We just finished up the final quarter of 2021 and saw that year come to a close.
This means it’s time for another quarter-year book review!
At the beginning of the year, I started my official 50 books/year goal for what I hope to be the rest of my life.
This quarter I read 12 books, bringing this year’s total to 59 (23 in the first quarter, 15 in the second, 9 in the third, and 12 in the fourth)
100M Offers by Alex Hormozi - phenomenal book that I cannot recommend highly enough. This is the book that you want to read to take your business to the next level in not only your level of service but also the income produced by it. Alex goes into the mindset behind serving people and why you’re actually helping people better by charging them more. A super fascinating book that has helped me overcome some upper limit beliefs about money and serving. I would almost put this book with some of the all-time good ones, but it was a bit repetitive after a while, and a lot of the ideas could have been condensed down a bit. Overall rating: 9/10
The Sacred Search by Gary Thomas - Another marriage book, excellent writing, though not a ton of new content. One thing I really enjoyed about this is the focus on why you’re getting married, and not so much on “the one”. There’s a large part of the culture that is focused on finding “the one” and thinking that literally, every other person must be incompatible. When in reality, many are compatible. I would recommend giving it a read if you’re interested in getting married. Overall rating: 5/10
They Ask You Answer by Marcus Sheridan - One of my all-time favorites. It’s another mindset book (with some practical actionable things) talking about how to build your brand, reputation, and sustainable “free” marketing. The primary point of this book was answering the questions your clients/customers are asking and sharing those answers publicly in the form of a blog and social media. This is one of those books that is a long-term investment but I’d say is one of the core structural things you can do for your business to establish your reputation and ensure you are the person people go to get their problems solved. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It applies nicely to solopreneurs, self-employed, and large corporations. I’ve been practicing some of what they talk about for several years and can say it’s been one of the bigger reasons I’ve been able to grow my reputation as fast as I have. Overall rating: 10/10
The Holy War by John Bunyan - an excellent analogical book about the battle of your soul and how Satan and his armies attack it. Super interesting, but it does require a bit of attention to reading. This isn’t a light read. I’d say it’s the second part to Pilgrims Progress, though not quite as simple. Really good read, and very eye-opening to things you might be struggling with that you can’t quite put your finger on. Overall rating: 7/10
Tribe of Millionaires by David Osborn, Pat Hiban, Mike McCarthy, & Tim Rhode - this is an interesting analogical book about the power of networking and having a cohort of people/peers you’re sharpening and being sharpened by. This is an excellent introductory book to those who don’t know what a mastermind group is and its purpose. It’s very simple, attention-grabbing, and intellectually stimulating! Fair warning: It will probably make you want to join or start a mastermind group after reading it! Great read, and I highly recommend it! Overall rating: 8/10
The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday - Fantastic book about taking a different perspective of the problems you might be facing, and how to utilize them to your advantage. I’d say this is another world opener type book and would put it close to the introduction to the entrepreneurial lifestyle category. The illustrations they gave were very intuitive and interesting and really get your gears going on how to apply it to your own life. Unfortunately, it does get a little repetitive about halfway through and it lost my attention 3/4ths of the way. Still highly recommend it! Overall rating 8/10
Master Your Money by Ron and Michael Blue - really great book about getting a handle on your finances and putting the infrastructure and order in place that allows you to keep an eye on and manage your money. I’d say this is the more practical version of a lot of the content that Dave Ramsey puts out. Very practical and to the point, though it can be a bit of a difficult read. I will definitely need to go through it again as many of the concepts and ideas were very new to me and I need to get a better understanding of them. Overall rating: 9/10
Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis - I’ve always had this on my reading list and recently got an opportunity to listen to these on a long drive. Overall not bad, these are letters that require a bit more thought, and go into the temptations we face as we go through life. I wasn’t fully paying attention to it, and will need to give it another read before putting together a more comprehensive review. Overall rating 7/10
A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis - Really good book about the different thoughts and struggles people go through when dealing with great losses. I really love this book because of how raw and honest it is. Many things are shared in it most people would never share with another human being. The doubts, the pain, the uncertainty. Really beautifully written and very interesting. It’s a shorter read, something nice to read by the fire in the evening. Overall rating: 8/10
The Weight of Glory by C. S. Lewis - haven’t finished this book yet, but a really interesting read. This book is about the struggle of living a life in Christ vs worldliness and the desires we have of serving God and serving man. Really interesting read so far! Overall rating thus far into it: 7/10
Standing on the Promises by Doug Wilson - an excellent book about raising children in the Covenant. Not very much of this was new to me (as I was raised in a family that practiced much of what was written) but a really good read for some of the reasons behind why and how you should be raising your Children as believers. Really good read and I greatly recommend it to those looking to raise their kids as strong believers. Overall rating: 8/10
Rilla of Ingleside by Lucy Maud Montgomery - My favorite all-time historical fiction book, re-reading it for maybe the 14th time (I have a tradition of reading it during the winter). This is a part of the Anne of Green Gables series (the last book), about Anne’s daughter (Rilla) growing from a frivolous young girl into a woman during the first world war. Packed with dread, fear, sadness, desire, and hope, I never get tired of reading this book. Highly recommend! Overall rating: 10/10
We're just finishing up on the third quarter of 2021, and it's that time again for another brief overview of the books I've been blessed to read over the past three months!
