Who else wants to create value and connect with others?

A couple of my friends asked me, “why do you always post on LinkedIn? You get like 4 likes.”

Ouch! But it’s true. I get 4 likes. 4 people who connected with one of my many random thoughts. And I think that’s pretty cool.

Honestly, I don’t post things randomly to get likes. But one of my connections recently reminded me of why I do.

I just got a message regarding a post from 4 weeks ago about #ikigai. They told me that they finally went through the exercise, changed their major, and are challenged with a whole new set of classes and purpose. When I posted that, I thought it was just a super cool idea.

Little did I know that it might have an impact on someone!

The sharing of ideas is amazing. It might not lift EVERYONE up, but it might just lift one person up - and that’s all you need.

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#themillionimpactmission

What everyone ought to know about the weapons of influence

I just read “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D

In the book, he talks about how people are persuaded and how you can become skilled persuaders.

There are 6 principles:

1. Reciprocation — we naturally will try to repay what is provided to us

2. Commitment and Consistency — we feel the need to be true to our past selves

3. Social Proof — we feel the need to fit in with others which pressures us into compliance

4. Authority — we are taught to always listen to powers of authority (people with titles, social proof, etc)

5. Liking — we like to work with people who we find attractive (physically or mentally)

6. Scarcity — we feel pressure to react to limited availabilities

I highly recommend giving his book a read. Understanding all 6 and how to utilize them properly could be an invaluable skill to learn for your job search!

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#themillionimpactmission

Here’s a quick way to invest and get tax-free growth for the next 40 years

This will take you ~10 minutes at the maximum.

1. Open a Roth IRA at any major brokerage that offers commission-free trades (Vanguard, TDAmeritrade, etc). It’s free.

2. Connect your bank account to this Roth IRA and transfer up to 6,000 of taxable income that you earned in 2020 or 2021.

3. Invest it into your favorite funds.

4. Rinse and repeat every year until you’re 59.5 years old.

For those who aren’t aware, Roth accounts are after-tax accounts. This means you put in money that has already been taxed. However, the massive benefit is that any interest earned in a Roth account is tax-free when withdrawn.

*Not specific investment advice. Only for educational purposes

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#themillionimpactmission

The secret of successful people (hint: it has to do with “snacking”)

I’m taking a digital education class right now as I develop my own coursework. And as I dig into the data, there are habits and trends that we always follow without question.

A lecture is always an hour long. A meeting is always in 15-30-60 minute increments. Most educational Youtube videos are about 10 minutes. Reading a 100 page book takes about 2.5 hours.

To be honest, academia doesn’t have much concrete evidence on many forms of digital education -

but one thing’s for sure: constantly learning material in short bursts or “snacking” is the key to being successful.

You don’t need to spend 24 hours on a topic that can be explained in a 10 minute crash course to learn even if the expectation is 24 hours.

Learning is about builds, actions, and outcomes, not the medium and style in which it’s digested.

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#themillionimpactmission

What everyone should know about schools and entry-level positions

I’ve always been asked (interview or not) the magical question of “where did you go to school?” From family to friends to complete strangers.

PSA: School has had very little contribution to the work I do nor the work I am going to do. You would think Economics is heavily rooted in Personal Finance, but it really isn’t - especially in an academic setting.

Here are better questions to ask a student that will be more indicative of how they approach their work:

1. What have you built (or are building)?

2. What have you led?

3. How do you make decisions?

4. What’s next?

Going to a prestigious (or not) school doesn’t define you.

Seth Godin tells us, “You are the trail you’ve left behind, the people you’ve influenced, the work you’ve done.”

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#themillionimpactmission

Build A LinkedIn Following You Can Be Proud Of…

LinkedIn is an interesting invention.

There are people who don’t like you, people who you used to work but don’t anymore, someone who loves your content, and someone who has the wrong impression of you.

It’s impossible to avoid it all. So here’s what you can do:

BE CONTRARIAN. HAVE YOUR OWN OPINION.

It’s difficult to build something you’re proud of when you aren’t sharing your whole and true self. The ruse becomes noticeable over time.

But by having your own opinion, you’ll form your own tribe; people who support you and want to see you win.

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#themillionimpactmission

Would you rather be the smartest person in the room or the least informed?

If you’re the smartest, you can teach others generously. If your the least informed, (and if you were hungry) you could level yourself up extremely quickly.

I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer. At one point, you may have been the expert and at another you may have been the least informed.

Personally, I’d rather be the least informed. Quite honestly, I’m usually the least informed in most professional circles nowadays. But I believe that learning from the experiences of others is the most effective learning methods.

Smart people can tell you exactly what to do, what not to do, and avenues for new ideas that might work.

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#themillionimpactmission

Would you rather take a full ride to a lesser brand school versus an ivy that will cost you 250K over 4 years?

There isn’t a right answer.

I used to be pretty adamant that I would never take the ivy league road with a ton of debt. And I still am, but I definitely see some benefits that come from being an ivy league student the more I meet.

