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Whoever you are, whatever you do, however you make ends meet, at the end of the day You are in charge of who you become and what the public sees.

Copywriters are people who make your brand pop. Instead of saying “We sell burritos” copywriters put an awesome picture of a burrito in your face and say “Imagine yourself taking a bite of heaven”.

That’s what you need to do for yourself. Instead of saying “Here’s my resume, hire me” you need to say “Here’s why I’m amazing, you need to have me on your team”. It’s hard to do that, most people think it’s impossible. But those who can learn to create their brand, who can copywrite themselves, are the ones who get ahead.

So, my challenge is for you to read Chapter 3 of Education of Millionaires. It guides you down the path of copywriting and lends you a hand in making your brand, and making you, you!

I am working on a blog post, much larger than my daily posts.

However, in order to work on my big blog post I cannot write a long post today.

So, I’m going to bash daily blogging for a second. It’s short-sighted. It makes you focus on today’s post and not future posts. Yeah, you heard me, I don’t like you, daily blog post.

Rant over.

“Whatever it is you think you’re preparing for, stop preparing. Start doing and correct course along the way.” – Derek Magill

The power of doing is far stronger than preparation. A little over a week ago I was sick of my situation and decided I wanted more out of myself. That’s when I started blogging, setting goals, developing unique insights, and creating a “doing” mentality.

The past week has opened my eyes to the lessons I was already learning, but was too bogged down in preparing. It took me “doing” to open my mind.

Dan Sullivan’s Four C’s:
Commitments, Courage, Capability,  and Confidence. The basic idea is if you commit yourself to a challenge and have the courage to go after the challenge the capabilities to achieve the challenge will come. Once you’ve tackled the prior three C’s you’ll then have the confidence to control your new found product.

It’s a simple concept and at the core of us all, it’s how we’ve evolved. The idea of creation opens us to knew ideas, possibilities, capabilities and a higher level of understanding. We will never be fully prepared but if we show commitment and courage to try and make a difference our capabilities and confidence will follow.

Creation also breeds happiness. We were built to think, discover, try new things, fail, and move forward from failure.

From Self Control or State Control:

Taking responsibility for ourselves brings meaning to our lives. Moreover, productive work is essential to human happiness. Work gives our lives meaning, not just because we bring home a paycheck, but because we take responsibility for ourselves and get to experience the joys that work—even hard work—brings.

Preparation is the opposite of the entrepreneurial mindset. Preparation is waiting for the perfect moment to arrive. Guess what, the perfect moment never arrives. The stars don’t align. You won’t be “found” because you think someone will find you. If you commit and create, the possibilities will follow, happiness will follow. And it all starts with doing.

In order to continue my daily blog posting I have decided to setup some structure. Sundays will be my “day of rest”. Instead of posting new thoughts/stories I will make it a summary, or recap, of what I’m doing and what I’m planning in the future.

What I’m Doing

1. I spent a bulk of my weekend researching data analysis for my P&PDP. I have taken a couple courses at Big Data University, one on big data in general, another on the data analysis programming language R. I am continuing my research with further development in R.
2. I am working on a blog post about the future: Our jobs today and what they’ll look like in the future, what happens when technology eats our jobs, big data is here(!) but so is praxeology (the study of human action), and why I’m an optimist. Expect a post within the week.

What I’m Reading

At the moment I am reading Self Control or State Control (I highly recommend, and it’s Zero-Priced). Next up is Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel.

Blogs I Started Following This Week

Udacity

CB Insights

 

General Overview

I am Philip Garland Gross and I go by Phil. At the end of 2014 I was sick of the life I had created for myself. I checked off all the boxes we’re told from a young age to check: graduate high school (check), graduate college (check, with degrees in both Accounting and Economics in 4 years), get a good job (check), be an adult (????).

By following the checklist to become a responsible member of society I never looked at myself to see what I truly wanted. Instead I spent my days dreading going into my public accounting desk job. Looking for ways, self-destructive at time, to escape my unhappiness. In October 2014 I quit the job that caused so much anguish and traveled the country with the objective to be out of DC and to create a better situation for myself, one that adds value to my life and others around me.