It's been an interesting past few months with significant changes from my move across the United States and being out on my own for the first time and it's been difficult to prioritize reading as much as I did before. I'm not as pleased with the number of books I read this quarter, but I've started getting back into the rhythm of things in the past couple of weeks so I'm not too afraid I'll have a similar fourth quarter!
1) Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim & Renee Mauborgne - a business book with the basic premise of finding oceans that aren't full of competition. Many markets are saturated with copied ideas, and everyone has to compete over speed, quality, and price. Where if you create your own market, or find one that has few people serving it, you have the opportunity to set the standards and build a reputation before it starts getting overly saturated. It goes into significant detail as to why you want to do this and how to go about it. Highly recommend!
2) The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer - a personal development book focused on helping you not lose the forest for the trees and smelling the roses along the way. John Comer goes into detail about how easily we are caught up in the day-to-day stress of our life, and how much of a distraction that is from the life we're called to live in Christ and living that purpose. It goes into a lot of small practical things to slow your days down, enjoy the struggles, and be at peace. Another book I highly recommend! (We got to go through it as our book of the month for our mastermind group)
3) Boundaries by John Townsend and Dr. Henry Cloud - this book is one of those I would mark as a truly great book and I re-read it as soon as I finished it! This book is about setting boundaries with family, work, and "friendship" relationships. And showing that it's not honoring to God to over commit to people as you have to say no to someone, and if you're saying yes to your friends, you may be saying no to your family. It's really beneficial to help put your responsibilities in perspective, and especially for those who overthink things or feel like they're responsible for everybody's problems, it's a fantastic read. Both authors are Christian and write from a Christian perspective. Highly influential to me in saying yes and no to clients over the past couple of months.
4) Gods At War by Kyle Idleman - Phenomenal book about the second commandment of not making any idols. Kyle walks through many modern-day misconceptions about what idols look like and give examples of placing work, money, toys, etc above God. I was recommended this by a good friend of mine I got to stay with on my move over to Tennesee. While I don't agree with some of the ideas put forth in the book, I do recommend it as an insightful read and helpful to see areas you may be placed above God.
5) Read to Lead by Jeff Brown and Jesse Wisnewski - a book about reading books! Loved this book as it goes through the importance of reading and how significant of an impact it has on your life and how you lead those around you. They go into many practical tips and tricks to increase the number of books you read and ways to keep it sustainable. Very insightful and consider it an excellent read! As I told a friend recently - I'm still a little shocked at how cheap books really are, considering the amount of wisdom and insight they contain.
6) What He Must Be ...if he wants to marry my daughter by Voddie Baucham Jr. - as anyone who has had a conversation with me that lasted longer than 10 minutes, knows that it's been on my heart for the past few months to get married and start a family. I was given this book as a thank you for helping volunteer at Fight Laugh Feast a couple of weeks back, and I flew through it in a couple of days! Voddie goes into the basic standards for what a man should be if he wants to get married, and gives a lot of insight as to what the Bible says what a biblical man should look like. While the audience is targeted toward the fathers of eligible daughters, I found it very practical and helpful!
7) Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki - recommended by someone I have a great deal of respect for and look up to @Eric Burton, this book is another one I would put in the category of a truly great book. It breaks down the mindsets of a typical 9-5 employee (your poor dad) and someone who builds and creates wealth (your rich dad). The whole book is written in stories that are extremely engaging and honestly keep you so interested to read the next page it's not even funny. I found it really difficult to put this book down and get to work! The book is about economics and ways to build and create wealth. I highly highly recommend it to everyone, and it could be described as an intro book to entrepreneurship.
8) The Travelers Gift by Andy Andrews - another book recommended to me by someone I have a lot of respect for and look up to @Derek Stone. This book is an allegory for taking charge of your life and pulling yourself out of victim thinking. Without spoiling it, it could be described as a similar story to a Christmas Carol. This is another one of those books I would put down with the truly great books of the world. Infinitely valuable and very inspiring. Several points in this book brought me to tears, and others real fear. I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone and may pick up a couple of extra copies to hand out!
9) Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris - a book about taking charge of your life from a younger age and doing the good hard things that God put us on this earth to do. I've wanted to write a book for some time now and reading through this, it literally talks about most of the things I wanted to write about! It's an extremely inspiring, engaging, and easy understand book. I highly recommend it for all parents of teens, and teens themselves. You're given a purpose on this earth, and you need to take ownership. You can't wait until you're out of high school or college to begin taking responsibility for it.
I've got a dozen more books on my reading list and am really excited to be diving into them!
]]>Too often nowadays we are caught up in this sense of safety and security, and to some, it's become the be-all end for life.
Go to a good school, get a good job with good benefits, and then you'll be secure.
Planning your life has gotten to the point where you have to get every single duck lined up before you can begin your journey.
I personally believe that it is not how we are meant to live according to the Bible and that we too often tend to trust in our own abilities and wanting to be "absolutely certain" before entering a new world. But is that really how we're supposed to live as Christians?
Does God tell us to wait until we fully understand everything before trusting that He will provide, strengthen and guide us?
Going back to the fall of Adam, the original sin was that Adam wanted to be like God, knowing good and evil.
What are we saying when we have to fully understand every aspect of the journey before beginning on it? Are we not really saying that "hey God, I appreciate the offer, but I got this, I can figure it all out on my own."
