Well this seems like a good opportunity to post a few of the lessons I learned in my 20s.

To my former self:

If you're depressed, here's how to turn it around

• Stop drinking, this is the main cause.
  
  
• Lift weights. This alone could also stop depression. It's likely related to low testosterone levels
  
  
• Fapping too much makes the depression worse
  
  Fap less, and never to porn
  
  
• Ejaculating too often removed your motivation to take actions and start tasks. You can consider porn like a poison for the mind. Pleasurable but it desensitizes you to all other pleasures, making life seem bland and boring. Until the only thing you want is porn. It perpetuates itself.
  
  
  Gratitude
  
  
• Whatever you are grateful for will grow
  
  
• Gratitude is the only way to be happy. If you think about what happiness is, it's appreciating what you have. When you think of something that would make you happy, you are imagining yourself appreciating it when you get it.
  
  Wealth
  
  
• You can have anything you want, as long as you create enough value for others first.
  
  
• To be wealthy, don't try and do tomorrow's work today, just have a successful day each day. If you have more successful days than unsuccessful days, your wealth will grow. As you have successful and productive days, opportunities will be attracted to you.
  
  Theories
  
  
• The key to success in any area is having the right theory. A small amount of work, or a massive amount of work, with the wrong theory, won't lead to success.
  
  
• With the right theory, success will be relatively straight forward. When you do the thing, it will basically work every time. Anything that has been done many times before, can be done yourself with the correct theory
  
  
• When most people speak of the 'years of hard work' they put in before they 'cracked the game', usually means they were laboring under the wrong theory, and then one day they found the correct theory, and when they applied it, it worked. (excluding world class athletes, talking about common things like starting a business or growing muscles)
  
  
• Theories can be gathered by spending tens of thousands of dollars on seminars or tens of dollars on books. Both can contain theories that work and theories that don't work. Higher cost definitely does not mean they have the right theory
  
  
• Some theories can seem like they are guaranteed to work, but on testing, actually don't. When someone says they have the right theory, it will seem worth any price. Often they actually don't. Beware. If possible buy their book and test it for yourself, it's just as good in book form.
  
  
• This whole list is a list of theories, as you can see, they are usually quite simple and easy to understand. Complexity is usually a sign the person doesn't really know how things work
  
  
  Girls
  
  
• You cannot make a girl like you, you can however find a girl who likes you
  
  
• They key to getting girls is to get in excellent shape (lift weights), dress well, and talk to girls until you find one that likes you
  
  
• If a girl is unsure if she you likes you, won't go on a date with you, or doesn't let you touch her in anyway. She doesn't like you. Find one that wants all those things. Don't be fooled by girls who seem to REALLY like you but doesn't have time to meet, or won't let you touch her. They do not like you like that.
  
  
• Hot girls are just as likely to like you as not hot girls
  
  
• If you like a girl more than she likes you, and she doesn't want to meet up/hang out/have sex. Let her go and move on
  
  
  Career
  
  
• It's very easy to get ahead if you just try, most people don’t
  
  
• You career will naturally progress just through normal learning, don't worry about it
  
  
  Flow
  
  
• If you want things to happen without effort and struggle, live a life with gratitude and presence. Things will seem to happen easily and naturally.
  
  
  Meditation
  
  
• Mediation gives you the ability to be your best. Very handy for improving at anything, particularly gaming, as you see more and learn more. It gives you access to creativity in solving problems and improving your performance
  
  
• Mediation allows you to 'stop the mind'. Do this if you're stuck in over-analysis
  
  
• To meditate, set a time on your phone for 20 minutes, sit still and don't move a muscle, and focus on your breath as often as you can. Your mind will try to stray, just focus on your breath as much as able. This is how you quiet the mind
  
  *****
  Edit:
  
  To answer some requests, here's my list of resources.
  
  Wealth/Metaphysics
  
  
• http://www.audible.com.au/pd/Health-Personal-Development/The-Science-of-Getting-Rich-Audiobook/B00FMUQVSI
  This audiobook has the best summary I've found of how wealth works
  
  Lifting
  
  
• https://stronglifts.com/5x5/
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Starting-Strength-Basic-Barbell-Training/dp/0982522738
  
  
• http://startingstrength.com/
  
  
• http://www.leangains.com/2011/09/fuckarounditis.html
  
  How Procrastination works:
  
  
• https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastinate.html
  
  
• https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/11/how-to-beat-procrastination.html
  
  How Business works
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Personal-MBA-Master-Art-Business/dp/1591845572
  
  What innovation actually is and how to do it:
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Innovation-Entrepreneurship-Peter-F-Drucker/dp/0060851139
  
  How economics works:
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/How-Economy-Grows-Why-Crashes/dp/047052670X
  
  How to get things done:
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity/dp/0142000280
  
  Task Management tool:
  
  
• https://todoist.com/
  
  Spiritual Books
  
  
• Spiritual books won't make sense unless you've had an awakening, and you can't make this happen, it happens by chance/grace. If you have, anything by Eckhart Tolle will be amazing.
  
  How to be a man:
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Way-Superior-Man-Spiritual-Challenges/dp/1591792576
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Truth-Spiritual-Guide-Death/dp/1591792592
  
  Audiobooks (most of these can be found on audiobook):
  
  
• Audible.com
  
  Frame Control (Anytime you feel like you're trying too hard or begging for something, you lost the frame)
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Pitch-Anything-Innovative-Presenting-Persuading/dp/1501211811
  
  This is my favourite book of all. They talk about the new type of conscousness which is really really interesting to me. May not apply to all people.
  If anyone find this book interesting I'd love to talk about it:
  
  How the world works:
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Spiral-Dynamics-Mastering-Values-Leadership/dp/1405133562
  
  
• https://www.audible.com.au/pd/Spiral-Dynamics-Integral-Audiobook/B00FO5660E
  
  

It's tough to offer any kind of advice for your situation because you talk in a lot of generalities.

However, my wife and I have struggled quite a bit over the last few years and it sucks. I feel like things are getting better, but there are always mis-steps even on the up-swing.

If your wive really has checked out, there's not much you can do. It takes two to make a couple.

However. You can work on yourself. In so doing, you might find that it helps your relationship. Or it might not. But even if your relationship falls apart, you will be in a much better space to cope with that and move on -- as difficult as it seems right now.

So, here's my suggestions ... things that I have been doing and reading over the last couple of years that have really helped me.

1. Stop looking at all the things she is doing wrong. Focus on what she is doing right. This is tough and requires a huge shift in thinking and an even bigger thinking around letting go of your ego.
   
   
2. Every day do something to show some appreciation for someone in your life. One person every day. Say thank you and tell them what they mean to you. This will help you focus on more positive things overall. Include your wife in this, though she doesn't need to be the focus of this every day.
   
   
3. Be honest with yourself and her. Can you give her what she wants. There are some things that I just can't give my wife. And some things she can't give me. How important are these things? And are there other ways to get them?
   
   
4. Adopt a meditation practice. Download the Headspace app. It has a nice introduction to meditation. It has helped me immensely.
   https://www.headspace.com/
   
   
5. If you don't exercise, start. Personally, I enjoy weight lifting. Try Strong Lifts if you can. It's a simple program that will show fast results.
   http://stronglifts.com/
   
   
6. If you don't eat healthy, start. There are so many diets out there. Even if you just start eating smaller portions and cut out snacking, you'll see some positive results. That's where I started. I eventually started doing the Alt Shift Diet. Yeah, you can call it a fad diet or whatever. I don't care. It works for me and that's the key -- find a diet that works for you.
   http://altshiftdiet.com/
   
   
7. Read How to talk so your kids will listen and listen so your kids will talk. Great advice that applies even when you are talking to adults.
   https://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Kids-Will-Listen/dp/1451663889/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1474568476&sr=1-1&keywords=how+to+talk+so+kids+will+listen+%26+listen+so+kids+will+talk
   
   
8. Read People Skills. This is a great book on active listening and conflict resolution. Helpful in so many situations.
   https://www.amazon.com/People-Skills-Yourself-Resolve-Conflicts/dp/067162248X
   
   
9. Read this post and some of the posts that follow it. Incredibly insightful
   https://np.reddit.com/r/sexover30/comments/538uat/mismatched_couples/d7r5hys
   
   
10. Read Never Split the Difference. Another great book that is geared more toward business negotiation, but has been a great help in my personal life. I can take the time to understand someone else's perspective without letting go of mine. Also great to help assert myself better in my relationship. His description of active listening was also helpful.
    https://www.amazon.com/Never-Split-Difference-Negotiating-Depended/dp/0062407805/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1474568493&sr=1-1&keywords=chris+voss
    
    
11. Read Come as You Are. A great book on women's sexuality specifically, but it's really about sexuality in general. It's backed by a lot of research. Has a lot of insight into human sexuality. Great reading. Helped me understand myself and my wife better. (Goes beyond the typical High Libido and Low Libido stuff that I always found less than helpful.)
    http://www.amazon.com/Come-You-Are-Surprising-Transform/dp/1476762090/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1436544375&sr=8-1&keywords=come+as+you+are
    
    
12. Do stuff on your own. Go out with friends. Go to the movies by yourself. Make sure both of you get breathing room away from each other.
    
    
13. Be honest. If you feel something tell her. You don't have to be mean. But do be honest. "You are making me angry right now, can we talk about it later when I have calmed down." "Your tone sounds rude and condescending. Please talk to me like I am an adult or we can wait and talk later." This one is tough and statements should be made from your perspective rather than made as statements of fact.
    
    Anyway, those are my suggestions and have helped me immensely. Take what you think will work for you. Ignore the rest.
    
    Best of luck!
    

> For me, RP is like economics. It's a model of human behavior that is built on predictions and patterns.
> TRPers are like economists. There are many "schools" that are built around RP, some of which are more closely aligned with the model (from my perspective) and some of which are not. And just because someone says they are an economist does make them an expert in economics.
> Trying to understand RP just from reading what various TRPers write is as ridiculous as trying to understand economics from what various self-proclaimed economists write.

Actually, I'm mostly referring to the sidebar when I discuss TRP concepts. And comparing TRP to economics is a great example.

Remember why the financial crisis happened in 2008? That's right - flawed ideas of economics. There's tons of literature on how applied neoclassical economics quickly can become a self-fulfilling prophecy which apparently produces results in the short term, but in the long term spells doom.

Same thing applies to TRP. Compare the average TRPer to an investor during the pre-crisis area. The investor buys MBS-funds which seem to pay off infinitely. So he puts more and more money into it, after a while he has invested everything he owns. Sometimes people warn him that his assets are based on mortages that will immediately default, and thus are worthless in the long run. But he points at his current net worth: Can't people see that this is working? Suddenly the entire market crashes do to the innate rotten nature of his MBS funds, and he is left with no assets and a whole lot of debt.

Same thing for the TRP guy. Spends years acting in line with TRP philosophy. It ostensibly works at first, but people are telling him that his behavior will not allow him to reach his goals in the long term. He ignores them and continues his TRP lifestyle. 5 years down the line the woman of his dreams leaves him. She's tired of him dissmissing her and walking away at the slightest hint of anger from her ("Holding frame"), she's tired of him not taking her seriously ("Amused mastery") and she has grown aware of how fragile and insecure his ego is as he seems to interpret anything she says as an insult ("Passing shit tests"). Now the man is fucked.

> Ugh. I hate the direct comparison to PUA. I know little about PUA as a whole (though some of their actions do seem to line up with what I would recommend), but I know I'm not the only RPer who bemoans RP turning into something like "PUA 2.0". RP, to my mind, is not just a new form of PUA. It goes way beyond what I understand of PUA, which really seems to only focus on short-term hookups.

Every single TRP idea existed in the PUA community. The most famous part of the community (popularly seen in "The Game" By Neil Strauss) involved tips and tricks for short-term hookups. The "Inner game" part of the community is pretty much identical to TRP. Just look at videos from RSD (Real Social Dynamics) and you'll find pretty much every TRP concept there.

> Again, you are focusing on the doing and not on the being (which isn't surprising, given that many TRPers make the same mistake). It's back to the old "fake it until you make it" idea. If you know who you need to be (like, say, confident), it can be useful to emulate that quality until you actually express it naturally, but to assume that the faking it is the making it is completely off-base.

I disagree. This is a flawed way of thinking. You cannot emulate confidence until it appears. Confidence is a feeling that makes you act and feel a certain way. We know from psychology that confidence is the result of your experiences within a given field and your interpretation of that. The only thing you accomplish by acting confident is that you get better at... acting like a confident person. Most people see through that easily.

> The end goal of RP is not to "do alpha", it's to "be alpha." If you are being alpha, all the rest of the shit will fall into place.

I understand the differences her between being and doing. But if you are actively (as is promoted in the sidebar) doing "Alpha male stuff" like "Holding frame" or "Amused mastery", then you are actually just teaching yourself a set behavior. You are not actually being authentic and acting in line with your own values - which would be what the idealized "Alpha male" would do.

> I can always tell that someone just attended a class or training by the fact that their actions are so out of alignment with their being.

And this is exactly what I'm talking about! Would that leader "Be" a leader by faking it until he made it?

> My understanding of the "hypergamy" dynamic and how men and women express and feel love differently comes from years of both reading various experts and studies on the subject of human sexuality and from my countless conversations (and relationships) with other people from all walks of life, so it's hard for me to reference something off-hand. I would say that the work of David Buss goes a long way towards validating the idea of hypergamy/polygyny as base sexual drives in humans, so I would check him out for that. Not included in this discussion, but I found that Esther Parel advocates a view of sexuality that confirms the idea of AF/BB, so that's another non-RP source.

