When I worked in retail, I never got the allure of weekends. After all, these were the most busy days of the week, and if I was looking for a break, it would usually be on a Monday or something. I often work with global teams, meaning that my mornings […]
Category: value
Invisible Costs
It’s easy to track expenses that are obvious expenditures. Salary costs, program licensing fees, the manufacturing cost of your new product, or the training cost of upskilling a manager. It’s harder to track things like how much it costs you to run an all-hands meeting every week, or how much […]
Level Setting
I like to think of skill acquisition and progression like levels in a video game. If you’re a level ten at something, you’re in the best of the world, and you’re likely celebrated and/or paid for it. If you’re a level one, you’re just starting out and have very little […]
Who is Tim Ferriss?
In the work I do, almost everyone knows who Tim Ferriss is. However, when I go talk to my friends from college, almost none of them know who he is. In the work my wife does, everyone knows who Nathan Fowkes is. However, when I talk to anyone who doesn’t […]
What does value look like?
What is more valuable: The actual work, or making sure the work gets done? Creating the experience for the customer so they tell their friends, or creating slick ads for social media? Engineering the product, or raising the capital to hire the engineer? We can choose to pay people based […]
Swag
When I owned a screen printing company, we made a good amount of money off of companies who liked to give out branded swag to their employees and guests. Sometimes I got to print super awesome things – like awesome leather clutches or super amazing illustrations on t-shirts. But most […]
A Cancelled Refund
I recently had to call an insurance company to try and get a refund that a statement said was owed to me. In truth, it was an accounting error and they actually didn’t owe me anything, and I could hear the fear in Melissa’s voice as she told me that […]
Store Bought Costumes
As a kid, I only had handmade costumes, as I couldn’t afford to go pick out something from the local pop-up Halloween store, or Toys ‘R Us (RIP). While I deeply love my care bear costume my grandmother once sewed me, as I grew older I remember always being a […]
Quality Matters
As someone who has stayed in motels as well as five-star hotels, who eats questionable leftovers from the pan and has also dined at Michelin-rated restaurants, I believe that quality is contextual. When I was first learning how to paint, I bought cheap paints. I still use inexpensive paint occasionally, […]
Making yourself valuable 101, part 2
How much is a cup of coffee worth to you? Say, a cup of Starbucks coffee, the medium size (I obviously don’t drink coffee), but they’re out of cream and sugar. How much would you pay for this cup of coffee right now? How about at 1am if you’re trying […]