I think this applies to every age category, but especially those of us in our teen years. So much is uncertain and new, and the world around us is clamoring for safety. "You need to get this job, then get this house, save your money, max out your retirement, get married, and have two kids, then you'll be safe and happy." Don't get me wrong, I don't think any of those things are bad, but only the extent to which having your life perfectly planned out before beginning is bad.
God didn't create us to be robots, just going through the same sequence of life. He created us all to be unique, and all with a specific purpose. He didn't say it was going to be easy. He said to trust Him.
The parable of the talents is an excellent example of this. God gives us each a portion, and we are not to bury it in the backyard, but rather to go out and multiply that what we've been entrusted. He never said it would be easy or a sure thing, but He tells us to trust in Him and multiply what He has entrusted to us, not to sit on our hands until OUR perfect plan is ready to go into action.
None of this is to say that planning isn't useful and good. Only that planning can sometimes take president overtaking action.
One of my favorite quotes is “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless but planning is indispensable.” - Eisenhower
Life is a battle, a struggle, but it's a good fight, and one ultimately satisfying and fulfilling.
]]>The books I've found infinitely valuable and I frequently re-read are those written in a purely informative way without any expectation of return from doing so. Some of my favorites in these categories are autobiographies, and some books I like to call "old wisdom."
I just set 30m on the timer and started writing…
Two months ago, I moved out of my parent’s place for the first time to drive across the country by myself to “find my fortune.”
I just turned eighteen, and I’m in my first weird slump since moving out. I’d been preparing for the time when I’d moved out for many years now, and for the most part, it’s been all that I’ve expected it would be. Finding a place to rent, finding the means for transportation, finding a good Church, finding good friends and work was significantly more straightforward than I anticipated.
What I wasn’t expecting was how significantly those I spent the most amount of time with would immediately affect my own motivation and actions.
Growing up, my parents built a business (hardlotion.com) from the ground up, and having nine kids, meant that much of our earlier years were spent in the company preparing products for shipment and fulfilling orders. Because of this, there was always an atmosphere of entrepreneurship and thinking outside the box in the family. Which set us apart from many other families we knew, and many were and are surprised with our upbringing.
Over the years, greatly in part to my parents for instilling a sense of adventure and excitement around building our own futures and not going the traditional path; I’ve been writing and reading very consistently and built it into a habit which I attribute the majority of where I’ve gotten to today and the trajectory to which I am headed.
That all changed as soon as I moved out. Before, I would have pretty clean and consistent routines and habits that were effortless to maintain and grow.
However, since getting out on my own, I did not consider how significant of an impact my parents and even siblings had on my consistency. It was suddenly much harder to keep to a strict time of when I would go to bed, what I ate, and even my reading and writing.
Moving across the country into an environment in which I knew almost no one. Trying to figure out all the logistics of getting an apartment when the government doesn’t see me as a real human (except interestingly when it comes to taxes) and finding enough work to not have to get a normal job upon my arrival was something I’d never experienced (nor did I know anyone that had done it before). It was a bit scary in some senses, but my sense of adventure and excitement and faith that this was the direction the Lord had for me well overshadowed any significant doubts I had.
The trouble was, that since I didn’t know anyone, and I had to discover so many new things on my own for the first time - my internal sense of comfort was completely reset. There was, and still is this weird sense of trust I am living in right now that has actually kept me really calm and what was left of my shyness seems to have gone away. This all sounds great, however, since my comfort compass was reset, I now found it really difficult to be as strict with my dieting habits, when I went to bed, reading, and writing.
I’m ashamed to say that the blog I was so proud to keep very updated, hasn’t had a post in several months.
It got to the point where my routines before I left home were so extensive and set, that to any outsider, it might seem outrageous to start up from scratch. Basically, I had built my own systems and quality meters around my habits and routines that would be difficult to fulfill without a lot of work.
This meant that as my work and social life started to grow, I didn’t feel I had the time to keep up with my former good and healthy habits as I saw them as huge time consumers or mountains I wouldn’t see the benefit from climbing until much later and so wouldn’t begin the climb.
Recently, I got a little fed up with my own attitude and how much time I am starting to spend on social media mindlessly browsing videos and images that I decided to just “do one small thing” which in this case was writing a blog post.
Immediately in my mind, I started getting thoughts of “but what do you write about” “you don’t have the time” and “it’s not going to be worth the effort.” Some of which were legitimate, but I had to start somewhere, and even if I produced two sentences, that was better than nothing.
So I wrote on my to-do for the day “write a blog post in under 30 minutes” without any other rules. It could be whatever I wanted it to be about, I just had to do it in an uninterrupted 30 minute time block.
I’ve got 65s left on the timer and just doing a quick once over before hitting publish.
Hopefully more to come,
-Gideon
I've got a fan pointed at me in the background, and I can snap my fingers all day long without the mic picking up a peep, it's fantastic!
One of the things Dr. Andy Garrett has you do throughout his course answers a few questions to check in on your WHY.
So being me, I decided to build a Monday board for it and have it send me random reminders throughout the day to check in on what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and where it's taking me. On top of that, I created a basic web app on my phone that allows me to pull up the questionnaire and automatically get it time-stamped and added to my database to review later!
I honestly get really carried away sometimes with the features and integrations that Monday has, and I use it for quite a bit of non-work-related things to keep track of everything in one place like these motivation check-ins!