I'm familiar with David Buss and evolutionary psychology. And yes, it describes why the impulses men and women have when it comes to sex have evolved. Women have evolved to be more selective because they risk pregnancy, while for men no such mechanism has been adaptive. However, men are also strongly attracted to visual cues of genetic fitness, just like women. There is nothing gender specific about the idea of "Hypergamy" if it is merely defined as the desire for an attractive partner.

> Why is that so hard to believe?

There are plenty of reasons for this in an evo psych perspective. The most important one being that the high SMV man has other opportunities. Unless the woman is equally high in SMV, there's no way for her to know that he won't just pump and dump her, then leave her for a prettier woman. Then she's stuck with a baby and no man to protect her. Bad idea.

But in terms of real life applications, I was referring to the "Branch jumping" idea. Let's say you have a girlfriend. She meets a guy who has a better job than you, is more confident, looks better than you - he is a higher SMV male.

Does she immediately leave you if he hits on her? According to the idea of branch jumping : Yes.

> What people ideally want and what people can realistically get are two totally different animals.

Of course. I mean, If everyone got what they wanted, I'd be a space cowboy. But I'm not, and I'm still quite happy with my career. And just like I'm happy with my career, a woman can be happy with her man even though he's not the perfect man. And a man can be the same.

> Most of life requires trade-offs that result from a cost benefit analysis.

Are you applying classical economical assumptions to human behavior? Because it seems you're talking of humans as rational actors. I recommend this book by Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize winner in economics, which describes why humans do not fall in line with the assumption of the classical "Economic man".

> And it's interesting that you perceive polygamy as the result of patriarchal societies. I would maybe conjecture that you think that, conversely, monogamy is not a result of patriarchal societies? If so, there are many anthropologists who would disagree with you. They see enforced monogamy as something instituted by men for men and not for the benefit of women.

The old-fashioned form of monogamy is patriarchal because women had to marry. They couldn't work or go to school. Modern monogamy is not a patriarchal construct. And since we've already covered evolutionary psychology, it's worth mentioning that humans have an evolved pair-bonding mechanism which includes emotions aimed at keeping the relationship exclusive (Jealousy).

> The assertion that "women wouldn't want to share" presumes a modern setting for mating, which would be a mistake. I guarantee you that, at a time when resources were scarce and survival was a daily question, the concern over "sharing" becomes far less important than the concern over "how do I ensure the survival of my child and myself? How will I ensure that sufficient resources are available for accomplishing that?"

We agree here. If nuclear war ravaged the world tomorrow this would definately be the case.

> Additionally, it must be noted that the whole notion of humans being naturally monogamous, especially for life, doesn't really hold up in either an academic or a real world sense. Clearly, monogamy, especially life-long monogamy, is not the natural order of things for humans (otherwise, we wouldn't have all the conversations about n-counts and cheating and divorce and...). Humans have found that lifetime monogamy can work well for both parties in certain settings, but that does not mean that's what we are wired to do.

We have a drive for pair bonding, that's about it. It doesn't really make sense to talk about a "Natural order of things" with humans, the entire success of our species is contingent on us being adaptive. For a lot of people. life long monogamy will work. For a lot of people, it won't. The reasons why and why not are unique to each case and infinitely complex.

> I could write a book on this. Many authors already have. I don't have time now, but maybe we can get into it at some point. In the meantime, this is probably one of the most explored topics in human sexuality.

Sure, I'm interested.

I'm trying to be more on the SEO/IM side of things for my own personal affiliate sites so in my opinion, the best way to learn is trial and error. I put a bunch of things online and see how they do and then test and adjust. That being said, I do use a fair few other things to try and boost my knowledge.

YouTube

Steven Bartlett
24 year old owner of a successful social media marketing company in the UK, vlogs his daily life and shares a few nuggets now and then.

Valuetainment
Based on an Iranian immigrant to the USA, not 100% on his back history but the way he talks about the immigrant fire to earn money I am pretty sure he went there with little to nothing in his pocket. Judging by his house, cars and life style he has did very well. He has kind of diluted the channel recently in my opinion though by letting other people make videos for him.

Gary Vaynerchuk
Pretty much owns the entrepreneur vlogging space right now. He seems the type of guy where you either love him or hate him. Personally, I like his no BS approach of giving people reality checks on what it really takes to be an entrepreneur rather than posting photos on Instagram of a nice life.

Podcasts

How I Built This
He basically interviews a bunch of CEO/MD types of massive successful businesses. It's not really a how to type of thing but I enjoy listening to how people got their projects off the ground and I have picked up a fair few things from it.

Indie Hackers
Only recently found thing one but so far so good.

Black Hearted
I'm a bit of a fan boy when it comes to these guys to be honest, they are US military vets who now own a number of successful businesses and they get other vets on the podcast who also own their own businesses and talk about them. Its not just focused on business though but I love the military humor and get it done attitude of them.

Reading

I update this post with all of the books I have read but here are my top picks.

Zero To One
The first book that I couldn't put down until I completed it. Picked a fair few things up from it as well as a bunch of things I hope to move forward with in the future with startups.

The 33 Strategies of War
Not a business book but definitely my style if you take the examples and strategies and turn them into business. This is the second book I have not been able to put down once picking it up.

The E-Myth Revisited
Although I had a decent understanding of how to allocate duties to people depending on their job role this helped me better understand it as well as the importance of doing it.

ReWork
Another book I loved, just introduced me to a bunch of new concepts with a fair few I hope to use in the future.

Black Box Thinking
Coming from and engineering background I was already used to being ok with my failures provided I was learning from them but this book is based around how different industries treat failure and how it is important to accept it and grow from it.

The 50th Law
Currently reading it but so far i'm loving it. Never realized how much crap 50 cent had to go through and I love Robert Greene's work so I can see my classing this as a tier one book.

OK, so here is my advice.

First, some background on me so you know where I'm coming from with this. I started my own business almost 5 years ago. It's a tech company, but I think I've learned enough that there are applicable lessons, not only from my work but from the other entrepreneurs this has put me in contact with. Currently my company is self sustaining, has 5 full time employees, and Fortune 100 customers (we make B2B software).

First thing - you have to be really careful starting a business around your passion. This can be an easy way to come to hate your hobby. Remember that it is a business first. While I haven't reread it in years, you might want to read a book called The E Myth which talks about starting a small business.

Second, if you're serious about this, I hope this post wasn't some sort of customer validation experiment. Of course people here are going to be interested. However, most likely no one here is an actual potential customer. I've read some of your other answers here where you've mentioned that games sell "like hot cakes" and there is no real competition and it's a large market. If you do this without any real customer validation you're going to have a rough time at best and be out of business quickly with a ton of debt at worst. Who are your customers? How are they going to know about this place? How do you know what they are willing to pay to participate? How do you know THEY want a place like this? How do you know they are actually willing to pay you money to come to this place? A good book to help understand the various ways you can gain traction is Traction which discusses 19 different traction channels and how people have put them to use to grow their business.

Can you deal with competition? Even if there isn't another business like this in the area, how do you know someone isn't working to start one? If your business is a success will someone start a competitor? Are you ready for that? What if a month before you open a competitor beats you to it? If you have a solid business and plans to grow in place you'll be fine.

I don't know if you plant to raise money or not, but regardless of that fact, think of how you would pitch this to someone who could invest but doesn't give a crap about boardgames or pubs. Would someone who is looking at this from a purely objective money making standpoint be interested? Have you generated enough traction, attention, and interest to make this an appealing business prospect? If not, what can you do to change that? If you can't figure that out now, do you really want to wait until you're deep into this business to try and figure it out?

Set up some metrics. Probably the best way to do it for your business is to measure revenue per visit. How much profit do you expect to make per person per visit? If you are charging $4 per person and then you expect some % of them to buy additional things (food, games, drinks) - your avg per person should be over $4, obviously. How many visitors and at what average profit per visitor do you need to stay afloat? You can increase your overall profit 2 ways - increase the number of visitors or increase the average profit per visitor. You'll have some limits - you an only fit so many people in the building, for example. This will help you determine if this business can be profitable and give you an idea of where you need to be so you know early on if you're tracking well or not. Measure everything that you can.

Basically, just be careful. You're mixing your hobby with your work, but you have to remember it's a business first and foremost. Treat it like a business and be honest with yourself and you'll be fine.

Also, fried foods with games sounds like a good way to end up with a library of greasy games.

Came here to say basically this.

OP - you need to think about this from the customer end of things - how many people go out looking for "a creative mind"? No one I know of, unless they have a follow-on, "for ___". You need to make it clear what you provide and who your target market or markets are.

Sachbl makes a great point about kid-focussed services, so let's start with that.

You decide (in our example) to target the market defined as 'parents with 1 or more children under 7-8yrs of age' to sell a service that could be described as 'decorating/painting children's room and furniture'.

With that starting point you now know you need to make your service visible to that market. So, where do they go, what do they do, who do they communicate with or work with in their day to day lives?

A few answers might be day-care, pediatricians, and other service providers who target the same market. Perhaps even stores that sell second-hand kid supplies (more on that in a second).

Now, knowing that, how do you get information about your service into those areas? Are there day-care providers in your area that would be willing to make flyers available to parents, on a bulletin board, flyer rack in their lobbies or something like that? Same question with pediatricians offices.

If yes, put a flyer together - as professionally done as you can, make it clean, spell-checked, proofed by a friend, and go by businesses willing to let you advertise like that. Bring a portfolio in case they are interested in seeing your work - don't be pushy and do be mindful that they are doing you a huge favor by letting you advertise there. You are at their place of business and they may not have time or interest, but if they are interested, a good impression could lead to verbal referrals.

Now, back to businesses selling secondhand / hand-me-down / twice-loved goods for kids, these are an opportunity for B2B (business to business) rather than B2C (business to customer/consumer) work. How many of them get furniture in that they would be willing to pay to get reconditioned/refurbished? How much could you charge them while still leaving them an ability to make a profit off the final product? Would charging that amount be worth your time? If they can afford to pay $10 to have a chair done and it takes you 2hrs, then you are making $5/hr, out of which you are having to pay your own taxes as a small business owner. You've already had experience with this issue, but I wanted to reinforce that - it's something a lot of businesses lose track of sometimes - you don't just need to make money, you need to have positive cash flow, which you won't have if you spend too much time making too little profit.

What about people selling/renting homes or apartments to parents? Or companies that do home remodeling? Do either of these businesses market themselves to parents specifically? Would they be interested in a partnering arrangement, where they do some sort of construction/remodeling work and you come in and decorate? I have no idea if that's an opportunity, but partnerships where you can represent an additional service someone else can sell is another angle to use.

The above discussion is oriented around the example of decorating for children's spaces, but I think you can see the general ideas in play. Just ask the same questions for whatever market you are aiming for.

Resources

Business Model Generation
If you can track down a copy of Business Model Generation (amazon.com), I think you'll find it very helpful in organizing your thoughts on all of this, especially with the visual approach to modeling. If you can't afford it, check your local public library and see if they have it locally or available via interlibrary loan.

The Business Model Generation website is also useful.


The Small Business Administration (SBA)

You sound very motivated and at the beginning of the entrepreneurial adventure. A good resource for someone in your position, besides your local bookstore/library business section, is your local SBDC.

• The SBA runs local Small Business Development Centers (SBDC) throughout the country, in partnership with colleges and universities. You can which one is nearest you at Wisconsin SBDC Locations and call to set up an appointment. Most of their services are free, some classes and seminars may cost a modest fee. There is usually a lending library, and you can get assigned a counselor who can provide some advice on various matters.
  
  
• For that matter, the SBA website has various learning resources that provide plenty of reading material on the business end of running a business.
  
  
• Lastly, check out your local Chamber of Commerce. They will usually run networking events and may also have classes. Word of mouth and networking are probably going to be your best tools for generating business for a while. The more opportunities for exposure, the better.
  
  
  Last Thoughts
  
  Keep in mind these are also opportunities to make a very bad impression. A key thing you want to do is create the impression that despite your youth and the fact that you are in the early days of your business, you both understand that you have a lot to learn (and are thus seeking out resources, information, business education) and approach your business as a business, not a hobby you hope to make money off of.
  
  I'm not saying that in relation to anything in your post, but I've seen a lot of people who ... basically gave one the sense that they had no idea what they were doing, no idea that they had no idea what they were doing, and were basically just making/doing something for money and throwing it out into the market and hoping for the best. Ugh.
  
  That's about all I've got in me at the moment. I hope you find it helpful. Don't be afraid to take a day / weekend job to keep your head above water. Getting a business started can take time. You need to eat and have a place to live until then. Money helps with this. :)

Some version of this question gets posted at least once a week. Heres a repost of my normal response.

Recommended reading

Here is my suggested reading list for anyone who ever wants to be a small business owner. I like audiobooks but you can get some of these in print also.

Entrepreneur Mindset

There are several books that talk about the entrepreneur mindset. “Rich Dad Poor Dad” was one of the first that I had encountered. “Four Hour Work Week” is a popular one among young adults and lazy millennials now. But I think this one below sums it up in a relatively fast and easy way. To me there is nothing wrong in this book, but in my opinion it’s a little incomplete and inaccurate and won’t work for some people. It doesn’t say how to switch lanes, or say that you can be in two lanes at the same time. Still, it should be required reading for anyone remotely interested in business. It’s at the top of my list because the correct mindset is required before anyone can think about actually doing business.

