There’s common advice out there that you shouldn’t only read things you agree with. That by reading things you disagree with you might get convinced of other people’s points. However, I’m pretty set in my thoughts.
My background consists of economics, philosophy, and mathematics. Anyone who posts things with economic, logic, or mathematic fallacies in their statement will always be rejected in my mind.
But, there are 7 billion people in the world. They don’t all share my beliefs. Surely there are at least 3.5 billion people who have absolutely opposing beliefs. Yet, I should read the things they share because I might be convinced?
I don’t think so. I do read things outside of my expertise, and outside of my stances (either for or against), but am usually unphased. When reading other people’s beliefs, I shrug it off and am open to them but it’s pretty meaningless to get emotional.
Maybe it’s my libertarian/Stoic take on life, but if someone wants to have a different opinion then I’m more than willing to be accepting. Personally, I might think they’re wrong, but I’m not in control of their beliefs.
Today, I got $20 bluetooh Mpow headphones. They sound better than cheap in-ear headphones I’ve always bought and are about the same price. On top of that they’re wireless. It’s amazing to me the amount of inputs that went into the product, the way I found out about the headphones from a social media post, and could order them online to have them arrive in a few days. All for $20.
It reminds me of a great post by Leonard Read called I, Pencil. The invisible hand is beautiful. And technology releases the capabilities of mass commerce at a scale never seen in human history.
The internet has changed the game of self-taught learning. Not only can you read tutorials, watch YouTube videos, and get 1st class business courses for free, but you can also get instant feedback.
Think about the classroom. You spend a semester learning how to write something. At the end of the semester, your teacher/professor (one person) gives you a grade depending on your ability to apply the lessons learned in class. If you fail to follow the subjective outlines of your teacher, you’re punished with a lower grade.
Add some hashtags on Twitter and send 140 characters into the interwebs
Compare that to the person who sets up a website, posts on social media, and connects Google analytics on the back end. In mere minutes that person has more data, from more people, than an entire semester’s worth of work, and it’s not subjectively biased by the teacher. By putting your work out there you are gaining more feedback in one day than you get in 140 days of schooling.
Having a tool as powerful as the internet, and the free resources that have been created eliminate the need for school.
ICOs (initial coin offerings) are being mentioned everywhere. They shut down multiple crypto currency exchanges yesterday and are being blamed for the fall in Ether’s price. Technical issues aside, ICOs are no different than crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter. Yes, there may be novel ideas that seem really cool, but until your selfie drone producing company builds the product (they went bankrupt), you have spent money on a pre-sale.
From Dan Norris’s book “The Seven Day Startup”:
Pre-Selling is a Flawed Experiment
Pre-selling your product before it exists is often touted as the answer to startup validation techniques that don’t work. This is how pre-selling works.
You make an offer for people to pre-purchase your product at a discount. People are getting a good deal, but since the product isn’t live yet, they accept that they might have to wait a while and are happy to make that compromise.
There are a few reasons why this approach is often not the way to go:
Your goal at this stage in the business is to test your assumptions. Making overly generous offers is only testing whether or not someone wants to pay you the heavily discounted amount. It doesn’t test your real offer and is therefore a flawed experiment.
Although ICOs do present a good way to cultivate ideas. Writing a white paper and having people buy into your proof of concept doesn’t replace the need to iterate and pivot. There are startup that take 5-10 years to get off the ground and produce the kind of money ICOs collect in one day. There’s a difference between producing something through the process and another thing to produce when your meals, rent, and salaries are already paid for.
I don’t know about you but I read a lot of entrepreneurial books. From startup culture to becoming a full time freelancer to 4 day work weeks, I have read many books on running businesses and improving work life balance. All of them left me feeling good about myself, about my direction, and improved my thought process. But when I sat back and asked myself, why haven’t I accomplished my goals? I had a wake-up call.
I’m not going to bash reading entrepreneurial books because I enjoy them but I do think my mind shut off. My thinking was off, I thought reading a book would reveal the secret sauce. I forgot what has made me successful at other endeavours. Motivation.
Every great success in my life had an underlying motivation. It might’ve been something as simple as passing a test or something difficult like training my mind and body all year for a championship. Each time I’ve accomplished something I did so with tenacity. With a burning desire motivating my actions.