]]>I recorded a short video walking through what I put together today and the ideas behind the creation of the site and why I used which words I did.
I really struggle with putting things into words, and what I do for a living isn't any better.
Anyone that knows me longer than 5 minutes, knows me, knows that I fumble over myself when inevitably get the question "So, what do you do for work?"
I got called out this morning in my mastermind call as a man in the middle, and with the help of the guys in my group, I'm starting to slowly make some progress on putting what I do into words.
At the same time, I'm also finally putting together my website and using Canva for the rough outline and design of it before moving it over to WordPress.
]]>I'm currently going through Dr. Andy Garrett's Authentic Growth Blueprint and this week's module is on Intrinsic motivation.
Extrinsic motivation is when you're motivated to do something based on outside conditions - expectations, power, money, acceptance - where your actions aren't necessarily in alignment with what you would do without those outside influences. It should go without saying that being motivated by outside forces not put on by yourself isn't great, especially long term. If you condition yourself to think that you can only be accomplished or successful by how much money you make, or how much power you have, there won't be enough power or money in the world to satisfy that need.
On some level, we all struggle with extrinsic motivation. And you can see figures today who saught great wealth or prestige only to have a mid-life crisis and throw it all away realizing that there is no meaning or fulfillment in those things alone.
Intrinsic motivation is having a higher standard. Not being defined by the outside world, but setting your own standards for success. It's a higher moral power that you answer to. My favorite quote by Dr. Andy Garrett in this introductory video is "Intrinsic motivation makes the only path the high road" meaning that if you're motivated by a higher standard outside of other's thoughts or opinions, it makes the only way forward, the right one.
]]>We're now in the second quarter of 2021 and I've got another batch of books toward my goal of reading 150 new books before 2024 and a lifetime goal of reading a book a week!
The Toliet Paper Entrepreneur - Classic book by Mike Mechalowicz about getting started on your business and its unique angle is how to grow without having a lot of assets (money or resources). The name and concept came from those times you use the bathroom and only to your horror that there is no TP left, and having to use unconventional methods. It's not what you'd call a refined book by any stretch of the imagination, but still a fantastic read and a lot of humor in it.
David and Goliath - By Malcolm Gladwell recommended to me by my friend and mentor Paul Edwards. The book is about viewing your weaknesses in different lights and turning those into your strengths. A lot of it is outside the box thinking and overcoming beliefs about yourself. Amazing book, very well written, and the case studies were both very entertaining and educational!
Who Not How - Written by Dr. Benjamin Hardy for Dan Sullivan in an interesting twist that uses the principles described in the book. The whole idea behind Who Not How is focusing more on looking for people who can solve your problems instead of trying to figure out how to solve them yourself. They had points about how certain procrastination for tasks might mean that you need to find someone else to do it for you that's better equipped and capable of doing the work.
Harry Potter books 1-7 - Classics by J. K. Rowling, recommended to me by a good friend, and decided to read the whole series as a break the business and personal development ones. I was pleasantly surprised by how well they were written and greatly underestimated how gripping they would be. I, unfortunately, had a few nights staying up later than I intended finishing up a chapter here, or a book there.
Talking to Strangers - Another one of Malcolm Gladwell's books, though not as good as Outliers or David and Goliath. I had this on audible and didn't end up finishing it due to the format in which it was presented. He wanted to do something a bit different for an audiobook and decided to have a podcast format with music and instructions as well as live audio clips from examples he had. It didn't really feel like a book and I quickly lost interest.
Time Warrior - Phenomenal book by Steve Chandler outlining how you can be more efficient and effective with your time. He gave many excellent examples in short 1-2 page chapters. It's one of those books you always have near your nightstand and after reading flick through now and then. Always something you can glean from this book and you read many times. The most similar book I can think to compare it to is Josh Kaufman's book Personal MBA with short, informative ideas in bite size peices.
Dwell On These Things - Another amazing book that just came out by John Stange who I've been following on Facebook for some time. This book is more focused on what kind of mindset we should have as Christians in a 30 day devotional with each chapter being a morning mindset and reflection. One of the things that really caught my attention with this book is it's real life emphasis, having scenarios that are very relatable which can't be said for all books like this. This book is dirrived from the passage in Phillipians 4:8 "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
Giftology - Super short read but an amazing one nonetheless. John Ruhlin's purpose with this book was to encourage people to be more thoughful and unqiue with their giftgiving to develop relationships. He gave many examples of the gifts he's given out over the years and the impact they've had in his buisness and life. I really love this, though I felt like he could have done a better job explaining how you find the right gifts for people and what to look for. One of the emphasises I really liked about it was that of starting small and turning it into a dialy graditude aswell. He said that if you're not ready for certain bigger ticket gifts, hand writing letters were an amazing second best and having a daily practice of writing out notes gives inspiration and ideas to gift ideas!
The Millenial Manifesto - Written by Curtis Hennicutt and Zach Keyton about how the generations miss and fail to see past historical mistakes and emphasises not making those again. I haven't finished the book yet due to time constraints but the stories in there were very intriguing aswell as informative!
Doing some research to find the best bookkeeping software to use for a small business that has multiple contractors. I've narrowed the two top picks down to Quickbooks and Freshbooks.