Here’s why I would choose the lesser-college with a full ride — I could take that 250K and put it towards professional development work. Even if I spent 5K per year on mentors, internships, and external courses, I would likely end up learning more for the cost of 20K while still coming out with a degree. Moreover, having 250K will allow you to be more risk-tolerant meaning you could pursue more lofty projects.

Here’s why going to an ivy for 250K is still a viable option — connections, support, and exposure. The more I talk to ivy league students, the more I realize that the level of conversation and the university experience is just different. At ivy’s, you’re able to make connections much easier (their alumni connection is powerful!). Ivy’s have better support systems (help with external projects, professors that are not just researchers, but active in their field). And exposure — being around so many brilliant students puts you in a different mindset and directly puts you in the middle of innovative things.

Note: I’m oversimplifying and generalizing these examples.

But what would your preferred option be?

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#themillionimpactmission

Imagined you’re faced with this scenario

You’re buying a new car. Let’s say it costs $30K at the base, and the dealer is offering you an entire speaker set for $500 (half off the MSRP!).

You’re already spending $30K and $500 doesn’t seem like much more. Plus, you imagine the long country roads with terrible speakers, and you think that $500 is worth that experience.

Most people would just go ahead and add the speakers. Why not?

But what if we changed the framing —

Is that speaker kit worth giving up a year’s worth of daily Starbucks on every workday?

Now, it’s up to you to decide which you value more. But I find that replacing the framing of money and instead using experiences or other products for my comparisons. Would I rather have a speaker system or the new Xbox? Or a new plant? Or 50 new books?

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#themillionimpactmission

One easy trick to make everything better

Don’t cut corners.

In a hyper productivity-focused world, we are all looking to for the next tip to make our life 0.0001% better. From personal finance to getting sales to losing weight, there’s a blog telling us “5 new tips you haven’t heard before” of how to do it better than everyone else.

There’s an obsession with finding the secrets and getting an edge over your enemies.

I remember reading an article that said something on the lines of — if shortcuts really worked, wouldn’t they just be the new standard?

In essence, there are no shortcuts. You just need the willpower to endure and the ability to take the risk to do so. Everything is hard. If it wasn’t, everyone would be doing it.

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Kintsugi — Being Broken

I’ve always been rather fascinated with Japanese traditions and culture. There’s just something about Japanese attention to detail and craftsmanship that I appreciate.

For example, I just learned about an art form called Kintsugi, a Japanese way of repairing pottery and ceramics with a lacquer made of Urushi sap and sealing with metallic dust like gold and silver. The repair adds meaning and value to the object both figuratively and literally.

What this can teach you is that just because something was broken doesn’t mean that it is invaluable.

Each rejected job offer or any other hardship could represent a crack in your life, but we must do our best to realize that this is simply an event of your life that can be repaired and embraced as part of your journey.

From The Modern Met:

“As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.”

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User-Generated Content (UGC)— The Most Powerful Marketing For Free

UGC (content generated by users of a product or service) is the most powerful marketing tool that companies and brands have. And it’s practically free.

Jonathan Javier from Wonsulting leverages UGC extremely well here on LinkedIn. Jonathan is tagged on so many posts of all of the 80,000+ people who follow him. And every tag just increases his reach and grows his following.

This works because UGC is seen as more trustworthy than company/brand generated content to outsiders since it’s inherently peer-reviewed. People trust recommendations and brands that others endorse. In fact, 63% of consumers trust influencers’ opinions of products “much more” than what brands say about themselves (EDELMAN TRUST BAROMETER 2019). Even better, it allows you to target the 30% of users who use an adblocker (since UGC isn’t blocked).

How can you encourage UGC?

👉 Create a hashtag that users can use in their posts AND ask them to use it

👉 Encourage your employees to also use it

👉 Allow guest posts

👉 Ask for advice from your users and crowdsource answers to projected problems with your service/product

👉 Reward followers on their content (respond, reshare, etc)

👉 Create a challenge

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Becoming Bankrupt

While we try to avoid financial ruin, it’s inevitable that some of us will face it at some point.

Maybe it’s a failed business with a ton of debt, or maybe you paid rent via a credit card, or maybe…fill in the blank.

You will be generally offered two choices — Chapter 11 or Chapter 7.

Chapter 11 means that you plan to continue your employment (or business) while faced with financial failure. This might mean you negotiate debts with your debtors, but still plan to pay it back (but maybe not all of it).

Chapter 7 is much more drastic. It means that you’re going to give up. You need a clean slate — a new start.

Bankruptcy is a drastic last ditch effort. It’s not fun. And it is painful. But do remember that it is an option in your arsenal.

Maybe you’ll discover that it’s exactly what you needed to keep going.

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“Do this to make $500 an hour”

My IG reels has a ton of videos of people saying things like this. And they’re getting hundreds of thousands of likes and a ton of engagement.

