washington D.C. area.

Washington D.C. Living

Upon graduating college I had a job lined up (which many of my classmates were desperately looking for) at a large public accounting firm. This was a good experience, I lived all over northern Virginia, moved to Downtown Washington D.C., and eventually back to Fairfax, VA. What was I searching for? Why wasn’t I happy? How do so many people live in the rat race? These were all questions that formed during my time in the D.C. area. I have previously posted about the problems I had with DC (here) and have outlined who I am trying to become in my About Me, but these fail to mention the “Why” I moved to Denver and how moving to Denver helped me answer those questions.

On October 15, 2014 I took a bus to NYC with the hopes of finding the next place to call home by January 1, 2015. Denver became my choice, but there were still hurdles.

Putting a Denver address on my resume

My first hurdle was finding a job. I knew I needed something lined up before coming to Denver. I didn’t have the funds to finance an extended time unemployed. I also knew Denver is one of the top places for millennials to move to and hiring managers rarely took job applications from out-of-staters. So, I put my buddie’s Denver address on my resume. It worked, within the first day of applications I had an interested partner at a CPA firm and a recruiter feeding me with jobs. When asked if I could interview for the position in the next couple of days I said “of course” while sitting on my laptop in Fairfax, VA…

Flying out same day as application

I quickly booked a same-day flight to Denver (not cheap), knocked on my then roommate’s door asking for a ride, and texted my buddy to make sure crashing on his couch, for the foreseeable future, was okay. That night I was in Denver, and the next day I was interviewing for a CPA position. Call it foolish, call it determined, call it short-sighted.

I’d call it impactful. My decision to take that interview has changed my life.

The impact of changing cities

I am a firm believer that you cannot run from your problems. Whether mental, physical, addiction, or some other problem, you cannot run. The only way to get away from problems is to change yourself. However, changing cities led to me figuring out more about myself. The determination I showed myself in moving from the known, Washington D.C. to the unknown, Denver has had a lasting impact on my life.

I have also found the confidence in myself that if something isn’t working, I am in control to make the change. If I start asking myself questions about Denver’s culture or the life I’m creating, I now know I am the one who can make the changes. The lessons learned from changing cities will go down as one of the best lessons I’ve ever learned.

You can do it too

If you are even asking yourself “Should I try another city?” then I challenge you to do it. The lessons you learn will be worth it. Do it!

 

“The only way to live in an unfree world is to become so free that your very existence is an act of rebellion” – Albert Camus

Buddhism Plain and Simple

I started reading Buddhism Plain and Simple, thanks to a recommendation from a Buddhist-practicing couch-surfer I hosted.

Instead of discussing Buddhism as a “religious” practice, the author, Steven Hagen, writes about the teachings of “the Buddha”. Buddha means “the awakened one” and Hagen refers to the practice of Buddhism as “Buddha-dharma”. He also strips down the spiritual vocabulary of Buddhism, like karma, into plain English. It is definitely a worthwhile read for anyone seeking to be awake.

Buddha-dharma Economics

When I wrote a post on the moral teachings of economics, I was describing the ability to live free with a strong understanding of economic beliefs. Buddha-dharma isn’t far from the teachings of being free. Here is a quick passage from the of the book:

You are the final authority. Not me. Not the Buddha. Not the Bible. Not the government. Not the president. Not Mom or Dad. You. No community of philosophers, scientists, priests, academicians, politicians, or generals, no school, legislature, parliament, or court–can bear responsibility for your life, or your words, or your actions. That authority is yours and yours alone. You can neither get rid of it nor escape from it.

The idea is you are the one in control of your actions. It is similar to the message being portrayed in Self-Control or State-Control and other books about taking responsibility for your actions. The Buddhist teachings in Steven Hagen’s book are quite similar to my moral economic learning.

The other passage that stood out to me was:

To be fully alive, we must be fully present. The question is: how do we do it? In order to experience the answer to this question for yourself, you must come to three realizations. First, you must truly realize that life is fleeting. Next, you must understand that you are already complete, worthy, whole. Finally, you must see that you are your own refuge, your own sanctuary, your own salvation.

1. We must realize life is fleeting
2. We must understand we are already complete, worthy, whole
3. We are our own refuge, sanctuary, salvation

These three principles are of the utmost importance in Buddhism, as well as living free. We will not become free by acting in line with society or government regulation, but by practicing self control, having salvation within ourselves, and being confident in our worthiness. These lead to awakening ourselves. By continually practicing bettering ourselves, and looking inwardly, we are practicing becoming free in an unfree world.