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-Millionaire-Fastlane-Crack-the-Code-to-Wealth-and-Live-Rich-for-a-Lifetime-Audiobook/B0143BEDUO


Business and Marketing

These two combined are basically an MBA in a box and then some. High level practical information. They are long audiobooks that go over the lessons of an MBA program, and the first one also covers a lot of life hacking and mind hacking theories such as how to stay motivated etc. Some of this stuff is very interesting, some if it is boring to slog through. But knowing what is in here will have you well versed to communicate about business at a high level. I have listened to both several times, I keep coming back because it’s a lot and I can’t learn it all at once.

https://www.amazon.com/Personal-MBA-Master-Art-Business/dp/1591845572

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Critical-Business-Skills-for-Success-Audiobook/B00UY842O8


The E Myth series basically describes how many entrepreneurs fail to implement systems in their business. It has a couple other important business concepts and is geared mainly for beginning entrepreneurs or those who have not yet studied a lot about business at a high level.

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Audiobook/B002V1LGZE

Mike Michalowicz, Solid principles, Some are regurgitations of Seth Godin and E-Myth, but some are original and insightful. Not very efficient in delivery of material, seems like he stretches it out. But one of the few business authors who gets into nuts and bolts and not just rah rah. I would highly recommend.

https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-Toilet-Paper-Entrepreneur-Audiobook/B00FKCI3I4

https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-Pumpkin-Plan-Audiobook/B008CHN41K

https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Profit-First-Audiobook/B06X15WX5B

In the world of marketing, Seth Godin is well known as a forward thinker. He has a new perspective of thinking about marketing in the internet age.
Seth Godin Startup School. This is a series of 15 short podcasts, maybe 15 to 20 minutes long each. It’s a good cliff notes version of a lot of his other books.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/seth-godins-startup-school/id566985370

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Purple-Cow-Audiobook/B002V0QOJS

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/All-Marketers-Are-Liars-Audiobook/B002V1NIMI

Gary Vaynerchuk is well known in online entrepreneur forums, especially with a younger audience. He is interesting to listen to and talks at a basic level mostly about social media marketing.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfA33-E9P7FC0AoARnMLvgFgESJe4_Ngs

This is a link about fashion, but it could just as easily be about any other business. As you read it, substitute the product for your product or widgets and it makes sense.

https://moz.com/ugc/how-to-build-a-great-online-fashion-brand-34-things-that-really-amazing-fashion-retailers-do

It’s probably not necessary to read this whole book, but it’s widely referenced and it’s important to understand the theory. This guy basically coined the phrase “Lean Startup” to describe businesses that start small and apply the scientific method to determine which direction to grow. Inspired by LEAN Manufacturing methodology made famous by Toyota, but follows similar principles.

https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898


There are a lot of great posts in reddit. There are a lot of crappy ones too. But worth trolling.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/

https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/

https://www.reddit.com/r/restaurateur/ (yes it’s spelled wrong)

For example, this post basically has a step by step guide to start a small business.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/5lfy6n/4_years_ago_i_wrote_a_case_study_on_reddit_on_my/

Other links
21 Lessons From Jeff Bezos’ Annual Letters To Shareholders

https://www.cbinsights.com/research/bezos-amazon-shareholder-letters/#2000


E Commerce, Design, Online Marketing
This guy has a very interesting perspective on display tactics.

https://www.nickkolenda.com/

A good source for tactics. Also offers one of the better wordpress themes

https://thrivethemes.com/6-brain-hacks/

These guys offer great information and insight in their podcast.

https://ecomcrew.com/episode-1-welcome-to-the-ecom-crew-podcast/

Landing Page Optimization
Important for all businesses even offline, for example with restaurants these principles could help for menu design or digital signage, for other businesses this knowledge can help with advertising layouts etc.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-brand-strategies-uniquely-position-your-ecommerce-above-bhardwaj

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/7-landing-page-design-tips

https://blog.kissmetrics.com/landing-page-design-infographic/

https://moz.com/ugc/how-to-build-a-great-online-fashion-brand-34-things-that-really-amazing-fashion-retailers-do

https://thrivethemes.com/6-brain-hacks/

This book discusses platform or marketplace apps, especially networking apps like Uber for x or dating apps. A must read for anyone thinking about attempting any kind of similar online platform.

https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Platform-Revolution-Audiobook/B01DDX7MJ2

Also

http://andrewchen.co/marketplace-startups-best-essays/

A good page of links

http://www.themissionmarketer.com/digital-marketing-resources/


For Restaurants

http://www.restaurantowner.com

Very valuable stuff here. Business plan templates, etc. $30 a month for a subscription but well worth it if you are starting or running a restaurant.

https://www.restaurantmastering.com

http://www.typsy.com

Not worth the paid membership yet, but it's growing. And you can get a free trial for like a week and binge watch everything.

Dealing with delivery aggregators

https://www.reddit.com/r/restaurateur/comments/76sd1i/uber_eats_what_percentage_you_paying_em_anyone/

I'm a technical PM for two teams, as a well a contributing dev on both teams.

While the skills are definitely different from programming a few things I've found that helps:

• Get to know AGILE really well. Read the manifesto, read about scrum vs kanban . Understand each's strengths and how to do the process correctly for both. I tend to think SCRUM is like fitness, you have to do it right to get the full benefits. If I go the gym and work out then, eat a gallon of ice cream everday, I won't be fit.
  
  
• Understand how to write good user stories, look into different patterns people use . For example the "As a <user> " format is quite popular but really understand how to flush out stories .
  
  
• Avoid strict timelines (I know you mentioned it in the OP) but a PM can't be 100% rigid on timelines and even suggest them . The way that works for our entire company is we base everyone complexity and use the fibonnaci scale to estimate complexity by having multiple people on a team vote. I (as the PM) look at past velocity (how many points we completed) and then project out how long something will take based on the point values estimated by the team. This works FAR better than "oh it will take 2-3 weeks". People are bad at time estimates, complexity estimates are a much better gauge.
  
  
• Practice your networking skills and diplomacy skills. Part of being a good PM is having established relationships with other teams and getting things for your team. A good product owner is a leader, but not a dictator. You don't tell the team what to do, you set the vision, and remove any blockers in their way. As part of this too is being available to answer questions.
  
  A few books you should read:
  
  
• Notes to a Software Team Leaders Even though its focused on being a lead/supervisor, you can get a lot of good insight on how to help guide the vision of a team.
  
• [Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time] (https://www.amazon.com/Scrum-Doing-Twice-Work-Half/dp/038534645X). Really good book on understanding the spirit behind scrum, with real world examples. Not very technical , more about why rather than what scrum is. I've read this several times.
  
• The Phoenix Project. Good book about breaking down barriers between teams and working towards a shared goal. It is devops focused, but I believe product managers would benefit from reading this as it illustrates the importance of shared ownership, automation and avoiding silos.
  
• How to Win Friends and Influence People. Great book on interpersonal relationships and how work with others.
  
• The Clean Coder. A book focused on professionalism for developers (not so much the code, but overall environment/culture). This is a good resource to understand the dev cycle in the real world and what teams should be doing to be professional. This will help you when making decisions on specific things to focus on.
  
  In terms of sprint plannings, just remember it's a negotiation. You're not there to tell people what to do. Rather you have the stuff you would like done, but you negotiate with the team on what's possible and what's not. I've seen too many PM's get pissed cause their teams couldn't do 100% of what they wanted and that's not right. Rather a good PM, imo, brings options and lets the team decide how much they can handle. There have been times when I've gone into sprint plannings and non of items made it on the sprint, and that's ok.
  
  Sorry for the long rant!
  

Short answer:

> "People want an authority to tell them how to value things, but they choose this authority not based on facts or results, they choose it because it seems authoritative and familiar." - Michael Burry; The Big Short.

> Why don't any of the people around us understand bitcoin? Why do they ignore it? Why do they refuse to look below the surface?

Because critical thinking consumes energy, and is not pleasant. Whenever we learn new things we have to fire up parts of the brain that we don't use as often.

For example: Learning to drive a car is a stressful and unpleasant time because your brain is fired up learning all the new skills, at once. After a few years you can drive without even thinking.

It's called Fast Thinking and Slow Thinking, slow thinking being when you are learning new skills, material, ideas etc., and fast thinking when you can do things automatically.

In short: People, all of us, don't like to think slow.

Long answer:

There's a book on the subject Thinking, Fast and Slow by Deniel Kahneman

> Major New York Times bestseller
> Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award in 2012
> Selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2011
> A Globe and Mail Best Books of the Year 2011 Title
> One of The Economist's 2011 Books of the Year
> One of The Wall Street Journal's Best Nonfiction Books of the Year 2011
> 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient
> Kahneman's work with Amos Tversky is the subject of Michael Lewis's The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds

> In the international bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, the renowned psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The impact of overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning our next vacation―each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems shape our judgments and decisions.

> Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives―and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and selected by The New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2011, Thinking, Fast and Slow is destined to be a classic.

• Get books on starting a business. There are plenty of them and you don't have to read them back to back. Get them as a reference and reference them often. The Small Business Start-Up Kit and Start Your Own Business, Fifth Edition are good ones.
  
• Accountants and lawyers will be very helpful to getting you guys get setup. Seek them out and bring them on board early.
  
• Form a corporation. Either an LLC or S-Corp. If someone sues your business for a million dollars and wins, they can only take what the business owns, not what you own personally (your car, your house, etc.).
  
• Create a business bank account and business credit cards. This will be critical for bookkeeping purposes and for keeping track of expenses.
  
• Are you forming a partnership with your friends? How will you work out the percentage each person owns? Will it be based off how much capital each person contributes? Be VERY careful with partnerships.. treat it as if you are marrying someone. Because that's what it is. Your business partner can drastically affect your life positively or they can destroy your life. Even if you like each other now, money can change things. Be future minded and write up an operating agreement to protect all of yourselves. What if 10 years down the line you want to quit? Or a business partner wants to move to another state and wants to quit? Who gets what? Don't leave this to chance or goodwill or you will regret it.
  
• Learn accounting software. Your accountant will likely have a say in this but it is ultimately your decision. Most accountants are familiar with Quickbooks or Quickbooks Online. There are alternatives like Xero. This will help you track your expenses and be critical to filing taxes.
  
• Get CRM software to keep track and manage your clients. ShootQ is one of the best in the wedding realm, although it can take time to learn and get it set up.
  
• Get project management software (Basecamp or Apollo). This will help everyone in the business stay up to date on to do task lists and deadlines. Apollo has time tracking software which is helpful in knowing how many hours you spend on a project. Historical data will be useful in knowing how much to charge for future projects.
  
• Be wary of taking out any loans. It's often better to bootstrap yourself off the ground.
  
• If you don't take a loan, you all may need to work side jobs to pay the bills until you are ready to go full time. Don't expect to have enough cashflow to pay full time salaries for a few years. This is just being realistic.
  
• Weddings have a low barrier to entry. Do your first or two for free to build up a portfolio. Then charge very little. If you're not charging a lot, don't create a million hour long edits for them. Charge little and promise little so you're not stuck with them. Same principle applies to commercial and corporate. Seek out the type of work that you want to do, approach businesses and offer to do it for very cheap or for free. Do a killer job so that it looks like they paid you a million bucks. This will open doors.
  
• It is very easy to get bogged down with wedding edits. Consider yourself warned. Sifting through hours of footage and piecing edits together is a lot of work. Do not underestimate it.
  
• Only market the work you want to attract. Don't post all your work on your blog.
  
• Contracts are important to look professional, and more importantly, to protect yourself. A lawyer will be helpful here. Many books on filmmaking also have sample contracts.
  
• You are essentially a start up business. Be prepared for long work weeks, very little pay, and high stress. Not everyone is cut out for being a business owner. Don't think it will be like a 9-5 job.. you don't go home and tune the business out.. it will be very much a part of your life. I'm not saying that it should take OVER your life since you should do everything you can to maintain some sort of work-life balance. If any of you are married, you will need supportive spouses who are willing to make sacrifices.
  
• Read The E-Myth. It reads like a story but will teach you very important business concepts and how to think like a businessman. This is very important as you start to grow.
  
  This just scratches the surface. It's not rocket science, but it's a lot.. it will take time. CONSTANTLY evaluate and look for things that can be improved.
  
  Source: Started a few businesses, the current one being a filmmaking one.

okay let me try this

step1: write a goal/outcome--- figure out what i want to do with my life, in career/job wise, should i go to school and get degree or do something job and scale the ladder up. or should i just fuck it. so KNOW WHAT I WANT TO DO WITH MY LIFE

Step 2: desired performance(in a perfect world)--i would works toward the goal i want with my hardest, wether that be a career and get a degree or better off in the work force or doing my own thing.

step 3: current performance (the way things are now)--well right now i am in a blue collar job, i don't like it, but i don't dislike it too much is alright!, but i feel like i am stuck in it, and i think i can accomplish more. like i didn't even get in tehre by merit, my brother pulled strings to get me in there, i just had to apply, i wasn't even trying to find a job.


STEP 4: gap, (difference between what it is and how i want it) i don't even know this step, the difference is i dont have emplyable skills, like if i drop this job, i'll just move on with nothing to rely as a "job" skill, like microsoft word/exel or programing or business management. so if anything i want to have a skill that is employable. or get a better paying job, and one that supports my goals and schedule.