QuickBooks is the most advanced and well-known software out there. Some of the features include; income and expense tracking, tax deduction options, reports, manage cash flow, capture and organize receipts, and some additional payroll options.
Quickbooks integrates with payment options, like direct bank transfers, PayPal, Venmo, apple pay, etc.
Though there are a few drawbacks to it.
1) Learning curve - While Quickbooks has many features, but can quickly get complicated and overwhelming if you don't need to use transactional tracking and data analysis for your business.
2) Price - Quickbooks is quite pricey compared to some of the other software options out there. The lowest offering being $25/month giving you limited features and the plans only going up from there.
Freshbooks is well known for its simplicity and ease of use. Onboarding and setting up Freshbooks is quite easy, and intuitive. While it may not have as many data tracking features, it gives you the essentials and keeps things clean. It's ideal for service-based companies that don't need to get into the nitty-gritty of multiple small products.
It integrates with payment options, like direct bank transfers, PayPal, Venmo, apple pay, etc.
Like Quickbooks, Freshbooks allows automated recurring invoicing, but subscription services are an additional fee not included in the normal plans.
1) Intuitive - While Freshbooks doesn't have as many nifty features as Quickbooks, it's got a much more intuitive design platform focused on clearing away the clutter and making it easy to focus on the essentials.
2) Price - Freshbooks' pricing plans are much more affordable and are a better match for small business owners looking to automate and keep track of invoicing, payroll, and payments. The plans start at $15/month but go down to $10/month for yearly plans. You'll want to go with the "Plus" plan, which gives you more billable clients and tracking features.
3) Payroll integrations - While Freshbooks doesn't have its own payroll built into it, they do have integrations that allow you to connect with gusto -a payroll software. Allowing you to track and set up automated payments to your team.
A few honorable mentions are:
Xero - Simplistic design and integrations targeted toward micro businesses. It has limited tracking and data analysis features, though it does hook up with inventory and marketplace apps. Also charges on a percentage basis for sending and receiving invoices.
Wave - Great for service-based businesses, invoicing, time tracking, and easy-to-use design. It doesn't have great payroll or inventory tracking and targeted toward freelancers.
]]>The kit included multiple different mic options, a lapel mic, short and stubby, and a headset setup as well as several adapters to hook up with computers or phones.
The downside is that since I'm using my phone for the recording, the receiver that attaches to it hangs down from the phone so as to be quite inconvenient. It's too bad that it's not Bluetooth sync rather than a radio transmission, but I'm sure there's a workaround I can figure out. Overall though I'm very pleased with the mic and plan to use it for interviews.
A couple of days into the second quarter of 2021 and I'm on my 22nd book of the year! I wanted to share the titles I've been reading with a couple of likes and dislikes about them :)
1) The Servant - Fictional allegory about servant leadership, super engaging and well written! The whole book is in a story format teaching leadership principles. Highly recommend, super short but makes for a very good book on the weekend :)
2) Scrum - Project management for product development, using real-time feedback to design the product. Super well written and easy to understand, lots of small tricks you can use in your own personal life management.
3) The Scrum Feildbook - Stories of how Scrum was implemented successfully. Good book, though it was a bit overboard on how great scrum was. I wished they added a couple of failures of how it doesn't work in certain scenarios.
4) The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership - Amazing book! It's written kind of like a student-sensei relationship and gives excellent problem-solving formulas to overcome difficult situations in people management as well as manufacturing.
5) The Five Love Lanuguages - Probably one of my all-time favorite relationship-building book, it's written specifically for couples, but I've had amazing success applying the teachings to everyone I meet. Highly recommend!
6) Good to Great - One of my all-time favorites, really helped me see what truly great companies looked like and how to build them. Changed a lot of my mindset and opened me up to a whole new world of effective leadership with the level 5 leader.
7) Built to Last - Also really good, though it felt sort of rushed, I wouldn't say it's a memorable book, but all the content was really good, just not presented in an engaging and meaningful way.
8) Ego Is the enemy - Fantastic book, another one of my all-time favorites. It basically talks about how your ego is the enemy of your own success, and learning to be silent is one of the fastest ways to build a reputation. Highly highly recommend it to anyone, opened my eyes to a lot of things I was doing that just fueled my ego and nothing else.
9) The Pumpkin Plan - You can't go wrong with Mr. Mike motorbike, the pumpkin plan was very well written and made finding your ideal customer/client (giant pumpkin) very clear and straightforward, so much so that I've been unconsciously using those tricks in my everyday conversations with the people I speak to.
10) Ego, Authority, Failure - Very similar to "Never Split the Difference" and is close friends with Chris Voss. It's very well written and gives really good tips and tricks to reading people, but I don't like the way it's written. Feels very manipulative and "us vs them" mentality.
11) Read the Face - Another all-time favorite, not a Christian author by any means and does mention some weird religious stuff here and there, but overall fantastic book. He tells you how you can read people's faces in finding out who they are, even more, so they might know about themselves. He talks about how different faces are built and how certain ones incline people to have different passions in work. I was shocked how well it works, and only reading it once over I'm starting to pick up on a lot of subtle things about the people I talk to. Highly recommend it, though many may find it too "woo woo" magical, though it really isn't.
12) Start from Zero - Really interesting book about building SAAS (software as a service) businesses. The basic idea is finding a problem people are having, getting them to pay for it, and you build the app that you then sell out on a subscription basis. Really well written though he doesn't touch too much on the marketing of the product after it's built.