PSA: If they were able to make $500 an hour doing X survey or selling X, they would be doing it all the time (and probably not making baited TikTok/Reels). Why wouldn’t they? I’d love to make $500 an hour — sign me up!

But in reality, most of these are either scams, not consistent, or are simply lies since most people won’t check anyways. Even extended past this, you (the viewer) may end up being their customer as they’ll eventually lead you into buying something they create that automagically makes that $500/hour task into $1000/hour by doing XYZ.

Here are some things that people can actually do to make a side hustle (but you won’t make $500/hour and it won’t be sexy):

👉 Detail cars — buy yourself a power washer ($110), soap ($20), and a carpet extractor ($80) and you can start doing basic inside and outside car details for $50-$250 per car

👉 Design and sell websites — watch Youtube university on how to make websites on WP, Wix, or Squarespace and call small mom&pop’s businesses and see if they’re looking for one

👉 Make your own site and write articles — definitely a long term play, but if you create a niched website and write articles with Amazon affiliate links, you can slowly create some passive income

I can assure you these can and do work (I’ve done all 3!). You won’t be making a nonsense $500/hour, but you might be able to do better than minimum wage (and gain a ton of experience in the process).

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I sold a stock that I was 1200% up on.

I’m so glad that 2020 was full of legendary gains for many investors (including new ones). I’m looking at all you newly minted millionaires who threw money into BTC and TSLA at the start of 2020.

For my new investors, I just wanted to give a gentle reminder that you have to pay capital gains taxes on the stock profits unless you have it in a special retirement, health, or education account.

For example, if I bought APPL for 1,000. And sold it for $11,000, I would owe taxes on 10,000.

How much?

It depends on how long you hold the stock for —

👉 Long term capital gains is >1 year

👉 Short term capital gains is <1 year

So make sure you save an appropriate amount to pay taxes! Don’t get surprised when you owe a few thousand or more at the end of the year.

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*This post is not investment advice and should be educational only.

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Fun Fact About Me:

I love reptiles — specifically Bearded Dragons. So much so that I created an educational website on how to care for them called Bearded Dragon Obsession.

No this isn’t an advertisement for my other website. But with LinkedIn, we often post about our professional lives because that’s what this platform was made for.

But we probably all have interesting hobbies outside of our careers. Mine is taking care and breeding reptiles and fish.

What’s yours? Let me know below 👇

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Maybe 2021 is the year where…

👉 COVID goes away

👉 You get a raise

👉 BTC reaches 1,000,000

👉 The market continues to be an absolute bull

Then, maybe you can launch that project, open that business, or even asking that special person to be with you forever…

But you see, it’s unlikely all these things will happen. But you can do all of that anyways.

While you were waiting for the precisely right moment when everything is perfect, the competition already did it. They launched their projects, opened their businesses, and maybe even already got married.

This year — get started. It’s more important to get started than to wait for everything to be perfect.

Start that business, launch that project, and do whatever else you’ve been “meaning” to do.

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Having a “disconnected personal brand”

Just an observation from some gaming youtubers I watch — most of them have what I'd call a disconnected personal brand.

I don't think this is even restricted to gaming youtubers, let alone most youtubers. But many of them make their youtube channels niched around a certain hobby (i.e. gaming) but over time you learn more about who they are. And they might be like a car salesman or something random.

But then since they have a ton of subscribers, it starts to impact all other areas. For example, subscribers might just go and buy from the car salesman specifically.

One particular example is a van life duo selling Chai Tea. People who love their can life vlogs are (practically) the only buyers of their tea leaves.

Maybe this could be adapted to help build your own brand — but I haven't figured it out that far yet.

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Apple has the best customer service

Apple has a 99 problems (in my opinion), but customer service isn’t one.

Be it a one-off issue, a random niched issue, or recurring problems — Apple will make it right for almost every customer.

Some key notes:

👉 Their genius bar doesn’t defend the company aimlessly that the customer violated X policy and therefore the customer is wrong.

👉 They build rapport — mirroring the client’s language.

👉 The environment of a genius bar, while professional, is extremely relaxed — support and the customer sit on the same level, people speak 1:1

👉 There’s always a senior support in-house — the first line of people can go to the manager for help, no need to call a manager and wait

👉 Support teams have flexibility — did your AppleCare just expire a week ago? They’ll probably still honor your request.

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Do you really care about privacy?

With the recent change to WhatsApp’s terms of use to send data to Facebook, people have been talking about privacy issues.

But do we really care? In reality, you probably have little to no privacy anymore unless you don’t use ANY technology (which obviously, you do since you’re on LinkedIn).

A simple credit card transaction releases a ton of data. For one, they know what you’re buying, how much you spend, how much you spend at X store, at what frequency, how much debt you have, and more.

We’re blissfully ignorant of the fact that we don’t have privacy. And you probably don’t care about it. You care more that that privacy is being used maliciously — maybe that card company starts sending you X promotion to get you to purchase from X company.

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