Where does my passion lie? I have asked myself this question a lot lately. In my current situation there are three options: founder, entrepreneur, employee. Founder and entrepreneur aren’t far apart, my definitions differ in the speed they grow the company and their vision of success. I have provided a breakdown of my definitions below.

Founder

I use this word to describe people who start businesses with the idea of being a fast-growth startup.

What is a startup? I like this definition “A startup is a temporary organization used to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.” At the end of finding a repeatable/scalable business model there is an exit, usually being purchased by another firm.

In my opinion, founders are chasing the quick high. Yes, they are making a big difference in the world by creating value, but they are also pitching their creation to investors or other businesses as to make money and exit.

Entrepreneur

Not much unlike a founder, entrepreneurs see problems in the world and try to make a difference with their own two hands. My definition of an entrepreneur differs from a founder on the “motivation” of their product. Founders are more motivated by high growth, scalability, venture capital and pitching a dream. Entrepreneurs try to tackle everyday problems with the same way you learn fundamentals. With a resilient approach of habit training and a day-in, day-out belief that their blood, sweat and tears will make a difference.

I am not saying entrepreneurs aren’t searching for money, or that founders are only chasing money, but entrepreneurs are looking for opportunities to create a better world with a methodological, planned, slower approach. They look at problems as things that can be corrected by the market. And they find solutions by either developing them or joining a group that’s solving the problems.

Employee

An employee is someone who does the tasks for a founder, entrepreneur, or established business (small, medium or large). They can be on all ends of the risk spectrum and can have differing mentalities. There’s the apathetic employee who only goes to work to collect a paycheck, there’s the employee who is trying to help their company make a difference, and there’s the employee who is using the opportunity to grow their personal skill-set.

I’ve been all three…

Employees should be value creators. They should implement processes, add to the business’s dream, and develop rapport with clients and vendors. However, they differ from founders/entrepreneurs because they aren’t the ones risking it all. There is nothing wrong with being an employee and businesses will always need them to grow the business’s dream.

Which Do I Want To Be?

Sometimes the life of an employee can eat at me. I don’t want to go to work for someone else’s dream. I want to build my own dream. And a lot of times I convince myself I can. Until I go be the employee. It’s comfortable, and even if I don’t always agree with the businesses direction or capabilities of my company to execute, they are the one’s risking it and paying me to do my job.

Until I can convince myself I WILL be the entrepreneur, who goes out on a limb to start my own business or freelance on the side, I am the employee. My next step is shedding my shell as employee and going out on that limb. It’s coming. I know I’ll break free, probably fall to the ground like a sack of rocks, but will inch my way back up.

Time will tell, but I believe my passion lies as the entrepreneur.

The Future is Decentralized by Overstock.Com CEO Patrick Byrne is one of my favorite posts of all time. I am going to summarize his sentiments, however, if you have time it’s best you read his article, it is definitely worth it!

The Need for Central Institutions

Central intuitions have been around for centuries. They were created out of the belief that we needed an authority to oversee exchanges. As Byrne puts it “Well, if I have a camel and you’re going to give me a gold coin in exchange for it, I have to trust that you did not debase this coin.” The government would step in, with an army by their side, and take control of the coin. That way if you debased the coin, there would be retribution. Although centralized institutions lead to many other issues, they are supposed to be a third party trust verifier.

Decentralized Knowledge

What’s better than centralized institutions? Decentralized ones. One of the best pieces of economic literature, The Use of Knowledge in Society by FA Hayek, describes how “a single agent [central institution] is only a small fraction of the sum total of knowledge held by all members of society”. Using the power of the people is a far better mechanism in ensuring the best outcome. Since each individual holds much more complete knowledge than a single institution can, the masses can create a better outcome. We have never had the capability of connecting individuals on a large scale. Until blockchain.

Blockchain as the “Bomb”

“With the block chain, we liberals — those of us who have been fighting authoritarianism, whether it’s socialism or fascism or “social justice-ism,” for 500 years — just got “the bomb” in this fight. It’s something new.” Blockchain lets us connect the masses. We each can have a say in the decisions being made, and verify exchanges that have occurred. Instead of needing a central institution to provide verification, we can rely on our peers. Entire communities could adopt blockchain governance that are run by the rules outlined in a community contract. There are many ways to apply blockchain for decentralized governance. The important fact is now we have it. We have the “bomb” to turn the wealth of individual knowledge into a connected group.