13) To Kill a Mockingbird - I can't believe I haven't read this classic before, a fantastic change of pace from the non-fiction books, and really enjoyed how it was written from the perspective of Scout in her understanding of what went on. I really wasn't expecting the ending.
14) Delivering Happiness - Excellent book starts out as an autobiography of Tony's life leading up to his building out Zappos and how he was able to do that by focusing on service over making a profit. I don't especially like how sporadic he is and how far he goes to seek happiness in different extremes, but overall very well written with a lot of outside-the-box thinking.
15) Autobiography of Henry Ford - All I can say is wow, another one of my all-time favorites. Henry Ford's story was nothing short of amazing, he really is one of the greats. His biography is very similar to R.G. LeTourneau in how he built his first car, and later his management style of Ford Motor Company was very insightful into how different people have different desires.
16) Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - Eloquently written with a lot of the inside looks of Benjamin's life and struggles. I hadn't realized that he wasn't, nor even in his later years a Christian, though he leads a very Christ-like life. I loved how he talked about his different clubs, reminds me a lot of our modern-day masterminds!
17) What We Found in the Sofa and How It Saved the World - Fun change of pace, fiction book recommended to me by a friend online. Super imaginative and had a lot of subtle life lessons/observations packed into it. The plot was decent, though the speed was a bit off, was very slow for the first 90% of the book, then suddenly sped up very fast and answered too many questions too quickly.
18) The New One Minute Manager - Can't believe I haven't read this management book before! Very similar to The Servant in how it's written as an allegory sort of style with the story being very engaging while providing a lot of thought-provoking ideas.
19) Scaling up - Good, not great. Pretty much a compilation of a lot of the great books already written, felt very much like it was a calling card more than a book written to teach. All the content was well presented, just didn't have that element that makes a great business book.
20) The 12 Week Year - Though I've read it before, I read it again this year, it's good, but in my opinion, not very well put together and doesn't resonate on my mind very much afterward. The outline of mapping out your year in a series of 12 weeks could have been further developed and given more real-life examples.
21) Autobiography of Nikola Tesla - Stopped halfway, it was interesting but felt very depressing and egotistical. It was an interesting book, to say the least, but I felt kind of sick halfway through and had to put it down. I probably won't be finishing it.
21) Principles - Great book on principles, though I didn't especially like the erratic nature of the author's story he used to share the principles. Very insightful though and did open my eyes to many subtle things that I hadn't looked very closely at previously
23) The Common Path to Uncommon Success - I'm a couple of chapters in so far, a good book, but so far I feel like it's written more as a calling card to take the space of an expert in his niche and not to just add value with no expectations of return. I can't complain about the content though, really good stuff and engaging stories.
]]>I've been having similar conversations with many different people talking about wanting to appear as a guest on a series of podcasts they've chosen. But the problem is, how do you go about crafting a message to them that actually gets results?
I've interviewed a dozen podcast hosts to find out what they would want to hear from potential guests in a cold email and found there are quite a few common threads among them. Realizing I may have hit upon something that might be helpful, I decided to put together a summarized version in form of a guide to crafting a message to podcast hosts to appear on their show!
The number one most common thread among the hosts was that of how they were treated. They get messages all the time from people asking to appear on their show, but most of them go unanswered because of the one-sided nature they write in. I go into it more into the PDF and how you can combat it!
Get the free PDF here:
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I've been tossing around the idea about writing a book for some time now and finally decided to pull the trigger and actually set a deadline for when I want it done.
I'm going to be using the 12 Week Year to complete this book in short sprints. I'm not entirely sure how long it will take, but I have the outline of the book made. Starting April 1st and ending on the 24th of June, I will have this book completely written, previewed, and edits made. A bonus would be to get it published by an agency and getting it on audible, but that would probably have to go into my next 12 week year.
The topic will be building a foundation from which you can improve and change all other areas of your life. It's based upon much different self-help, business/entrepreneurship, theology, physiology, all that I've used and proven through practicing regularly.
My target audience is primarily young adults 15-25 who have the drive to be different and above average but don't know how or where to begin. All of these practices can be applied to older generations as well with equal results, though I'm primarily speaking to the younger generation.
One of the struggles I've been working through is not making this an "all-inclusive" book; I've got a lot of material to work with but couldn't fit in a single book if I had any desire to publish it within the next 5 years. So I'm limiting myself to only talking about building a foundation and rock that doesn't change your life.
The biggest reason I want to write this book now and not later is primarily due to my age. Apart from my life mission, I want to bring more rational thinking and a real, lifelong desire to keep learning and growing. It's become a major problem with people of my generation with many spending time on entertainment. I want to write this book before I turn 18 because I can prove it's not only possible but fairly easy to do things young.
I only get one year to be 17, so I may as well make the most of it. Plus, being in the age demographic that this book is written for I have close insights into the troubles and can clearly remember/recognize problems I may not be able to recall in the future.
Doing some research about writing a book and the proper forms it should be outlined, I've found a few good starting points to start to get a good idea of the work involved and where to begin.
Generally, a self-help book is approximately 7-12 chapters long, with an average of 10 pages per chapter. The word count on each page is an average of 250-300.