STEP 5: (basically a KWL on the subject.)

what i K-- i know i want to get a better job, what i mean by better i mean a higher paying job, less physical work (optional), a bettter squedule for working (i'll take day shift please!), in my town, a job i'll enjoy doing, and people who aren't fucking assholes to work with but are good people.

what I W-- how to get a better job, get a better job, be in my better job. what job do i even want out of life, somethign that i don't feel like a pain in the ass to do, and i don't get fucked daily by a boss! also higher pay

what i learned: my life sucks i need to step it up, stop using reddit, at least use more productive ones like /r/nonzeroday and /r/nofap

OK- actual step five

info: my job sucks! i want another one with high pay that i'll enjoy

knowledge: i am fucked, i have no employable skills. so i need to learn something, also apply for other jobs.

motivation/reasons for change: i hate my job, actually i can't care less about it, i want something better. better schedule so i can lift, better pay so i get laid!

structure/process: hm... get goal, get plans/blueprint/action plan, get off my ass. actually that is my mantra "GET GOALS, GET PLANS!, GET OFF YOUR ASS!" once i know what i want of course.


physcial resources: the public library, comunity college, vocational college, internet, books. amazon.com for better books. financial aid. um... can't think of anymore. maybe reddit.com and some sub perhaps /r/jobs o r /r/findapath

some books i found right after i did a search on amazon are

these

pathfinder- ordered already
parachute 2015 ordered aleready.

also reading path finder- i found comparing reviews these other books

>Personally, I recommend: "How to Find the Work You Love" by Laurence Boldt and "How to Find Your Mission in Life" by Richard Nelson Bolles. These have helped me more than any other book or counselor on this topic ever have. If you've searched a bunch, the usual inventories are old news to you, and you want to explore a truly different approach - maybe give "Test Your Job Aptitude" by James Barrett a whirl. -- Cheers, an "INF/TP"

so basically

how to find the work you love by boldt

how to find your mission in life by richard nelson bolles

test own job

also somehow in the past i stumbled around these two other books, never read them but i have them. take it for what they are.

life at work

and this fucker been laying around for years in my house


okay found books, already ordered them totalling around 30 bucks. now i wait till those fuckers get delivered. i can get started in strengths 2.0. today though. nope books sucks ass if you don't have the code shit book throw it to the trash.

wellness:I better get what i want OP! or else you are done for nig.

step six:(do the thing to close the gap)

now we read! like 10 books, not that difficult, will report back as soon as i read them, i'll report back in like a month or a year or some shit, reading is gay! is boring. but i'll do it.

also found this ted talk
really fucking useless in terms of doing, because i don't think i am the best at communicating with people, let alone fucking helping them. so fuck this one.

i found this one more intresting [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRVdiHu1VCc]
basically do something and fuck it, learn something in the process. maybe a life experience or someshit. also this by mike rowe too http://toprightnews.com/?p=2872

um... i am just have done some reasearch do tackle this but i never do. now that is laid out. i want to do it. so you guys better hold me acountable. you better pm me to bug me if i am ready or not.

jeez i already feel lazy just at the thought of reading. but i'll do it is for the best.


edit. don't read strengths 2.0 this book is fucking useless if you don't have the code on the book which i don't cuz i bought that book used, but fucking doesn't say in the back fucking author fucks!!!

also a book called nickled and dimed

I went to one AA meeting when I first got clean and never went back. I understand people have found support and success in it but to me, personally, I felt it only increased the stigma of drug addicts as these broken hopeless people barely hanging on by a thread. It's an outdated system that relies on little science or attempting to progress the participants and relies more on holding people in place and focusing on the past. Instead I just worked towards becoming a normal person. Here are some of the resources I used:

r/Fitness - Getting Started: Exercise is probably the #1 thing that will aid you in recovering. It can help your brain learn to produce normal quantities of dopamine again as well as improve your heath, mood, well being and confidence.

Meetup: You can use this site to find people in your area with similar interests. I found a hiking group and a D&D group on here which I still regularly join.

Craigslist: Same as above - look for groups, activities, volunteer work, whatever.

Diet

This will be the other major player in your recovery. Understanding your diet will allow you to improve your health,mood, energy, and help recover whatever damage the drugs may have done to your body.

How Not To Die Cookbook

Life Changing Foods

The Plant Paradox

Power Foods For The Brain

Mental Health

Understand whats going on inside your head and how to deal with it is also an important step to not only recovery but enjoying life as a whole.

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy

The Emotional Life Of Your Brain

Furiously Happy

The Science of Enlightenment: How Meditation Works

Educational

If you are like me you probably felt like a dumbass when you first got clean. I think retraining your brain on learning, relearning things you may have forgot after long term drug use, and just learning new things in general will all help you in recovery. Knowledge is power and the more you learn the more confident in yourself and future learning tasks you become.

Illegal Drugs: A Complete Guide to their History, Chemistry, Use, and Abuse

Why Nations Fails

Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud

The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century

Thinking, Fast and Slow

The Financial Peace Planner: A Step-by-Step Guide to Restoring Your Family's Financial Health

Continued Education / Skills Development

EdX: Take tons of free college courses.

Udemy: Tons of onine courses ranging from writing to marketing to design, all kinds of stuff.

Cybrary: Teach yourself everything from IT to Network Security skills

Khan Academy: Refresh on pretty much anything from highschool/early college.

There are many more resources available these are just ones I myself have used over the past couple years of fixing my life. Remember you don't have to let your past be a monkey on your back throughout the future. There are plenty of resources available now-a-days to take matters into your own hands.

*Disclaimer: I am not here to argue about anyone's personal feelings on AA**

>such as you ultimately study things to help yourself, but really you're helping someone else who will pay you so you can help yourself

I love to learn about about laminar flow, the Germans who got lost in Death Valley (seriously read this, and his post on the hunt for downed airplanes), how ISIS formed, and an understanding of how people interpret data not because it will pay me, but because it makes me a smarter person. Your own intellect is not most beneficial to you because of what words you can make come out of your mouth, but by letting you decipher the words that come out of other people's mouths. The best thing about knowledge is that it gives you perspective.

>The real question, however, is will that make you attractive to us ladies? That's still the big question. Getting in shape will. Playing board games "for the challenge" with nerdy dudes who talk about pseudo philosophical BS they read on the internet? Not so much.

There in lies your problem. You're wanting to form yourself to make yourself attractive, where as long as you're a top 10 then you can do whatever you want. You honestly think a guy who is in great shape, well read, and works hard but happens to like board games or D&D can't get a girl?. Sure, if that's your only hobby it will be harder, but everyone should have multiple hobbies that they're passionate about. Women love confidence and passion. Confidence is just a different word for truly loving and believing in yourself regardless of what other people think. Passion is just another word for what you really really like.

If you don't love yourself, why would anyone else?

Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman


Major New York Times bestseller
Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award in 2012
Selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2011
A Globe and Mail Best Books of the Year 2011 Title
One of The Economist's 2011 Books of the Year
One of The Wall Street Journal's Best Nonfiction Books of the Year 2011
2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient
Kahneman's work with Amos Tversky is the subject of Michael Lewis's The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds

In the international bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, the renowned psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The impact of overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning our next vacation―each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems shape our judgments and decisions.

Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives―and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and selected by The New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2011, Thinking, Fast and Slow is destined to be a classic.

https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow

• Spend less time on your business plan and financial planning and execute your idea (not to saying you shouldn't spend anytime on it...you should but bottom line is: Keep moving forward). By doing so, you will generate the revenue you are seeking without being in debt. It's easier to sell an idea by showing it rather than telling someone and showing them a spreadsheet with your fictional guesses. I initially wasted 4-5 months on creating the "perfect" business plan.
  
  
• Don’t be married to any particular software platform/language, as they can all change. If you don’t have a technical background, find a CTO/co-founder that knows one language well, and has the same passion for the idea, and build it in that language. I spent a year convinced that not knowing Ruby on Rails was the sole reason I couldn't execute my idea.
  
  
• Definitely keep costs down to a bare minimum but don't be afraid to spend money when you have to. There are a lot of incredible open-source platforms out there for practically everything you could imagine but there are also awesome premium services that help you become more efficient and perform better.
  
  
• Push yourself to rent a desk at a co-working space. Staying at home, going to the library and having meetings at various Starbucks just doesn't push you enough to want to succeed.
  
  
• I'm probably the most frugal person in the world and will walk 20 blocks to save ATM fees but I now pay $90/month to Harvest for invoicing/time tracking because it works and I get paid faster and has saved me headaches come tax time.
  
  
• Find a niche market that you are passionate about and target it. You business can evolve to a bigger market but focus on what you know.
  
  
• Creating my LLC was a powerful step forward. Obviously seek legal counsel and talk to your accountant before taking the plunge. Once I had my LLC, I could then create a merchant service account to obtain payments online via Authorize.net rather than utilizing PayPal.
  
  If you have the time, I would enroll here:
  http://fasttrac.org/entrepreneurs/programs/FastTrac%20NewVenture.aspx
  
  If you live in NYC:
  
  
• http://www.nycedc.com/service/programs-entrepreneurs
  
  
• http://zicklin.baruch.cuny.edu/centers/field
  
  Helpful books/resources:
  
  
• Rework (Awesome)
  
  
• Four Hour Work Week (With the understanding the author had $40,000/month coming in)
  
  
• Definitive Drucker (Broader business topics but great concepts)
  
  
• Why Small Businesses Fail (simple but effective)
  
  
• Why Contractors Fail (simple but effective)
  
  
• NOLO (legal resource)
  
  
• http://www.codecademy.com/ (learn to code)
  
  This quote helped me:
  “Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to.” -Jim Jarmusch
  
  Services:
  
  
• Harvest
  
  
• ZenDesk
  
  
• MailChimp
  
  
• BaseCamp
  
  
• StudioPress

Here is a scientific explanation of the Artosis curse: Regression toward the mean.

Basically, Artosis makes his predictions based on observations of high above (their own usual) average achievements of players. The problem is that there is actually quite a bit of randomness involved. At the high level SC II is being played at no single player is skilled enough to dominate everyone else (consistently, but likely not even at any one point in time if everyone would play against everybody else instead of just a random(ha!) selection). Randomness means, that when you observe someone being above average the chance that next time you observe them they will be WORSE, closer to the mean (back to normal!), is much higher compared to observing them doing something outstanding again.

I would like to point out that this is ONE of the forces at work. It does explain the Artosis curse. It does not (need to!) explain everything that goes on in the world or even just in the world of SC II. And it doesn't claim that this happens every single time, only on average.

Here is what Kahneman used as an example:

> The psychologist Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel prize in economics, pointed out that regression to the mean might explain why rebukes can seem to improve performance, while praise seems to backfire.[8]

> “I had the most satisfying Eureka experience of my career while attempting to teach flight instructors that praise is more effective than punishment for promoting skill-learning. When I had finished my enthusiastic speech, one of the most seasoned instructors in the audience raised his hand and made his own short speech, which began by conceding that positive reinforcement might be good for the birds, but went on to deny that it was optimal for flight cadets. He said, “On many occasions I have praised flight cadets for clean execution of some aerobatic maneuver, and in general when they try it again, they do worse. On the other hand, I have often screamed at cadets for bad execution, and in general they do better the next time. So please don’t tell us that reinforcement works and punishment does not, because the opposite is the case.” This was a joyous moment, in which I understood an important truth about the world: because we tend to reward others when they do well and punish them when they do badly, and because there is regression to the mean, it is part of the human condition that we are statistically punished for rewarding others and rewarded for punishing them. I immediately arranged a demonstration in which each participant tossed two coins at a target behind his back, without any feedback. We measured the distances from the target and could see that those who had done best the first time had mostly deteriorated on their second try, and vice versa. But I knew that this demonstration would not undo the effects of lifelong exposure to a perverse contingency.

If you only read one book this year, let it be Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow.

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Here are all the books with amazon links, Alphabetical order :)

---

• Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1591396190
  
• Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh et al. Link: http://amzn.com/160941280X
  
• Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown Link: http://amzn.com/0804137382
  
• Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days by Jessica Livingston Link: http://amzn.com/1590597141
  
• How Google Works by Eric Schmidt et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1455582344
  
• Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World by Gary Vaynerchuk Link: http://amzn.com/006227306X
  
• Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way by Richard Branson Link: http://amzn.com/0307720748
  
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1400064287
  
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck Link: http://amzn.com/0345472322
  
• Never Eat Alone, Expanded and Updated: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time by Keith Ferrazzi et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0385346654
  
• Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable by Tim S. Grover et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1476714207
  
• Rework by Jason Fried et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0307463745
  
• Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin Link: http://amzn.com/1591842948
  
• The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss Link: http://amzn.com/0307465357
  
• The Choose Yourself Guide To Wealth by James Altucher Link: http://amzn.com/150100994X
  
• The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: *God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison by Mike Wilson Link: http://amzn.com/0060008768
  
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz Link: http://amzn.com/0062273205
  
• The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business by Clayton M. Christensen Link: http://amzn.com/0062060244
  
• The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries Link: http://amzn.com/0307887898
  
• The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime by MJ DeMarco Link: http://amzn.com/B004BDOUAI
  
• The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday Link: http://amzn.com/1591846358
  
• The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1885167776
  
• The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company by Steve Blank et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0984999302
  
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell Link: http://amzn.com/0316346624
  
• Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth by Gabriel Weinberg et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1591848369
  
• Unlabel: Selling You Without Selling Out by Marc Ecko Link: http://amzn.com/1451685319
  
• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0804139296

Without knowing more about your current financial situation (current net income and net worth, goal net worth and net passive income), it is hard to comment on what may be the strongest investing strategies for you.

If I assume you have basically nothing (no assets and no debt), then for you to be financially free in 10 years (lets say 2M net worth, 75K passive net income/yr) will almost certainly require you to either have a VERY high income and savings rate from now until your goal age or to build something of significant value you can sell to fund your freedom. I suppose you could speculate a bunch in the market and wind up winning big, but the prevailing opinion is that you might as well go to Vegas and put it all on black if that is your overarching strategy.