Optimism

We have already begun dismantling the powers of central institutions.

The CEO of JPMorgan, Jamie Dimon, for example, wrote a letter to shareholders in April that basically freaked out over the block chain. He told shareholders that “Silicon Valley is coming to eat Wall Street’s lunch.” Since he did that, everybody on Wall Street in the last three months — it seems every day, there is a new announcement coming from another corporation — whether UBS, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, saying “we have to study this and get involved.” But it’s too late for them. A year and a half ago, we started on this, and we’ve been very aggressive about developing new systems that can challenge these old central institutions.

I have great optimism in the future. Instead of needing central institutions to be “trust verifiers”, we as individuals, connected as nodes on a chain, will provide authentication of exchanges. The knowledge of the masses will be the new, decentralized, institution.

Today I read a post in Bitcoin Magazine about a new web browser called Brave.

The Idea Behind Brave

Everyone hates being inundated by advertisements when going to a website. Brave is a web search provider that eliminates ads. Instead of sites profiting off advertisements, Brave allows webhosts to make money from the users that actually visit their site.

How Brave works:

1. Go to www.brave.com and download the browser

2. Go into settings and add your bitcoin to the “Payments” tab (You do not have to put money into the website in order to utilize it’s no-ad capabilities)

3. Once you’ve added bitcoin, start using Brave as your web browser and look at your “usage by website”

4. Depending on how much you pledged for the month, the funds in your account will be dispersed to the websites you visited the most

Is this enough to disrupt the trillion dollar industry of marketing? Probably not. But Brave is an introduction to the new economy. Where peers interact with peers voluntarily and there is no need for the middleman.

Another week gone, another 7 days of blogging in the bag, and another Sunday summary…

Thankful for Reverse Cameras in Cars

I have always gotten nervous when I see other people parallel parking. Maybe it’s a belief destruction is bad, see Broken Window Fallacy, or maybe it’s because I don’t trust the person driving not to ram into the car behind them. Thanks to technological innovation, and almost every new car being equipped with a reverse camera, when I see someone backing into a tight space I almost never get nervous anymore. When the driver gets extremely close to the other car and stops just short, I remember they’re being guided by technology. I am very thankful of this innovation and the nerves it has saved me while watching people parallel park.

Blogging After 30 Days

I counted today, this will be my 17th straight day of blog posting. My goal is to blog every day, for 30 days, and post each blog on Facebook (to hold myself accountable). After 30 days I am trying to decide on one of two options. (1) Continue blogging daily (2) Blog weekly and elaborate on a bigger idea, more of a research paper approach. I still have 13 days before I hit 30, but that is currently what I am debating.

New Podcast I’m listening To

I started listening to Successful Dropout. It’s a podcast by Kylon Gienger where he interviews successful dropouts and they discuss their stories in entrepreneurship. He also has weekly Friday podcasts where he talks about whatever is on his mind. I have already taken two good ideas away from his podcast.

1. His podcast starts with an introduction that says “The people who are crazy enough, who believe they can change the world, are the ones who do”. This is a powerful message and in line with my current attitude. The head of GoogleX says we should be thinking of solutions with moonshots and the idea that it’s easier to improve something tenfold (10x) then it is to improve something 10%.
2. My other takeaway from Kylon’s podcast is the phrase “Stay hungry, stay foolish”. I think it’s a perfect summary of the entrepreneur mindset. Always be hungry to improve, but also be the naive kid who falls off the bike because that’s the only true way to learn.

That’s my Sunday summary. Have a great holiday weekend everyone!

Below was the first blog post I ever wrote, from one year ago. Thanks to Joey Taylor I wrote an extensive post about my journey from the miseries of public accounting. I have since made it much further than I would’ve thought and am happy what I have achieved in a year.

Fooled Once

I was a naive college student graduating in the post-Great Recession job market who thought landing any job was the goal and landing one that was applicable to my degree was a success. “Lucky” for me I was able to snag an internship at a top-15 public accounting firm. Unlike some of my peers who weren’t sure if they were going to go onto graduate school, extend their undergraduate education, or work at a job far-below the degree they had earned, I was going to use my accounting degree in the “real world” as a public accountant.