The outline of the book goes as follows:
1) Introduction - Who I am and why I can talk about this topic
2) Ch 1 - Introduce the problem with examples
3) Ch 2 - Produce the solution with what it looks like after
4) Ch 3-9 - Step by step guide to having the solution with takeaways/actions at the end of each chapter for the reader to practice
5) Ch 10 - Overview of each step and a call to action
Photo by: Yannick Pulver on Unsplash
293 days ago, I joined Form CNC as an apprentice, 187 days of work later with 3 & 5-axis programming experience, and today was my last day at the shop.
For the past few months, I've been networking and building up a few clients online, serving as a serial integrator (basically systematizing the day-to-day tasks of business owners and managing teams), and that side work is picking up momentum!
I love machining, and it's been a major blessing to work for my boss Wayne Werner; I could not have found a better opportunity than what he's given me. However, I don't think it's the path I'm meant to go as much as I love the work. Putting aside the touchy-feely "follow your dreams," I do believe the work I'm doing online for these business owners is more in alignment with who I think I'm meant to be.
He really threw me in the deep end with the work I started on pretty much from day one, and I cannot express the gratitude I have for his willingness to take that risk. In the short 10 months or so I've worked for him, my knowledge and understanding of machining and the different thinking outside the box techniques I could not have learned at any other shop in that amount of time.
Mr. Werner has really been a mentor more than a boss; hearing his life experience and advice has been valuable and given me many different perspectives I wouldn't have considered on my own. Though I made many expensive mistakes throughout my time working at the shop, he's been nothing but encouraging.
I truly value everything he's taught me and the experience, cleaning and organizing the shop, programming and making the parts, getting to see the ins and outs of how a prototype machine shop works! We parted ways on a good note, and he tells me that I've got a job there if I ever wish to come back into machining, which is very comforting! I'm looking forward to keeping up the relationship I have with him and checking in every so often!
Everything I've learned from the shop has been very well worth every minute; going back, I wouldn't have changed a thing, except maybe to invest more of my time and attention into it. As it is, the skills I've picked up working for Mr. Werner have been very beneficial in increasing my understanding of how I learn and attention to detail that I would have had a hard time learning on my own.
It's hard to say goodbye to my first non-family mentor, but it's been nothing but an amazing experience, and I look forward to the future!
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Man, my head really isn't in the game today.
Working on this long rectangular part with the pocket at one end, and I made a very dumb and obvious mistake.
Since working on the previous sets of plate parts, I found that measuring the actual tool diameter gave me much tighter tolerances and reduced that variable at play so instead of getting an average of +-0.002," I was getting +-0.0007," which was significantly better!
So, thinking that measuring the tools for each operation was the way to go, I decided to do it for this larger part on the 3-axis mill. I was using a 3/4" for the majority of the roughing and finishing of the side walls. Not thinking about it, I measured the diameter and found it was 0.721" and input that into the program. If I took a second to think about it, I would have realized that that's a far cry from the 0.75" the tool was advertised as and would have double-checked my measurement.
Unfortunately, I didn't, and the machine ran with an incorrect tool diameter set, and I got the part undersized by 0.012" when it should have been oversized by 0.02". This meant I had to scrap the part and start over. However, when going to cut the stock, once again, I made another blunder of a mistake and cut the stock too short. Normally this isn't much of a problem because there is plenty of leftover stock from previous projects; however, due to the length of the part... I was fortunate to find a single piece long enough to fit the size.
The good news is we have the stock to remake the part; the bad news is, I wasted several hours of work and material cost over small, stupid mistakes. :/
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Cutting the large block of aluminum today to get ready for the large bracket pieces!
The idea behind cutting this large cube of aluminum in half is to have two pieces in which I can get two parts out of the chunk of material instead of just one. It seems like a massive waste, even with cutting the material down, and it is with about 90% of the material being cut away and recycled.
However, due to the specs of the parts, it's the only way I can make this part. Ideally, I would use a rolled corner bracket piece and just mill down the outside to get the right shape. However because this part will be used in nuclear testing, there have to be very specific requirements that each piece has to meet to reduce the number of variables that are encountered. I'm not sure about the exact use of the part itself, only a few ideas, but from what I understand it's meant for testing different materials under pressure.
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One of the parts that came in the other day is a large rectangular block of aluminum with an engraving on one side and an interesting pocket feature on the other.
This single pocket provides a fascinating challenge that you wouldn't think of by looking at it.
The problem with machining this pocket is milling out the radius corners within tolerance while still getting a decent surface finish. Because of the feature's depth and the tight fillets, you can't get too far down into the corners to get a decent finish.
Initially, I programmed this part on the 5-axis with simultaneous movements to clean up those corners and side walls with a ball endmill all in one shot. However, after testing out a few of the 5-axis toolpaths, I couldn't come up with anything that would work very well, and most had multiple weird angles that the machine would have a hard time reaching.
I got on with one of Fusion360's help team to help me figure out the solution to this problem and open my eyes to areas I may have missed. Unfortunately, the solution they gave was very similar to what I had come up with and wasn't ideal but would technically work. The problem is that it focuses more on getting the material removed than simplified axis movements, so it chooses the path of least resistance. Which, in this case, means that it will flip the part upsidedown, attempt to the machine through holes, and other sketchy movements that would crash the machine.
I'm going to have to go back to the drawing board with this one and probably end up doing it all on the 3-axis and taking a ball endmill with small stepdowns along the sidewalls and bottom surface of the pocket.