After traveling to NYC, Boston, home to Maine, Austin, Denver, San Diego, Portland and Seattle, I decided to make Denver my new home.  On January 1, 2015 I moved to Denver, CO. Although not in the ideal situation, still working a public accounting gig, I started growing into the individual I had pictured for myself.

Today I am in a much better place, both physically and mentally. Pulling the band-aid of my young-adulthood was a hard thing to do, but 100% necessary. I do not believe moving cities is what helped my transition, but the mindset of finding something new for myself and creating a change in attitude.

My move to Denver is only the start, I will continue to push myself in becoming the value creator I know I can be. This blog is a way for me to improve. Putting myself out there is really difficult. A lot of times I don’t want to publish my posts, I don’t think they’re perfect and can be expanded upon. My writing could be better, I could have grammar/spelling errors, my tenses can go from present, to past, to future, or I could be completely wrong, I’m not an expert in anything, but I shall continue posting.

My mindset: The more I blog, the better at blogging I will get

Interests

Business knowledge, self-learning, value creating, being happy, biking, hiking, camping, exploring, traveling, Paleo, bitcoin/blockchain/Ethereum/DAO, the future, accounting systems, global monetary transactions

Blogs I Actively Read (I use Feedly as my blog aggregator, I highly(!) recommend it)

• 7500 to Holte (Aston Villa fan, unfortunately)
• Bitcoin Magazine
• Daily Fintech
• Die by the Blade (Buffalo Sabres fan, bright future!)
• Ethereum Blog
• FEE
• Isaac Morehouse
• Lend Academy
• Overcoming Bias
• Paleo Leap
• Singularity HUB

Podcasts I Actively Listen To (I use Podcast Addict, but there are plenty of ways to listen)

• EconTalk
• Exponential Wisdom
• Let’s Talk Bitcoin/The Crypto Show (which I’ve sat in studio for, pretty neat)
• The Isaac Morehouse Podcast
• Successful Dropout

I am pivoting my Fintech research as laid out in my P&PDP

I spent three days going through Fintech companies in a haphazard manner. Starting with a google search on “Fintech companies to watch” and then googling each company to get information like: Company website, location, founders, etc.

However, most of the time I ended up on Crunchbase.com which already has all of that data, and lot’s more. Specifically they have funding information. The amount they’ve received in funding, amount of series the company has been through and any acquisitions the company has made.

My Pivot

Instead of researching Fintech companies one-by-one, I will start honing my skills in data analysis.

Step 1: Find a good, reliable source of information similar to Crunchbase and put it into a data set

Step 2: Find a good data-manipulation tool to use on the data set

Step 3: Start analyzing the data

I will start to create data trends, map marketplaces/industries, and creating my own “web” of Fintech companies. It will be a venture into a new skill/trait that hopefully reaps the benefits of knowing “the lay of the land” in the Fintech startup world.

Below is a job description to find a like-minded accounting specialist in Denver, CO. If you know anyone who fits the mold please email me at [email protected]. If you think this job description needs improvement please tell me.

Opolis (www.opolis.co) is a newcomer to the extremely outdated staffing and recruiting model. We are flipping the industry on its head. Instead of working in a hierarchy, our agents (typically known as recruiters) are independent contractors. Instead of reporting to a boss and keeping 5% commissions, Opolis agents have no boss and collect 95% commissions. Opolis is an entrepreneurial way of thinking about recruiting and staffing. We want an accounting specialist who thinks the same way: entrepreneurially and out of the box!

Qualifications:
An always questioning approach to day-to-day and long-term tasks
A love for numbers and understanding of accounting
Ability to perform intermediate excel functions (vlookup, pivot table, macros)
Entrepreneurial approach to problems and time management
Desire to build and innovate
An interest in IPAs

Helpful but NOT required:
1-3 years in accounting, public accounting experience a plus, public accounting dropout doubly preferred
GP Dynamics knowledge
Startup experience

Car Sharing For The Win!