My opinion, is that if you want to achieve financial freedom by 30 (and are starting from nothing today), than you are best off building a business and spending your time increasing its value. This is not a path for the faint of heart, and a lot of people who try quickly find out they are not up, but if you want to get out of the rat race in such a short time span it may be a good option. Maybe check out this book. I have found it useful, and it does a decent job explaining why systems development is key to the success of most businesses.

Real estate may also be a good avenue for you to look into as well. If you do go that route, understand that the majority of your profit on a real estate investment will be based on buying heavily undervalued assets. Finding motivated sellers is essential (people moving right away, kids squabbling over their dead parents house etc.) and you need to be extremely conservative when analyzing potential buys. Also, property management is very demanding and more complex that it may appear so be prepared for that.

Good luck!

I would go with Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow". It can be rather tedious at times, but it's such a great summary of recent work in social and cognitive psychology that it's worth it.

Oliver Sacks, as mentioned before, is another great author. Very approachable, very interesting, yet quite informative.

I have heard that Dan Ariely is a great author. Predictably Irrational might be a great read.

Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works is also great, but I would recommend Kahneman over him.

Finally, I would recommend a classic: William James - The Principles of Psychology. It's old, and some stuff is dated, but the guy had amazing insight nonetheless. It'd be a great intro reading just to see where psychology came from.

I would stay away from Jonah Lehrer, since he was accused of academic dishonesty. His book "How we Decide" was an extremely easy read, and a bit watered down. On that tangent, I would also avoid Malcolm Gladwell. Sacks does a better job at explaining psychology and neuroscience to a general audience.

Hope that helps!

Good for you, you're seeking out your knowledge and it sounds like you're dedicated to learning as well.

You won't get a good sense of what we do alone, especially because it is a very diverse field and can include specializations in storage, virtualization, databases, helpdesk, desktop support, mobile device management, security (which in itself has a number of specializations), operations, project management, monitoring and reporting, copper and fiber networking, firewall management, programming or developing... See my point? You can read a little more on the fields here

Anyway, if your computer is capable I would suggest you at least familiarize yourself with SOME of what we do, try and get Hyper-V running and learn some of the Powershell commands for interacting with the VMs, then use those VMs to run some *nix stuff and learn how to use those.

There is honestly a ton of free stuff, books, documentation and such available for you, you just have to know where to look and what you might want to see. The search bar here sucks but use the google advanced search for this subreddit and there is a ton of stuff to find, here's a few examples you may find useful:

• Lots of small tips
  
  
• The Sysadmin Bible #1 & the updated one, #2
  
  
• Microsoft Dreamspark has a lot of free software for students, including SQL Server, Windows Server, etc
  
  
• Free Powershell courses,
  
  
• Free books #1, #2, #3
  
  
• Learning to code with CodeAcademy, Free courses from Microsoft Virtual Academy incl training labs,
  
  
• Certifications: CCNA routing and switching videos, Server 2012r2
  
  ... I've got literally dozens and dozens of relevant links that you might find useful. My suggestion is to start wide and shallow and figure out what you might interesting, then explore that further. If you want career advice I would suggest you focus on programming and *nix administration (there's a great comment on here in the last year with a path of things to accomplish) as these would give you the greatest variety of skills to create programs, apps, shell scripts, admin servers, etc... Also, don't neglect your soft skills or negotiation abilities as they are very valuable in helping you complete work when not working alone. Good negotiating skills will help ensure you don't get a $14/hr job when you're doing the work of a $70k

>Not now, but the first such study was certainly interesting! How is that different from what we have here?

The first such study was useful, but not interesting.

As to the difference between this paper and the first study linking exercise and heart disease, I see a couple relevant differences:

1. This isn't a study. Nobody gathered any real world data. Linkage to real world results is therefore unconfirmed.
   
2. This is far from the first economics paper written on the topic of talent and luck that suggests that luck may have an outsized role in success. Indeed, this ground is so well covered that there aren't just papers, but books and books and books already.
   
   >The idea that we are solely responsible for our successes and failures already shapes social policy, so why wouldn't evidence for the contrary position do the same? At the very least, it should introduce more uncertainty and flexibility to evaluate specific circumstances.
   
   In my view, the theory that luck has a strong effect on success and failure has already been well established in society. The proverb that "it's better to be lucky than good" is so old that no one knows how old it is. I don't believe that social policy is grounded in the theory that people are solely responsible for their own success or failure.

I'm not sure if this would work or not, but I would try redirecting people who have conservative or right-wing leaning views at least toward better thinkers than Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson and toward optimistic views of the future of society, to cull some of the us-vs-them and zero-sum thinking that plagues these discussions.

Sometimes it feels like men, especially, feel existentially threatened by other modes of thought, so being at least sympathetic to the good bits of their ideas and offering something similar but that promotes openness and liberal ideas may help.

Hans Rosling's Factfulness presents a pretty optimistic view of the world. It's all getting better! Seriously!

Jonathan Haidt (and Greg Lukianoff for the first book)

• The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure
  
• The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
  
  I had worried that the first book would be a reiteration of right-wing talking points around safe spaces, but I was surprised to find it a good listen so far. It mentions several cognitive distortions and how cognitive behavioral therapy can overcome them as well. The second book is sympathetic to conservative views and gives a good tour of moral psychology. Really recommend.
  
  Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined is also good. Seriously, the world is getting better! Pinker is heavier on the nature side that most lefties, so knowing that may make people more receptive if they won't receive an gender argument without some mention of biology.

If you haven’t read Malcolm Gladwell’s books those are good; he reads his own audiobooks and I like his speaking style. He also has a podcast called revisionist history that I really like.

Tetlock’s superforecasting is a bit long-winded but good; it’s a lay-person’s book on his research for IARPA (intelligence research) to improve intelligence assessments. His intro mentions Kahneman and Duckworth’s grit. I haven’t read it yet, but Nate Silver’s signal and the noise is in a similar vein to Tetlock’s book and is also recommended by IARPA.

Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind was really eye-opening to me to understand the differences in the way that liberals and conservatives (both in the political and cultural sense) view the world around them and how that affects social cohesion. He has a few TED talks if you’d like to get an idea of his research. Related, if you’re interested in an application of Kahneman’s research in politics, the Rationalizing Voter was a good book.

As a “be a better person” book, I really liked 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey (recommend it on audiobook). Particularly, unlike other business-style self-help about positive thinking and manipulating people—this book really makes you examine your core values, what’s truly important to you and gives you some tools to help refocus your efforts in those directions. Though, as I’m typing this I’m thinking about the time I’m spending on reddit and not reading the book I’ve been meaning to all night =p

Rule # 1 - DO NOT HAVE A PARTNER.

TLDR - We failed due to a lack of trust between partners that grew over time and I was going through a divorce and emotionally checked out of the business. (I was in charge of all production...ie. when I checked out, shit fell apart)

Here's what we did to scale from $120K the first year to $1.2 mil in 18 months (10x growth).

We hosted all client sites through 2 reseller accounts with Hostgator and Godaddy. Hosting revenue pays the light bill and cable bills. Plus, your contractors only need to know how to do everything in 2 Cpanels. It's more efficient and profitable.

Outsource: ALL design. Wireframes in-house.

Outsource: Hosting setup, domain pointing, CMS/Wordpress installation, theme installation

Outsource: Email marketing. You define strategy and design etc. but the build and automation is all outsourced.

Outsource: Bookkeeping. Automate everything using IFTTT and Freshbooks. Automate as much as you can.

Outsource: All Local SEO - We used LocalOxygen.com to scale production 10x.

Outsource: All social posting. Give the workers access to your posting software and let them post that shit. You do the strategy, they do the execution.

Outsource: Adwords management. Find a certified overseas crew to access your MCC and again, talk to them about how you want the accounts managed.

Outsource:Remarketing/retargeting - Overseas Adroll team or GDN team. You'll have no problem finding teams that know more than yourself overseas at reasonable rates.

Hire a part time VA (Virtual Assistant) for $3.00/hour and have her handle your email, send out client intake forms, invoice reminders, all reporting that isn't automated. After 3 months, this person can basically serve as your remote office manager for $4.00/hour from Peru,Greece or the Philippines.

When/if hiring overseas workers, look for countries with a favorable exchange rate and a bad economy + strong English presence. They must be available during US business hours and have a microphone and camera for face time chats throughout the week. https://Upwork.com and https://www.onlinejobs.ph (we actually bought mics and cameras for those who did not have them.)

We handled SEO in-house and had a small overseas team to help with link building.

90% of my time as founder was spent on project management and helping sales people understand this stuff so they could sell it better. You can find competent workers all over the world for under $10/hour. We used Odesk/Upwork and took the time to build a solid base of loyal contractors. We trained our contractors to do the work the way we wanted it done. I was paying several people in Pakistan full-time @ $38/week or $.96/hr) to do link building. Profile creation etc. etc. I simply made a video explaining what I wanted them to execute on and how to do it and they went off and did it.

We had writers in Isreal (with Masters Degrees) paying the $15/hour to write great content.

If I got back into the game again, as an owner, I would literally outsource 99% of the work. Some to overseas and probably the SEO to a US based company. The rest of my time would be selling. I'll never work IN an SEO company again knowing what I know now...so much easier to train people on systems and let them execute. This way I get to stay working ON the business, not in it.

Remember taxes take 39% roughly.

Number 1 lesson - Find a great sales person who is wide but not deep in their understanding and who is also great at establishing rapport , then you go along with them on the sales call. You're the credibillity. Rapport + Credibility = Trust = Signed Contract

Lesson 2 Create documented processes and train others on how to execute.

Lesson 3 As quickly as possible put yourself in a spot where you are able to work ON the business and not IN it. If you do not do this then the business is owning you.

Lesson 4 Read the E-Myth - https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280

Lesson 5 - Bask in 80%-85% margins and pay yourself well. Also bonus your contractors often and healthily ($20-$50 bonus every two weeks) and they'll never leave.

Hope this helps...

>I don’t regret having one, just extremely ashamed of being sexual and communicating it to girls and also showing it to the world. Attracting girls’ attention and whatnot isn’t very hard but progressing things to dating, holding hands and eventually sex is impossible. I can’t even call them or message them on Facebook or Whatsapp because I just feel like an idiot for doing so. Making a move in clubs and bars is also difficult although I once got close to leaving with a girl but she didn't want to. I got made fun of a lot growing up for not having a girlfriend and this made me feel like i do not deserve one. It doesn't matter if I've got the green light to go ahead I just feel really ashamed do it. Even something like looking at a fit girl wearing a short skirt makes me feel bad for checking her out and that I shouldn’t be doing it.


I know what you mean. I've been there myself, but even when I was there I was entirely self-aware of my shame and I was skeptical of the validity of my emotional reactions; I realized they were ingrained. Being aware of your emotional reactions allows you to be emotionally proactive. Your sex-negative problem is mostly an emotional issue, and not much else, right? I've been there. I wouldn't doubt that you are also decent looking and have both latent and actualized social skills. Most intelligent introverts have a lot of potential to be who they want to be because they know themselves more deeply than others. You must use your introverted nature to your advantage and recognize the differences in others and yourself. In all honesty, there are an infinite number of unwritten rules; everyone's abstract/emotional logic is different. Many of them are foundational and predictable, however; including yours and mine. Like anything else, being emotionally predictable is not a black/white issue. It is a grey area, and you have to balance your reliability with creativity.


Being made fun of for not having a girlfriend is just as sexist as being made fun of for not having a boyfriend; gender equal too. Were you ever shamed for not having a boyfriend? It's clearly a matter of groupthink and extroverted style; not for everyone. Dating relationships, for extroverts especially, are often attention-getting and showy. They wear their relationships like trophies won. Usually introverts prefer a more private relationship because they have less social desire and are often shamed because of it. Introverts are “themselves” more often in private. Extroverts are “themselves” more often in public. There is no shame deserved either way, regardless of popular opinion. Both styles have their strengths and weaknesses, and you should try to introject some of the traits that you enjoy in others; regardless of type. That is how you become balanced.


>I’m receiving counselling from a pastor who advocates the whole “no sex before marriage” thing and believes that people should only date to get married and sex is only for making kids which is stupid IMO because I do not plan on getting married anytime soon.


Counseling from a Catholic pastor? Watch out, that is one of the most notorious sex-negative societies out there. They own the abstinence-only charade while they parade horribles. Marriage is not the answer to anything; it is an institution of the state. Anything else attached is sentimental.


If you haven't already, I recommend doing an in-depth study of animal sexual behaviors; especially the most intelligent animals. All animals have sex for pleasure, but some animals are only driven to have sex at certain times of the year; humans are on a 24/7 system.


>I’ve tried the no fap route and gotten very high days counts but that hasn’t really helped me at all.


Sexual frustration doesn't help anyone. If you are mindful, then you can use your libido to further your goals, but it is not an all-cure.


>Got any sources to help overcome sex-negative perspectives? I’m interested in recreational sex not baby making sex.


Absolutely. I recommend starting with actual sex science and learning about male and female psychology and neurology. Then work your way into reading about sex culture. You should also study developmental psychology as you will probably need the clinical context in order to objectively self-evaluate your childhood influences; it is necessary for self-therapy. The best therapy will always be self-therapy; no one will ever know you better than yourself.


Evolutionary Science and Morals Philosophy:

The Selfish Gene

The Moral Landscape

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do?