Thes ecret sauce I was missing was right in front of me. One my favorite phrases is “stay hungry, stay foolish.” The first phrase is literally about motivating yourself but for some reason I forgot.
Since I figured out the ingredient I was missing, I have come to a resolution. No more slacking off. Starting today I’m going to achieve what I set out to do.
I’m setting very short term goals with the end goal accomplishing what I set out to do. Once goal one is achieved, I’m setting another very short term goal. No more 90 day plans, not even 30 day plans. Everything will be 7 days. That’s as long as I can keep my energy up, my tenacity on point, and remember how hungry I am to break this funk.
The following two quotes are from guys I’ve gotten to know through the power of the internet. Both of them are extremely motivated and do a lot of different things. Both of them have very similar mindsets. These quotes summarize my feelings right now.
With anything in life, you always have three options: you can change it, you can accept it, or you can leave it.
The majority of discontent in life comes from not taking the responsibility to choose one of these options. –Kylon Geinger
Even when you have a deep understanding of yourself, there are many decisions in life that involve picking between imperfect options. Living with integrity in these situations is about making a choice and living with it. Not filling yourself with regret, or becoming a victim, but accepting your choices and learning from them when you don’t like the results. – Ryan Ferguson
We all make incorrect decisions. We all make correct decisions. No matter what decision we make, we must take responsibility for choosing the outcome. Even if we regret a decision, we cannot fill ourselves with it. We must live with the choice we made and live with integrity to get through it.
Wherever you are in your life, reminding yourself of these short passages can make a difference. Don’t be the victim. Take responsibility for your situation. And live with integrity. At the end of the day, the only person you have to satisfy is the one in the mirror.
Common advice in the self-help world is to create goals to achieve and making those goals a reality on a daily basis. I agree with this mindest for the most part, however, achieving your goals is still long-term whereas happiness is mostly short-term. To me, there’s a disconnect between thinking in goals and achieving happiness.
Part of achieving goals is to be committed to the outcome and making decisions with those in mind. But if you’re not achieving everything on your goal checklist, the first thing to eliminate is being hard on yourself. Having an honest conversation with yourself is the better way in goal achievement strategy.
Instead of wondering why I didn’t achieve a goal I set for myself, I look into the factors in my life. Maybe I was traveling. Maybe I was committing myself to too many projects. Maybe my passion didn’t really follow the goals I had set for myself. Having an honest conversation of why I didn’t achieve goals that I set for myself is productive. Overthinking, and being g hard on myself, is the opposite.
Being hard on yourself about not achieving goals is teaching you to take on the victim mindset. You treat yourself as someone who could’ve achieved a goal had you done something different or if the circumstances differed. Instead of looking inward, you concot excuses for yourself.
My best way of staying out of the victim mindset is holding myself accountable for goals I want to achieve and having an internal dialouge about what’s working and what’s not and why. Although I set difficult goals for myself, I shouldn’t lose happiness when I come up short.
***Disclosure: I am not an expert. My advice may not be the best way of purchasing, storing or using Bitcoin. I’m giving you tips as an amateur/enthusiast. Also, any Bitcoin you buy that gets stolen is not my fault. I trust Coinbase, Airbitz and BitPay. Please be aware Bitcoin can be hacked.***
Bitcoin. It seems to be all the rage right now. From hovering the $900 range it spiked to over $3,000 in a matter of months. It’s currently sitting somewhere around $2,500 and you might be asking yourself, how do I buy Bitcoin? Below I will break down ways I’ve bought Bitcoin, where I’ve stored it, and how I use Bitcoin. Yes, you can use Bitcoin as a currency, not just an investment property.
Before I start outlining the Bitcoin buying process, let me tell you I have no skin in the game. I had about $300 worth of Bitcoin back when it was worth $900/BTC. When it jumped to about $1,300 I sold out. I still made a sizeable ROI but nowhere close to if I stayed in. Eventually, I might buy Bitcoin again but I’m waiting for the roller coaster to stabilize.
How I Buy Bitcoin
I have bought Bitcoin two different ways by using Coinbase and by using Gildera through AirBitz.
