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:

Appear On Podcasts With These 6 Tips

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!