Sex Psychology, Science, and Neurology:

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

The Female Brain

The Male Brain

Why Men Want Sex and Women Need Love

What Do Women Want

Why Women Have Sex: Understanding Sexual Motivations from Adventure to Revenge (and Everything in Between)

Sex: The world's favorite pastime fully revealed


Behavioral Psychology and Abstract Economics:

How Pleasure Works

Freakonomics

Quiet: The Power of Introverts In A World That Can't Stop Talking

Thinking Fast And Slow

We Are All Weird


Developmental Psychology:

Nurture Shock

Hauntings: Dispelling The Ghosts That Run Our Lives


Empathy Building:


Half The Sky

The House On Mango Street

Me Before You

The Fault In Our Stars

Also check out James Hollis' Understanding The Psychology of Men lecture if you can find it.



Movies: XXY, Tom Boy, Dogtooth, Shame, Secretary, Nymphomaniac, Juno, Beautiful Creatures, and The Man From Earth.



All of these things are related, but it is up to you to make the connections; pick and choose which material suits your interests best. These are the things that came to mind first, and they have all influenced my perspectives.

It seems you asked the right questions, since my answer turned out longer than expected. I actually had to split it up, because of the character limitation. So I hope my effort is of benefit to you. In any case, you should probably get a hot chocolate or something. :-D

Question 1

I think there are several reasons, why people might make these arguments (Note that these are not refutations of the arguments themselves, but speculations about their psychological roots / motivations):

• Far-leftists see capitalism as an evil system that produces exploitation. Therefore, anarcho-capitalism would logically result in a maximum of exploitation, since it's like regular capitalism on steroids. It goes without saying that ancaps like me don't agree with anti-capitalist exploitation theory.
  
  
• Most people just have a very strong status-quo-bias (basically what you suggested by referring to it as alien). As psychologists have believably suggested, it's very exhausting and unpleasant to change one's world view in any way. Since ancapism proposes such a radically different world view as the mainstream one, most people understandably don't want to consider it, because that poses the risk of exhaustion and discomfort. That applies especially to people who are not very interested in politics anyway, so the vast majority.
  
  
• Moderate but politically active people might like the thought that they can improve society by wisely participating in its leadership. Ancapism basically tells those people: It doesn't matter how wise you are, you are not wise enough to rule over other people. That might be damaging to some people's ego.
  
  
• And then there are the minarchist-libertarians, who are very close to ancaps. These people make the best arguments against ancapism, because they would actually like it if ancapism did work and they understand our arguments the best, since we think so similarly.
  
  As for the validity of the arguments themselves, I don't think the criticisms of the first three groups are quite easily refuted. But the minarchists make some points about the nature of defense services that definitely need to be considered. (E.g. positive externalities lead to an underproduction of defense services, making an anarchist society vulnerable to conquest.) The only possibility of ancapism turning south is basically the emergence of new states and a resulting regression to statism. That process would obviously involve a lot of bloodshed and ancapism should therefore be avoided if a violent return to statism is inevitable. I'll provide some of my own thoughts why I consider that unlikely.
  
  I think several factors play a role in the sustainability of "Ancapistan":
  
  
• The anarchist territory should be as large as possible, so private property insurance companies can pool enough funds for efficient defense against neighbouring statist societies.
  
  
• The surrounding statist populations should be as civilised and enlightened as possible, so it's harder for their respective states to justify war against the anarchist territory to their populations. (Lichtenstein probably has a good shot, Israel not so much.)
  
  
• The population of the anarchist territory should be as armed and educated about property rights / libertarian ethics as possible, so any neighbouring state considering invasion would have to expect very high costs of keeping the invaded population under control.
  
  The education and enlightenment factor is likely to improve with time, so I do think the anarcho-capistalist society is inevitable. (Basically like marxists think communism is inevitable. I do see the irony there, lol.)
  
  Once the whole world is anarchist, I see little reason to worry about the emergence of a new state. That being said, going back to statism would be the worst case scenario. So we're in the worst case scenario right now... and hence, it can only get better if we try.
  
  If you want me to elaborate more, I'll gladly do that, but you can probably learn more from people smarter than me. I'll provide a book list further below and here is a great lecture on the specific topic. It's still a good idea to ask me any specific questions though.
  
  

  Question 2
  

  
  I haven't read anything by Ayn Rand. Her books are extremely long, so that's a turn-off. From what I've heard about her: I think her objectivist approach to ethics is both weird and wrong. However, her novels probably convey a good "sense" of capitalism. I have that already though, so I don't think I'm missing much. She might have been influencial in the sense that she has made many people familiar with ideas ancaps share. But her own ideology is statist in the sense that it actively supports a minarchist state and rejects ancapism on ethical grounds (as stated by Yaron Brook, the most prominent objectivist / follwer of Ayn Rand I know). I myself am much more of a fan of Murray Rothbard, which is basically the "founder" of anarcho-capitalism anyway. He's surely the most influencal person in the movement, Hans-Hermann Hoppe taking the controversial second place.

This is a repost of my comment on this reddit thread

Check out harry potter and the methods of rationality.

• A Brilliant fan-fiction about Harry potter, much darker and smarter. Both informative and entertaining.
  
  Read/Learn Non Violent Communication
  
  
• Language shape our thinking, this method is absolutely brilliant and will immediately improve understanding for oneself and other people. The book & [Youtube videos] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dpk5Z7GIFs&list=PL16F02595B1BB9FA8)
  
  Start to [Meditate] (http://humanistsofmn.org/127-better-critical-thinking-through-meditation)
  
  
• Emotions and unconscious thoughts and belifs are many times very irrational. Meditation is greater for becoming more aware of them, which is the first step before critically evaluating them. Also many studies show a myriad of benefits such as: Increased happiness, better health, lower stress, increased IQ & EQ. And much more
  
  Philosophy - "love of wisdom"
  
  
• [Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations: Ancient Philosophy for Modern Problems] (http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Life-Other-Dangerous-Situations/dp/1608682293) , Is a great introduction to Philosophy. Very practical, will increase understanding of oneself and help in living a happy life.
  
  
• Or if you prefer video [Philosophy: Guide to Happiness] (http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/philosophy-guide-to-happiness/) , Is a great introduction to Philosophy. If you want it bite sized [School for life] (https://www.youtube.com/user/schooloflifechannel):s youtube channel is also very good.
  
  Read about rationality/critical thinking
  
  
• [Less wrong] (http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sequences), [Audio] (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1267969302/lesswrong-the-sequences-audiobook). Less Wrong is a community blog devoted to refining the art of human rationality. Video
  
  Learn about the common [cognitive biases] (http://www.businessinsider.com/cognitive-biases-2014-6?op=1) and [logical fallacies] (https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/)
  
  
• [Thinking fast and slow] (http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555) Is a brilliant book by Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman which shows oh so many ways we are less smart than we think. podcast
  
  
  Create some rationality habits
  
  
• [Memorize the Rationality checklist] (http://rationality.org/checklist/). anki deck (anki is an app for memorizing facts)
  
  
• Center for applied rationality have workshops (mostly in the USA).
  
  Learn about the ways Marketing/propaganda is used to influence you
  
  
• [The century of the self] (http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-century-of-the-self/). This series is about how those in power have used Freud's theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy.
  
  
  The Trivium
  
  
• General Grammar, Aristotelian Logic, and Classical Rhetoric comprise the first three rules-based subjects of the 7 Liberal Arts and Sciences. As these disciplines are learned and practiced together, they form the overarching, symbiotic system for establishing clarity and consistency of personal thought called the Trivium.
  

I have a friend I worked with at a fortune 500 Investment firm (Multi billion dollars in assets), who was worried about asking for new monitors for his desk after he landed a new position at the company because they were $150 each. I reminded him that stuff like this is always budgeted for and they spend more than that on buying lunch for meetings sometimes and to also never feel bad for the gigantic bank.

Your company has a budget for retention/raises/bonuses they aren't going to fire the janitor to give you $10k. It's fine if you want to try to take the best interest of the place you work in mind, but its not good to be a doormat. That is how you get to a place of $15k wage disparity.

Wages aren't a race either, you want to be paid on your merit and skills, not because someone else gets paid more. You need to make a list of what you bring to the table but only as a reflection of yourself don't bring any of your colleagues into the mix by trying to compare output. just talk about you and all the work you do and show how it has ramped up for you in particular since you have started. This takes the conversation from "they have more" to "I am underpaid for the value I provide" Make a list of accomplishments, cost savings, late nights. Then have a nice conversation about how you feel you are underpaid and would like to have your wages adjusted. Start with the $15k and when they scoff just tell them its where you think you should be based on market/title/workload etc (glassdoor can be your friend at this point)

If they say yes then you are good, if they counter offer, with what you wanted, you are good, if they come back lower, lets say $5k, ask if it would be possible for you to get the pay you are looking for spread over 3 years instead of one, or start asking for non monetary things that you might like maybe an extra week of vacation, depending on what your company offers for benefits you may be able to get them extended. Companies tend to give those out easier because they don't come out of the payroll bucket.

If they still say no, well the job market is currently like 3.7% unemployment and there are tons of places hiring for hr.

Tl:dr your company can afford to pay you more don't take their shit, they will happily keep you at the same salary for years don't feel bad for them they don't feel bad when they do that shit to you.

Also try reading never split the difference it can help you get better with negotiation tactics.
https://www.amazon.com/Never-Split-Difference-Negotiating-Depended/dp/0062407805

On olemassa paljon erilaisia malleja. Itse pidan eniten persoonallisuustyyppien/psykometrian kaytosta. Talloin asiaa lahestytaan, joko kuvaamalla minkalaisia persoonallisuuden ominaisuuksia tietty tehtava vaatii; tai minkalaista persoonaa tyonantaja odottaa; tai minkalainen persoona sopisi parhaiten olemassa olevaan ryhmaan. Toki jotkin ihmiset pitavat psykometrian kayttoa taytena humpuukkina tai eettisesti arveluttavana, mutta itse naen silla olevan vahvat perusteet. Oma mielipiteeni on, etta jos tyonantajan MUTU ja kaytettava malli sanovat hakijan olevan paras: palkkaa. Jos yrittaja ja malli ovat ristiriidassa toistensa kanssa, palaa takaisin piirrustuspoydan aareen - jotain on pielessa siina mita haet.

Jos et usko persoonallisuusmalleihin, mutta et pelkaa kokeilla uutta, niin hyva ja halpa tapa on tehda Strengts Finder 2.0 persoonallisuustesti. Gallupin tutkija tutki persoonallisuuksia ja abstraktoi eri piirteet 34 teemaan. Testi kertoo mitka ihmisen 5 teemaa ovat hanen vahvimpansa. Yleensa kukaan ei juuri yllaty siita mita tulokset ovat, mutta ihmisen loytaessa oikeat sanat, han voi helpommin kommunikoida omat vahvuutensa ja myos peilata tyotarjouksia niita vasten. Itse olen kaynyt tyotarjoukset hyvin pitkalle tata tyokalua vasten ja hylannyt kaikki tyotehtavat, joissa en ole voinut hyodyntaa suurinta osaa vahvuuksistani.

Ihan esimerkin vuoksi, jotta saat makua mita tulokset ovat niin tassa omat vahvuuteni...

• Strategic... People who are especially talented in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario, they can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues.
  
• Learner... People who are especially talented in the Learner theme have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. In particular, the process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites them.
  
• Positivity... People who are especially talented in the Positivity theme have an enthusiasm that is contagious. They are upbeat and can get others excited about what they are going to do.
  
• Achiever... People who are especially talented in the Achiever theme have a great deal of stamina and work hard. They take great satisfaction from being busy and productive.
  
• Ideation... People who are especially talented in the Ideation theme are fascinated by ideas. They are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena.
  
  Kun katson omaa tyouraa ja kaikkea mita olen tehnyt, niin parhaimmat tulokset ovat tulleet T&K:n puolelta ja selviytymisesta vaikeista tilanteista. Huonoimmat hetket taas on koettu tukitehtavissa ja jamahteneissa organisaatioissa. Itse esimerkiksi olen hyva aloittamaan ja viemaan eteenpain uutta tai perkaamaan taydellista sotkua, mutta asioiden tasaantuessa ja helpottuessa minut kannattaa vaihtaa toiseen henkiloon.

Entrepreneur Reading List

1. Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble
   
2. The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
   
3. The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
   
4. The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything
   
5. The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win
   
6. Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers
   
7. Ikigai
   
8. Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition
   
9. Bootstrap: Lessons Learned Building a Successful Company from Scratch
   
10. The Marketing Gurus: Lessons from the Best Marketing Books of All Time
    
11. Content Rich: Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web
    
12. The Web Startup Success Guide
    
13. The Best of Guerrilla Marketing: Guerrilla Marketing Remix
    
14. From Program to Product: Turning Your Code into a Saleable Product
    
15. This Little Program Went to Market: Create, Deploy, Distribute, Market, and Sell Software and More on the Internet at Little or No Cost to You
    
16. The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully
    
17. The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth
    
18. Startups Open Sourced: Stories to Inspire and Educate
    
19. In Search of Stupidity: Over Twenty Years of High Tech Marketing Disasters
    
20. Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup
    
21. Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business
    
22. Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed
    
23. Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days
    
24. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant
    
25. Eric Sink on the Business of Software
    
26. Words that Sell: More than 6000 Entries to Help You Promote Your Products, Services, and Ideas
    
27. Anything You Want
    
28. Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers
    
29. The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business
    
30. Tao Te Ching
    
31. Philip & Alex's Guide to Web Publishing
    
32. The Tao of Programming
    
33. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
    
34. The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity
    
    

    Computer Science Grad School Reading List
    

    
    

35. All the Mathematics You Missed: But Need to Know for Graduate School
    
36. Introductory Linear Algebra: An Applied First Course
    
37. Introduction to Probability
    
38. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
    
39. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society
    
40. Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical Discovery
    
41. What Is This Thing Called Science?
    
42. The Art of Computer Programming
    
43. The Little Schemer
    
44. The Seasoned Schemer
    
45. Data Structures Using C and C++
    
46. Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs
    
47. Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
    
48. Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming
    
49. How to Design Programs: An Introduction to Programming and Computing
    
50. A Science of Operations: Machines, Logic and the Invention of Programming
    
51. Algorithms on Strings, Trees, and Sequences: Computer Science and Computational Biology
    
52. The Computational Beauty of Nature: Computer Explorations of Fractals, Chaos, Complex Systems, and Adaptation
    
53. The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine
    
54. Computability: An Introduction to Recursive Function Theory
    
55. How To Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method
    
56. Types and Programming Languages
    
57. Computer Algebra and Symbolic Computation: Elementary Algorithms
    
58. Computer Algebra and Symbolic Computation: Mathematical Methods
    
59. Commonsense Reasoning
    
60. Using Language
    
61. Computer Vision
    
62. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
    
63. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
    
    

    Video Game Development Reading List
    

    
    

64. Game Programming Gems - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
    
65. AI Game Programming Wisdom - 1 2 3 4
    
66. Making Games with Python and Pygame
    
67. Invent Your Own Computer Games With Python
    
68. Bit by Bit

Hello! I am a social investment supporter. My journey started last year when I read Hans Rosling's book: Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World -- and Why Things Are Better Than You Think. According to Hans, the best investment opportunities are in the emerging markets of Asia and Africa. He described how we should look at statistics to make smart business decisions. I especially liked how he was optimistic about the future of the world and how countries are working hard to get out of poverty. It's not an investing book per se but it gives a good insight on where you might want to focus your attention if you want to make a difference in this world. It also solidified my rule to invest in the Philippines only and not be distracted by any foreign investment product (as I am currently based abroad).