Coinbase
This is probably the most popular way to buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Coinbase is very simple to use. All you have to do is go to the website, click on the “Sign Up” button in the upper right, add your email address, go through security information (they will ask for your driver’s license based on KYC laws), add a debit card and you’re ready to start buying Bitcoin.
When I was buying Bitcoin with Coinbase I didn’t keep the Bitcoin in Coinbase. I immediately transferred it to my Airbitz wallet (more on that later).
Note: Based on recent news of Coinbase disallowing a 16.5 BTC donation to Free Ross I would at least look at other options.
Gildera
Gildera.io has a very similar process to Coinbase. The big difference is the speed in which your transaction goes through. Coinbase is a nearly instantaneous purchase whereas Gildera requires a 4-5 business day window. When you put a purchase order in with Gildera it’s automatically pegged at the current market rate. Meaning it won’t rise/fall with the market until your transaction is executed.
I set up an Airbitz wallet which uses Gildera as it’s Bitcoin purchasing portal. When I purchase Bitcoin with Gildera it automatically gets stored in my Airbitz wallet.
How I Store Bitcoin
At this point it should be pretty obvious I use Airbitz as my storage. It was recommended to me by the guys on The Crypto Show and has a very easy user interface. All you need to do is download the application, create a username/password, and you’re ready to go!
How I Use Bitcoin
Finding stores that accept Bitcoin
Although they are few and far between, there are some places that do accept Bitcoin as payment. The Airbitz app includes a list of nearby places accepting Bitcoin. Living in Denver, I have only been able to use my Bitcoin at two places. Southern Hospitality in downtown Denver and Black Shirt Brewing, specializing in red beers, in the Riverside North District. I have also used Bitcoin in Austin, TX at Brave New Books.
Online Purchases, Donations, and Brave
I have also made online purchases using Bitcoin through vendors that accept it. One of the coolest online marketplaces is Open Bazaar which is like a decentralized eBay. I have also used Bitcoin to donate to charities/non-profits I believe in. Mises.org was my latest donation with Bitcoin. Last, there is an ad-free internet browser called Brave that lets you upload Bitcoin in order to pay the website owner for a percentage of time spent on their website.
BitPay Visa Debit Card
This is by far my favorite way to use Bitcoin. BitPay is a company out of Atlanta, GA that has revolutionized the way Americans can use Bitcoin. Here is a quick video of how to get a BitPay debit card:
After buying Bitcoin from Coinbase, Gildera or somewhere else, the BitPay debit card allows you to cash out your Bitcoin for USD. Essentially, you can use Bitcoin anywhere you go. I love buying a cup of coffee with the card. It reminds me of the magic of the internet and how cool it is that I can turn a digital asset into accepted currency.
Conclusion
I don’t claim to be an expert. Nor am I much of an investor. I am someone who loves the decentralized aspects of Bitcoin and want to see it flourish as a currency. If you’re thinking about buying Bitcoin, either for investment purposes or for the fun of spending it, feel free to message me at [email protected]. I am happy to tell you what I know and assist any way I can.
A couple of days ago I picked up my phone for a number I didn’t recognize. This is something I very rarely do. For one, I was at work and busy getting work done, picking up the phone and talking with a stranger was the last thing I wanted to do. Also, why else would they have created voicemail? Anyway, I picked it up and it happened to be an account manager with Bill.com. I’m sure glad I stepped outside my comfort bubble.
We talked for an hour about the rewards of being an accountant, how to teach clients the importance of AP/AR tracking, and how to build a better business. After the phone call he emailed me with an exclamation and I immediately felt better about my direction.
It was random. It was something I don’t usually do. But stepping outside of my bubble brought a little pep to my step and made me feel good.
Traveling the Country as an Introvert
I’ve stepped outside of my comfort bubble many different times. The biggest step was when I traveled the US looking for a new city. I spent two months traveling to different places, meeting new people, talking with locals, and truly finding myself. Although I’m an introvert, and those two months were draining, that trip cemented my ability to step outside my comfort bubble and succeed. It’s how I ended up in Denver which had been everything I’ve hoped for.
By stepping outside of comfort I have found great rewards. Even if the thing keeping me inside my bubble causes me to overthink, I need to continue pursuing uncomfortable situations. For that is the only way I’ll grow into the person I desire to become.