The internship went well. I learned about accounting, met a lot of people, and got offered a full-time position. The first six months flew by and before I knew it was busy season.

Although I had heard horror stories about busy season, I was excited. It seemed fun to work hard, build camaraderie with co-workers while “burning the midnight oil”, and all while having the limited responsibilities of a first-year associate. I had a nice routine. Went to the gym at 6 am before work, got into the office, chatted with a couple of co-workers, then put in an 11 hour workday. I remember thinking “Busy season isn’t so bad”.

The first warning signs… Now the warning signs are clear but back then I thought I was the crazy one, the one who wasn’t quite like everyone else.

Summers in public accounting are BORING. Everyone is burnt-out for April and May. Then partners, managers, associates start using vacation days in June and July. Projects sit until the manager gets back. By the time they’ve returned the projects have been forgotten by both yourself and your manager. Suddenly, it’s mid-August and shit’s about to hit the fan. The work that was put off all summer is finally due. Here come the HR emails demanding 55 hour work weeks, vacation freezes, and Saturday’s in the office.

After a summer escaping from work with Thursday night’s out, crazy Saturday nights, and Sunday brunches, I had to rev my engine back to 100 mph. Since poor habits had been developed all summer, my body no longer craved exercise as an escape, but fireball shots. I managed to get through second busy season. And went right back to coasting…

Remember those bad habits? Well they now controlled my life. And as a second-year associate the responsibilities had increased. Instead of 55 hours per week it was closer to 70 and up to 80/85 hours per week right before March and April 15. It was difficult to wake up. My days were spent in the office eating whatever shit food the firm ordered. My diet out the window. My gym membership going unused. And my only free night, Saturday night, I spent getting wasted only to feel the pain come Sunday. Busy season turned into a three-month nightmare.

After putting on 10 pounds, losing time with friends, and going about as a zombie, busy season was finally over. April and May were spent burnt-out. Then the burn-out trickled into June, July, August. In September HR finally noticed (yes, it took them 5 months to determine that I had been slacking all summer) and a three-page write-up of my “infractions” were handed to me. Since I had already been thinking about it, I decided to go to my manager’s office and tell him I was giving two weeks.

I quit. October 15, 2014 was the last day of public accounting for this guy (so I thought…). I was going on a flying cross-country trip, hitting all the cities millennials are attracted to: Austin, TX -> Denver, CO -> San Diego, CA -> Portland, OR -> Seattle, WA. My goal? To find my new home. Washington DC was great but not a sustainable living situation.

Success! After two and a half months traveling, meeting new people, and couch-surfing at friend’s places, I had decided on a new city: Denver, Colorado. Regretfully, my budgeting for the trip went out the window pretty early on. I didn’t realize paying rent in DC while traveling, eating out, and drinking a bit too much craft beer along the way (What? I was in heavenly craft beer cities!), would take such a toll on my modest savings account.

Fooled Twice

Needing money to pay for my travels and the move to Denver, I had been roped into public accounting once again. This time I thought I was getting into a much better situation. Going from a firm of nearly 2,000 people to a firm of 50. Small business was what I wanted to focus on and I had heard that smaller accounting firms acted more like small business partners. Yes, I was hired to prepare tax returns, but I was excited about the opportunity to give small business advice.

The main drawback of a smaller accounting firm quickly became obvious. Upper-management sets the rules and the lower-tier follows, technology hadn’t caught up with the times, and we were forced into inflexible work schedules.

During busy season my sister was visiting from Maine. She had gotten in on a Sunday to stay at my apartment for a couple of weeks. Since I had been working a lot and didn’t have much time for her during the week, I decided the following Saturday we were going to spend the day together. However, it was busy season. I figured I’d go in on Sunday and put in a good day’s work, which I did, I ended up putting in a 13-hour Sunday. Nevertheless, my boss came to my desk Monday morning to tell me how Saturdays are mandatory and not to miss a Saturday again without approval.

Beginning to unravel, again… My fuse was shorter since I’d already been fooled once. After busy season I almost stopped working altogether. My month of May had around 55 charge hours. That means I worked on client stuff for only 55 hours the entire month. Part of it was burnout, part of it was vacation, part of it was impromptu visits from friends, and part of it was I didn’t give a shit. I also wanted to see how management would react.