As I was leaving the office I noticed my rear bike tire catching on the top of the break pad. After inspecting for a couple of minutes I realized I had a broken spoke. Unable to ride home, and knowing a 30-minute walk while towing a one-wheeled bike wouldn’t be fun, I looked for a Zipcar.

Salvation was near! 6-blocks of walking to Delia, my Zipcar one-way for $8. A Honda Fit (with plenty of room for my road bike) quickly took me from downtown to a spot a couple blocks from my apartment, where I parked it, checked it in with a tap of my membership card and walked home.

Car sharing is an important part of my urban lifestyle. Most of the time I walk/bike but everyone once in a while it comes in handy to get out of tight jams, take a day trip into the mountains, grocery shop, or to remember what it’s like to drive a car.  Without innovation, and technology, my trip home could’ve been a long, tiresome trek. Instead it was an opportunity to remember the fortunes of being alive today.

 

Outsourcing Stoplight Decision-Making

Sitting in a left turn lane, a few cars back from getting my chance to turn, I looked to my left to see a guy craning his neck trying to gauge when he could make a right on red. I laughed. Why in the world was this guy putting so much effort into making a turn? Yes, turning his neck probably wasn’t that much work, but to me, it was too much work. All he had to do was look at the cars turning left onto his street.

The driver a few cars in front of me had a straight angle at the road ahead, she had a brain on her shoulders, and a reason (multiple reasons?)  not to make a dumb decision. As soon as she made the left, it was safe for him to make the right. The neck-craning driver could’ve saved 10-seconds of neck spasms by looking directly at the lady in front.

I outsource my biking decisions in a similar manner. I use pedestrians to help me gauge when to hesitate, when to slow down, and when to come to a full stop. If I happen to be approaching a normally non-busy intersection I look for pedestrians. If someone is walking across the street to my right or left then I know they have thought through their actions and decided it was safe to cross. In Denver it could be a stumbling homeless person so I have to be a little more careful, but you get the idea.

What I’m explaining is Rational Choice Theory: an economic principle that states that individuals always make prudent and logical decisions. These decisions provide people with the greatest benefit or satisfaction — given the choices available — and are also in their highest self-interest. It’s also explained well in Isaac Morehouse’s short audio clip (which I apparently played a role in inspiring).

Towards a Rational Community

Understanding people’s incentive to act both (a) in their own self-interest and (b) by what creates the greatest benefit is what has driven me to a passion for small businesses. The coffeehouse owner, street vendor, brewery master, app-developer etc. are all rational thinkers making prudent and logical decisions to best cater to the community.

With technological innovation it can be hard to think about the community around us. But we are surrounded by rational thinkers, everywhere. Everyone is trying to create a great life for themselves and to create the greatest benefit to the community. Helping out the community, one neighbor at a time, is how we’re going to develop a great society. And rational choice should be a lens that helps us build that community.

 

My college career was spent studying economics, I continue to read economics, yet today was the first time I realized economics is another lens to living a moral life. The idea of “living free” is not something new. The founding fathers constantly practiced ideas to living a free life. Adam Smith, in the 1700’s, wrote a book called “Moral Sentiments”. Becoming free is about independence. And independence is being in control of your actions and taking responsibility for those actions.

This weekend I finished Isaac Morehouse/Mitchell Earl’s book “Don’t Do Stuff You Hate” which is, among other things, an economic lesson in morality. Discovering the things you hate, being fully aware of that knowledge, and then acting upon the self-discovered knowledge is a major part of living free. Without detaching yourself from stuff you hate you won’t truly be able to live the life you want.

I also listened to Russ Roberts on EconTalk chatting with Ryan Holiday about his book “Ego is the Enemy“. Another fascinating case of using economics to keep your morals (ego) in check. The idea of not celebrating successes, or lamenting failures, is another step in living free.

Last, I’ve started reading “Self Control or State Control“. I am only a couple chapters in but it again has the same message: take control of your life, be responsible for your actions, lead to a free-er life.

I am in no way an expert in living free. Sometimes I get caught up in the rat-race and forget who I am and my principles. I will continue my attempts in living free even when faced with challenges of life.