Here's a TEDtalk as an intro to Hans Rosling: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_on_poverty/


I further asked myself how could his ideas be particularly applicable in the Philippines, where a lot of my countrymen are still living in poverty? Fortunately, I found Vince Rapisura on Facebook and he constantly discusses being a "Social Investor." Before meeting him, I have never heard anything about Social or Impact investing. I thought investing was just to make my money work for me. But through him, I learned that investing can create more value than just mere profit. We can select investments that have a conscious goal of making a positive impact on society. Vince's company, SEDPI, is focused on such ventures and his presentations are on his website: https://vincerapisura.com/impact-investing-handouts/

I am still reading more books about the topic and my search got me to Banker To The Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty. It was written by Muhammad Yunus and he earned a Nobel Peace Prize for his work in Bangladesh. I think his concepts are pretty similar to what Vince is doing with his company.

Let me also share this episode about Tagum Cooperative (which Vince has been raving about recently) and I must say their work and mission are inspiring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQbtbORwUfE

Sorry, I am just blabbing about my recent reading/watching list but to answer your question, yes, socially responsible investments have been on my mind lately and I got excited when I saw your question. I admit that I still have an index fund and I know that some companies there don't have the best reputations, so I am slowly transitioning and studying more materials in order to invest in enterprises that I can understand and have the same principles as I do. It is a hard task but hopefully, I would get there. If you ever have a chance to attend a seminar by Vince, I'd say go for it.

These books are more theoretical and about self growth as a well-rounded designer, if you want game theory others listed some great ones like Rules of Play and Book of Lenses. That said, here's my list:

• Level Design For Games: Creating Compelling Game Experiences by Phil Co (Valve)
  
  It's more of a broad game design book since it talks about all the pipelines / processes of all departments coming together, with an emphasis on scripting / level design for crafting experiences. Portion of the book uses Unreal Engine 2 as a reference, but you can probably use UE4 or something else to follow along the actual game design lessons he's teaching and not have the take away be a technical tutorial.
  
  
• Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull (Pixar)
  
  I cannot describe how invaluable this book is, if you're only to get one from the list it'd be this one. While it does covers Pixar's history as a frame of reference for a lot of stuff, it's also more importantly about their ideology for fostering creativity, productivity and work/ life balance -- all of which are important and can be applied to Game Design.
  
  
• Peopleware by Tom DeMarco and Tim Lister.
  
  I read this one after Gabe Newell recommended it one of his interviews and it was at a time in my career when I was working at a AAA studio struggling with the corporate forces that got in the way of creativity / productivity. It was one of those that changed me as a developer. It's more from a management point of view, but seriously applicable if you are collaborating with other people in game development, either on the same level as you or those who rely on your work to do theirs. Or if you are going to work at studio, AAA or indie, it's also an insightful book to evaluate whether the culture cultivated by management is in your best interest so that you have the tools to do your best work without burning out.
  
  
• Rework by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson (Basecamp / Ruby on Rails)
  
  This one is like Peopleware but not as exhaustive, it's an easier read since it's a compilation and edit of blog posts the authors wrote on their old website 37signals. It's more or less about getting stuff done and filtering out noise, simplifying things to make results better -- this one is relatable for planning game project milestones. A lot of it will sound like common sense that a lot of people may say they already know, but it's surprising how many don't actually practice it.

Some things never change.

I was in your shoes about 15 years ago as a wide eyed, broke new comer being told to invest in my business by experienced financial advisors with big books of business and money to burn. Fortunately for me I had a fantastic manager/mentor who helped me build a financially and professionally rewarding career. Here's what I learned to invest in early on:

1. Product knowledge - You should know your products inside out. Insurance/finance companies actually do a pretty good job of this as their wholesalers are constantly picking up lunch tabs to make sure advisors know their products well enough to push them. Take advantage of them. If there's something you don't know about a product then pick up the phone, call your wholesaler, and don't let him off the phone until you know it.
   
   
2. Sales kills - 15 years in business and I'm continuously amazed at how little time is actually spent developing sales skills. Learn how to sell. Three books I'd recommend today are: Never Split the Difference, Your 1st Year in Sales, and The 12 Week Year. OK, they're not all sales books but knowing how to organize your life is vital.
   
   
3. General insurance/financial knowledge - I know SO many advisors that don't know the first things about their industries. I read The Wall Street Journal every single day to keep abreast of what's going on in the industry. I have a handful of Google Alerts for different things regarding insurance, annuities, managed money, etc. I don't watch a lot of TV but most of what I watch is CNBC and Fox Business. I've also perused additional licenses and certifications. I have my Series 7 and CFP.
   
   
4. Your appearance - Looks matter in sales. I'm always dressed professionally and exercise daily to relieve stress and, well, look good. My suits are always pressed and I cut my hair once a week because any longer and I look like Cousin It from the Addams Family.
   
   
5. Relationships - I basically built my career off of friends and experienced agents who let me call their book of business for 50% of the commission. 50% of something is a lot better than 100% of nothing. Some of my biggest clients are friends who never knew they were on an appointment with me. Play your cards right and beers with the guy from high school you haven't seen in 15 years could result in him rolling over an old 401(k) to you and buying life insurance policies for him and his wife. Play your cards really right and he'll even spring for those beers.
   
   So at this point in your career investing in your business could look like going for a 3 mile run in the morning, running an iron over your shirt, and role playing your sales pitch with your manager when no one is answering their phones. As business comes you can invest further with a mailing campaign and some door knocking. When that turns to money look at things like seminars. Your wholesalers will be happy to cover the cost of food and do a presentation so long as you can fill a room with prospects for them. Etc.

I did economics and highly recommend it. A few years out and I'm at 100k with a secure job now and promising career. I had a similar academic situation as you but decided to just stay at a state school where tuition was free. I don't know if I would have accepted it (because of the financial costs) but I wish I would have applied to some Ivy leagues and considered it more.

As a side, studying behavior economics contributed greatly to me leaving the church. Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel prize in economics and I'd highly recommend his book: Thinking, Fast and Slow.

Ultimately my advice is to remember that you're going to win in the end on this one so make it a priority to keep a good relationship with your parents. They'll probably be upset when they find out; they might start yelling; just stay calm, don't get angry back. Keep telling them that you love them and want to have a good long term relationship with them.

As you realize becoming great at social skills is just like training any other skill. Realizing you can train it will allow you to build the skill stronger than others who stumble into it. So many will say you can't get better or amazing by reading in a chair. They're right. Read a little, apply a lot, take notes, then review what you did right and what you did wrong, repeat. Get a mentor or training buddy if you can, it accelerates learning, because we can't see ourselves the same as those outside us can. Make a regimen to go out, greet and meet people every day. Or at least three times a week minimum, make it a habit.

I can tell you that I've been in customer service and sales jobs, they taught me nothing because my skills were garbage and sub-par. So I didn't have a paddle for my raft in the world of social interaction. All I got was "people get irritated if I cold approach or try to sell them. Or worse I have to dump mountains of information to make them feel safe." So after studying for the better part of a decade, here's some points that got me to the basics and more advanced subjects. With the basics under your belt, then a job or daily practice will get you understanding and results.

First, learn how to steady yourself mentally, breathing exercise here. Breathing is important as we seem to be learning your heart rate and beat pattern determine more about our emotions than we'd like to admit.

Second, Accept and love yourself, (both those terms may be undefined or wishy-washy to you at the moment, defining them is part of the journey.) Because you can only accept and love others the way you apply it to yourself first.

Third, pick up and read the charisma myth. It has habits/meditations that will be a practice you use every day. I'd say a basic understanding will happen after applying them over three months. Never stop practicing these basics, they are your fundamentals. They determine your body language. The difference between a romantic gaze and a creepy stare is context of the meeting and body language, especially in the eyes.

Sales or cold approach networking will do the same for practice. If you do sales or meeting new people, it is a negotiation. You're trying to trade "value" (safety + an emotion). So if you figure out how to make yourself feel emotion, then inspire emotion in others, mutual agreements happen. Start with Why is a good reference. Here is a summary video. Chris Voss will help you find out that you don't tap into people rationally, you tap people emotionally, big think summary video. Or the full book treatment, Never Split the Difference. The supporting book for Chris Voss' position can be helped by reading Start With No

For training habits and understanding how we execute behaviors, Thinking, Fast and Slow

For dealing with hard arguments and heavy topics both Nonviolent Communication and Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

Learning what listening is, instead of "hearing" people. Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone is a good book for that. This is touched on in Never Split the Difference and in the Charisma Myth because true listening, making the person you are speaking with feel "listened to and understood" is most of what makes a charismatic person work.

I just walked into a Fidelity office and asked them for help opening an account. Now I can access it online to look at stocks available for sale, set up stock screeners, and find their SEC filings (oftentimes I go ahead and just check the EDGAR database..

There is some minimum you have to have to start out with but I've forgotten what it is (I think $1k). I started with only $3k.

People here are going to recommend you not retail invest. Considering your statement "I'm mostly interested in companies that pay dividends like ge or intel since I want stability and low maintenance." I'm going to recommend you do some more reading and research before you start investing. If you really, truly want 'low maintenance' then you don't want to pick stocks. It involves reading long and dry financial reports and SEC filings, doing some easy but boring math, and following up every now and then with yearly and quarterly reports and shareholder voting. Technically once you get into the practice it only takes like a handful of hours a month if you're a sit-and-hold investor (which you should be), but it's a lot more work than most people are willing to do, and retail investors typically earn less than indices.

For basics of investing, check out Investopedia. Go through their tutorials; they also link to speculation games where you can purchase some stock and see how you do for a few months to a year. I'm also a huge fan of Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor. Another book that comes highly recommended everywhere I look but I haven't read yet (high on my to-do list) is The Black Swan. I would say if you've gone through all the work of reading these books and STILL want to stock pick, then you're good to go.

As a relatively arbitrary decision, I decided to put 10% of my income into my personal investment account (this would be after employer matched 401k and taking out another 10% for savings). My philosophy behind this being that if I lose every single cent from my personal account, I've only lost 10% of my earnings (though more than 10% of my wealth). This way I get to have some fun and still be cautious. Not saying you should follow this as a rule, just saying that before you invest in a financial asset that can possibly lose all of its value, you should know how much you are willing to lose.

Edit: I just wanted to mention, I enjoy reading the financial reports and such, actually, because it gives me a new perspective on the world around me and the sorts of things running under the products I take for granted that I otherwise wouldn't think about. For me retail investing gives me access to a realm of information most other people are not aware of, or interested in. It's made me look at products, services, and businesses differently and now I have a lot more connected view of just where this bottle of shampoo came from, where the aluminum in a Coca Cola can was delivered, and so forth. This is an intangible benefit that can't be calculated into my ROI. If you're really interested in learning where Alcoa owns aluminum mines and the states of the roads leading up to those mines, become a retail investor. Or you can just read SEC filings. Few people, ever, mention this aspect of retail investment as a benefit.

I run a small IT shop with about 25 repeat customers. All but 4 are business clients, I do very little residential (with the exception of the home PCs of some of my business owner clients). My business has two parts: managed services and break fix. Managed services are contracted, and basically I guarantee "x" level of uptime for the client per month. For that, I bill about 50 bucks per PC per month, and anywhere between $250 and $300 per month per server. Break/fix services - I offer onsite or remote support, I emphasize remote where possible (much cheaper for all involved and less overhead for me). Break/fix is billed hourly and/or could be a project rate.

1. I do use contracts, one is a "relationship" agreement that spells out exactly what I am not liable for, and the other is a "service agreement" that guarantees "x" number of hours of service per month for a flat fee. The managed services contracts are specific to the client, and are generally pretty complex.
   
   
2. An LLC takes some, not all, of the liability off of your personal assets and puts them under the purview of the company. It's important, but not as important as liability insurance in two types- general liability, which covers your business for "accidental" type damage, and professional liability, which covers your business should you or an employee completely screw up a client's data or systems. PL insurance is sometimes called "errors and omissions" insurance and I consider it to be critically important (and a very good selling point for your business).
   