Well, all of June went by going about my business as usual and my hours were up, not spectacular, but acceptable. At the end of the month my boss called me into his office to discuss my May hours. Exactly what I thought. A talking to, a little pep-talk, and a “please get your hours up”. Only it had been nearly two months, why wasn’t this pointed out within a week? How does someone do close to no work for an entire month and nobody notice until two months later?

Not two weeks removed from this “stern” talking to my boss called me into his office. It was bonus/raise time. My boss started talking about my progress, what he wanted from me in the coming months and years. How he wanted me to start interacting with clients more, to go to networking events. Plus a bonus and raise! A bonus after being scolded about my poor performance. And that’s when it happened.

Carpe Diem

My carpe diem moment happened right then and there. It was natural. It felt right. I had an unexpected confidence, almost swagger, in my voice. I said “Stop right there, I have something to say”. That’s when I told my boss I was quitting. Gave my two weeks. Dropped the mic. I didn’t need a bonus, a raise, or a pat on the back for doing a sub-par job. I knew I wasn’t giving it my all and needed a change.

Life Lessons

Three years in public accounting wasn’t all for not. I learned I really enjoy working with clients, working for small business owners, helping make financial plans, and the feeling of accomplishment after doing a stellar job for somebody. That sense of pride, however, gets slowly sucked out of you by the fakeness of public accounting, by the arbitrary rules that ruin your life, by the zero to 100 back to zero back to 100 momentum killing machine.

I quit. I am not sure what my future will involve but it will not be in public accounting. I am taking time off to clear my head, re-develop good habits, spend time outdoors, travel, and set goals for who I want to become. I am 25. I have so much time to achieve great things. I know I will achieve great things. Why waste my day-to-day activities doing something so far from the ideal? Eventually I will start working again but this time it’ll be on my own terms doing something I WANT to do.

I have been fooled enough.

What is Shipping?

Shipping is coming up with an idea, making a product (I use the term product lightly, it could be art, a blog post, a revolutionary idea, No Hipster Stock photos, etc.) and submitting it to the public. It’s finishing an idea. Turning “I want to do this” into “I did this”. It doesn’t matter if it’s crap, at first it’s probably going to be crap. But that’s not what’s important. The important part is going from having nothing to having a product. And then the learning begins!

Theory, Practice, Practice

The idea behind shipping is failing quickly. If you come up with a theory, the fastest way to learn if it’s a good theory, or not, is to finish it, get it out to the public, and see how it goes. As I said before, most likely it’ll fail, but failure is good. Failure lets you looking at the problems. Diagnose those problems. And practice a solution to those problems. Once you’ve come up with a theory to fix your prior failures you’re ready to ship again (what’s called an iteration or a pivot in the startup world). The constant practice of shipping let’s you see failures much quicker than constantly asking yourself “What do I want”.

Lack of Shipping and Album Failure

Disclaimer: I am not an expert of the music industry and have not researched this at all.

Almost every first album I like by an artist is followed by an album that doesn’t quite cut it. It’s usually a completely different sound than what made the artist popular, and the reason I liked them. My belief: There is a lot of pressure to create something unique and unheard of by their listeners. Unfortunately, the album that made them famous came from shipping and the theory, practice, practice mindset. They tried different variations on small tours or in their locality, getting instantaneous feedback from the audience. Once they came up with a product (in this case a song) that got the small audience intrigued, they knew they created a hit. Shipping is what made them famous. And instead of shipping to create an album for their second go-around, a lot of bands become secretive. Shipping must be public to gain the benefits of failing fast, and forward.

Blogging is Shipping

I didn’t mean to start daily blogging. I had read about doing it in lots of blog posts, but that wasn’t my intention. Once I started shipping to the public, on Facebook, it held me accountable. It made me aware of my writing, and it opened my mind to always be thinking about gaining new knowledge. It also meant having to ship, whether it’s crap or not (which, as someone that doesn’t love my own writing, I usually think it’s crap). But shipping my product (blog posts) has taught me a few lessons already.

1. I never know where my motivation for my next blog post will come from
2. Rarely do I get fully sucked into the “blackhole” of daily life and I make more attempts to think about the world around me
3. My writing is getting better, and my ability to put thoughts into words is improving

Ship! It’s the only way to create something of value. Whether it’s good or not doesn’t matter, what matters is the practice of shipping and trying to create something out of nothing. I promise it gets easier.