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All of this to say, Monday.com is an amazing tool and very intuitive! It hooks up seamlessly with your current systems allowing you and your team to stay in your zone of genius without having to deal with the headache of chasing people down!
Working on a new set of parts today that pose a unique machining technique!
One of the parts is bracket shaped piece with two thin plates meeting at one point at the ends. The tricky part comes into play because of their size! With each side being approximately 8 inches long, the only way to make these bracket parts is out of a large block of aluminum and cutting away all the excess material.
My boss bought a large square block of aluminum 10"x10"x6", and today I cut dovetails on both the top and bottom of it, then I will cut it diagonally from one corner to the other to get two triangular pieces that I can use to make the brackets. So instead of milling out a whole block of aluminum and getting one piece, I can get two by cutting the block in half!
I'll be doing all the work on the 5-axis due to this piece's features and some of the tricky surface finish requirements along the side walls. To be totally honest, I am really not excited to work on this, a super big and sketchy part to make that won't be easy. But that provides the challenge, which will be very educational and exciting.
Running through the final parts of this bundle just in time for the weekend!
Everything went suspiciously smoothly today, and I figured out how I messed up yesterday with the miss-aligned chamfer. In my process for milling these parts, I hold the stock with hard jaws and cut away the top portion and do the detail work until I have a hat-shaped piece, at which point I would flip over and set my G54 work zero off of one of the hole features.
The mistake occurred when I was flipping the part over, and I accidentally turned it the wrong way around, so instead of the front-facing toward me, it faced the back of the vice. The hole looked to be centered in the part, so I didn't think to double-check it was in the right orientation.
Trying something a bit different, sort of by accident, I set up what I thought was a 3/4" square endmill to finish the side of the larger parts, but when it was contouring the part, I noticed it wasn't cutting anything. Come to find out, instead of it being a 0.75" it was actually 0.02" undersized for some reason. I measured it and added the correct value into Fusion360 and got spot-on results, and the part came out to be within a few tenths. I'm tempted to measure each of my tool's actual diameters going forward to see if I can get tighter tolerances on my parts!
Making all these parts match in their appearance, I used red Scotchbrite to give it a streaked grain look, removing all the machine marks. This wasn't entirely necessary, but a nice touch to have them all match together!
]]>Well, I spoke too soon in my last post, saying I was getting into a nice flow of mistake-free parts making, and I scrapped the first piece of the bundle today, which is too bad.
These parts are super simple 2-op jobs, and I'm doing them all using hard jaws, so flipping it over and finding my g54 work zero is the most time-consuming process. Unfortunately, I somehow forgot to reset the x-axis location point, and when the chamfer endmill was coming around to contour, the top of the part is cut in about a 1/6th into the top of the part, which puts it out of print.
It's not too big of a deal and doesn't cost much to get the next piece of stock up and going. Going forward, I need to double-check my work zero settings and move the head back and forth to confirm it's in the right location.
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Running through the rest of these plate parts fairly quickly since getting the machine set up yesterday!
I'm starting to get into a new rhythm of programming and running operations that feels very different from my old processes! It may be that I am building more confidence that my CAM programs will run correctly without errors, but I've gone through several jobs now without any but cosmetic errors!
I'm really enjoying playing around with Fusion360's setup settings and using that to create the stock around the part vs. my old process of manually drawing out the stock and placing the part within it!
One of these sets of parts I got to work on today reminds me a lot of the Starwars currency 'credits'; they've got a nice weighty feel and similar shape to the ones in the movies!
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I am super happy today because I think I have a new record for turning out new parts from nothing to set the machine up, programming, and running the operation to inspection!
The one tricky part with this that wasn't that much of a problem was the engraving. Each job that comes in from this client has part numbers on them that we need to engrave, and they have it cut into the 3D CAD itself to reference off of. I originally was using an engraving endmill to do these part numbers, but I had some issues where if I were slightly off in my z height, the engraving wouldn't be consistent with the rest of the parts.
To fix that, my boss had me switch over to a 1/16" ball endmill and I used a pocket clearing toolpath to cut out each character. Fusion360 normally doesn't allow you to use ball endmills for clearing pockets, but I found if you lie to it and tell it you're using a 0.01" ball and leaving stock on the walls, you can get it to produce the CAM!
To be fair, the parts themselves weren't complicated and had very basic features, but with a two operation run and setting all the tools up, my rough calculation comes to about an hour and a half! This is a single part that's bundled with other parts with similar features, so running through the remaining sets shouldn't take long with everything already setup!
Today I was able to finish up these plate parts by haphazardly drilling the difficult-to-reach holes!
Going into this project, making these threaded holes on the plates' side was going to be a bear to produce. Thankfully setting each of these pieces and getting them running wasn't as difficult as it was time-consuming, and it didn't take me long before I had them all finished!
Visuals are necessary to understand how I was able to drill holes on a 17" tall part with a machine that could only travel 14" in its Z height. I set the vice up against the X-Y axis table's back end so the plate would hang down below the bottom of the top surface. I then put a square in the vice and clamped each plate part onto that square using an indicator and light taps with a hammer to get it centered in place.
From there, it was smooth sailing and only took a couple of minutes to program each part and get them running! I did have to run the speeds and feeds pretty slow for the drilling process to ensure the plate wouldn't get pushed down in the process!
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