   
3. I am on retainer for a few businesses, as I mention above, and it doesn't give them carte-blanche to call for free advice. The contract spells out some conditions - you get free phone support (as opposed to a 15 minute limit for uncontracted calls) for contracts over 20 hours per month, but if you are excessive or the calls are the result of your own incompetence ("I deleted my system32 directory") I reserve the right to bill you anyway. And so on. But in essence a customer is buying x number of hours per month of service, use it or lose it.
   
   
4. If I am diagnosing one PC, I take a run at diagnosing or fixing the problem. At about the 15 minute mark, I start making noises about how this machine needs further diagnosis and I'd need to bill to continue (but honestly, I'm good at this, and I can tell in the first few minutes what kind of problem is happening and I pretty much know the way it's going to go in that 15 minutes anyway). If the problem is obvious - spyware, etc - I immediately quote a range of hours/rates and ask if I should continue. And if it looks like its going to take more than 1-2 hours to clear a virus/spyware, I'm just going to tell them "I'm going to pave it and start over" - meaning back up their data, reinstall the OS and patch it back up, reinstall the software and restore the data. Generally that's a 4 hour gig but if a PC is that tangled up, rebuilding is the smart answer anyway.
   Servers and business clients - generally if I come in your door (whether remotely or physically) I'm on the clock, and therefore diagnosis and repair are included in the service call. Its expected that you'll spend time researching a problem to arrive at a fix. That's called due diligence and good customers aren't afraid to pay for it. Just don't be blatantly googling and saying things like "No shit!" and "uh oh, really?"
   
   
5. Taxes and legal: Hire it done. A good office manager is worth whatever they want you to pay them. Get a CPA as a client, have them help you set up a "to-do" list for taxes and payments you have to make, and get them to sign off on your books once a quarter or so to keep you in line. If you're going to have a few employees, contract with a payroll service to handle them. Keep a little money put aside somewhere for legal calls to an attorney and pick up a couple of them as clients so you can trade for work if you need to.
   
6. My business has fluctuated and I've had employees. It's a pain in the ass, far easier to contract with fellow IT types and split the bill, so right now I've got some techs that I call on a freelance basis and they bill me if I use them.
   
   Three big things to keep in mind:
   
   

• Do not, I repeat, do not, lose sight of your financial condition. Its easy to let someone else handle this and every time I've seen someone do that, huge catastrophes happen.
  
  
• Put 25% of your weekly income aside in a CD or other not-easily-accessible instrument. This is your estimated tax payment. Don't do this, and you'll end up pwned on April 15.
  
  
• Read this book.
  
  And finally: Don't be afraid to fire a customer.
  

1. Assess strengths, weaknesses for each person on team - review previous work, get feedback from other teams they worked with
   
   
2. Meet with each member individually, ask them what they like/dislike about their roles, what they would improve, and where they see themselves in two years
   
   
3. Roadmap improvement plans for each member that has clear improvement areas, how they can do it, and a baseline measurement of their current skill set
   
   
4. Roadmap all SEO tasks currently in play and for the next quarter - assign tasks to team members in a strategic plan
   
   
5. Get with your manager (Director, VP, etc) and present plans (who, what, value, cost, measurement). Approve costs for training, and secure everything you need. Recommend approving significant rewards for completion and progress.
   
   
6. Present improvement plan to individual team members
   
   
7. Present strategic plan to team with clear tasks, goals, and outcomes. End with a “commanders intent” and let everyone know that the second something is unclear, reach out to you.
   
   
8. Start a daily standup at business start time. Go over yesterday’s tasks, today’s tasks, and any blockers. Start on time, this is about discipline and structure.
   
   
9. Create biweekly checkins with each team member to go over skill improvement and strategic plan progress. Use 30m - 1hr to conduct 1:1 feedback and training. Give them the first 15m to discuss anything.
   
   
10. Create a reporting dashboard for the team that shows progress towards goals, value of their work, and transparently communicates team output/value to leadership.
    
    
11. Read books on leadership and team management — recommend several:
    
    https://amzn.to/2Ku6Xbi - The Ideal Team Player
    
    https://amzn.to/31zGqPs - The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
    
    https://amzn.to/2Ku8UEE - Extreme Ownership
    
    https://amzn.to/2YXLkE3 - Dichotomy of Leadership

>Also just to be fair, look at where this hero-based FPS style got Quake into, there is a reason why Blizzard made the most successful game in the genre, while others suffer from lack of development and direction.

Overwatch and Quake are NOT in the same genre. AT ALL. Overwatch is just as much an arena shooter as, say, Counter-Strike or Call of Duty are; which is to say not at all. You're making the same mistake everyone else is making in starting with incredibly superficial aspects of each game, namely that they have classes, and creating "genres" based on that rather than the actually significant gameplay differences between them (And they must be based on gameplay, since none of these games have any significant story elements in their actual runtime).

Overwatch is so far removed from traditional objective shooters, namely in how efficient use of abilities plays a much larger role in success than raw shooting skill than in virtually any other first person objective game that comes to mind. A large number of the classes don't even require any "FPS" skills, and instead have analogues in asymmetric strategy games and the like.

Quake Champions may be small, yes, but it IS attracting more people than just the quake crowd. On a technical level, it's an excellent blend between an archetypal arena shooter, the sort of game design Quake invented, while reducing complexity and convolution to make it much more approachable for those with more modern shooter habits. Lawbreakers, too, hardly suffers from any "lack of direction" in the design department. It's packed to the brim with great ideas and unique takes on the "high-skill FPS" concept, and had my jaw hitting the floor with respect for its elegant gameplay several times when I started playing it.

Success has far more to do with randomness and luck than most people in this thread seem willing to admit. Quake, Overwatch, and Lawbreakers AREN'T significantly better or worse than each other. No hypothetical backfit narrative properly explains why one would have hypothetically failed or succeeded without luck. We just live in a works where the big take the whole pie and the small get nothing; in a world of bandwagoning and herd mentality caused by popularity coming from whatever just happens to gain traction early on in its lifetime.

I bought in relatively early to all of these games because I'm a shooter fan and a nut for unique game design ideas. I will admit that I like Quake the most, Lawberakers second, and Ovwerwatch third, so I do have a little voice in the back of my head that gets irritated whenever others disagree with that assessment, but we all need to learn to come away form making simple judgements between them and other games in the same boat. All of them break the mould in different and unique ways, all of them have good ideas, and all of them could have been popular, in a world where luck happened to favor someone else.

Online courses are really hit or miss. Most college courses on "business" don't really teach how to start or run a small business. They either teach big business... how to work in a large corporation... or how to create a startup. Both of those are markedly different from starting and running a small business (even an online one).

There are some great books about starting and running a small business, though. Here are a few of my favorites:

Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs

This is an excellent book on business finances for the non-accounting types. I took accounting classes in college but never really got what all the financial reports really meant to my business' health. This will teach you what's important in the reports, what you should look out for, and how to read them. This is critically important for a small business owner to understand, even if you plan to hire a bookkeeper and accountant.

The E-myth Revisited by Michael Gerber

Awesome book about building systems in your business to really grow it to the point where it's not just a job for the owner. It's easy to read and probably one of the top 5 business books of all time.

Entreleadership by Dave Ramsey

This is a good book and covers several different aspects of entrepreneurship from hiring and managing employees to marketing, setting the vision, etc. It's hokey at times, but is a good read.

The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People by Stephen Covey

Not necessarily a "small business" book, but easily my top #1 book recommendation of all time. It's hugely applicable to any professional, or anyone really. I re-read this book every couple of years and still get more out of it after almost 20 years.

Getting Things Done by David Allen

THE productivity book. Even if you only absorb and implement 25% of the strategies in this book it will make a huge difference in your level of productivity. It's really the game-changing productivity system. This is one of the biggest problems with small business owners - too much to do and no organization. Great read.

I'm 31 and just started my own company. When I turned 16, I had a profound epiphany about what I wanted to do "when I grew up". That epiphany was I wanted to own my own business. The why, came from the experiences I had since I was 14.


I worked as a delivery guy for two guys who owned a bounce house company. At 15, I was employee 1 at an advertising company. I started in the mailroom stuffing envelopes and I continued to work for that company through college and even a few months after graduating college. I didn't stay in the mailroom though. As I taught myself programming and a little design, I was growing within the company, as they themselves grew in revenue and size. I was getting a front row seat to what it was like to be an entrepreneur and I loved every minute of it; the long hours, the struggles, the doing whatever it takes, carving your own path, etc.


Even though I knew being an entrepreneur was part of my path in life, it has taken me 16 yrs to make that a reality. I have no regrets as I've been able to gain knowledge and experience the entire time. Everything you experience in life can help you in some way on your path to becoming an entrepreneur.


Remember, you can do a lot of good by being an employee too. You have not failed if you don't start a company.

1. Get a job right now if you don't already have one. Work and understand what work is and build a work ethic. Even better, find a job at a small company, no matter what it is. At most small companies, no matter your role, you get exposed to the entire business.
   
   
2. Meet and speak with entrepreneurs. Check out Meetup.com for events which are going on. You might be limited to not attending the events that are bars, but I've seen plenty of kids your age attending events.
   
   
3. Find a skill and learn it. You might not think it now, but as /u/douglasjdarroch stated, you have a ton more free time to devote to that skill than when you get a full time job. I'm partial to it, but any amount of technology skills will help you with your pursuit.
   
   
4. Culture is huge when it comes to creating a successful company it can be a differentiator.
   
   Suggested Reading
   
   

• The Great Game of Business
  
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
  
• Rework
  
• Leaders Eat Last
  
• Zingerman's Guide to Building a Great Company
  
• Zingerman's Guide to Being a Great Leader

You don't need to set up as a limited company, but it will look more professional, and it will increase your accounting costs.

Being is sole trader is very simple from an accounting/tax point of view, being limited means you need to properly record everything, and you need to pay yourself a wage each month. There's other considerations which an accountant will talk you through. You'll also need him/her to submit your accountants each year for a cost of circa £400

There are tax and other benefits to being a limited company, but it really depends on your turnover/situation. If you're not selling goods, investing a lot or employing people then the tax benefits are negligible imo.

If you decide to be a sole trader, by law you have to write YOUR NAME Trading As YOUR COMPANY NAME somewhere on your invoices.

A decent accountant will walk you through the up and downsides and it's up to you really. You might ask yourself will your target audience be prefer to (or maybe only allowed to) buy from a registered company, or are they OK with a sole trader.

This is me speaking as a sole trader for the last 4 year, if any accountants respond they might see this differently.



Beyond that, you can make yourself look more professional by using a virtual office in a proper address. These start from about £30 pm for just the address and go up in cost if you add more services like mail forwarding, meeting space or even a telephone receptionist. Most of these business centre type places have upgrade paths so if things go well you could upgrade to a shared space or even a dedicated one.

If you're operating near a bigish city try to get a virtual office with an address with a central postcode, this will help you show up in Google Map results better.

You can also get VOIP numbers that travel with you wherever you're working so you can move office addreses if needed. I use a Skype Landline number which only costs £20 odd a year and means I can keep my number wherever I'm based, have an area code for the area I want to do business, it rings through on my PC, and (if the Gods are smiling) rings through on phone app as well.

If you don't have someone to turn to for logos/business cards drop me a PM and I can recommend a very good/value graphic designer. I can point you in the direction of more featured VOIP. And -whilst you probably don't need this- I make small business websites. Feel free to ignore this pargraph because I'm not trying to push anything on you, you'll soon discover that when you run a small business -initially at least- there's a lot more people interested in selling to you than buying from you.

I'd strongly consider looking into local business network meetings. Some are paid for and some are free.What they deliver varies wildly. If you want more in this just ask.

I'd also consider having a read of this.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1465382377&sr=8-1&keywords=the+e+myth

And have a glance over here. There's not much of a UK business community on Reddit.

http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/


Good luck, anything else just ask.

Short answer: Americanize your name on resumes to increase your chances for responses. Once you get interviewed and after you have established comfort/ease with the interviewer/employer, you can then casually explain your real name at an opportune moment.

Longer answer: Someone who likes "American-sounding" names isn't necessarily racist. It has to do with what scientists call cognitive ease. "American-sounding" names are more familiar, more easily recognized, and much easier to process by American brains. Less effort is involved, and what's easier is associated with more positive feelings. As we see from the article in this post (and that I've seen in other articles), that does give you an advantage.

In this job market, you want every advantage you can get. If Americanizing your name can do it, do it. You're not a race traitor or surrendering your heritage, you're being strategic. Like I said, you can always explain later.

Source for the cognitive ease stuff: this highly praised book by a well respected author. It's not some fad or psych mumbo jumbo, it's very well grounded in research.

Edit: Now if after you get called in for an interview you get vibes that the person is disappointed/not happy that you're different than what they expected...ok maybe then discriminatory attitudes are possible. But (a.) that still doesn't mean you might not impress them/change their mind anyway and (b.) better to have an interview with a chance of discrimination than no interview at all.

That's one of my favorite popular science books, so it's wonderful to hear you're getting so much out of it. It really is a fascinating topic, and it's sad that so many Christians close themselves off to it solely to protect their religious beliefs (though as you discovered, it's good for those religious beliefs that they do).

As a companion to the book you might enjoy the Stated Clearly series of videos, which break down evolution very simply (and they're made by an ex-Christian whose education about evolution was part of his reason for leaving the religion). You might also like Coyne's blog, though these days it's more about his personal views than it is about evolution (but some searching on the site will bring up interesting things he's written on a whole host of religious topics from Adam and Eve to "ground of being" theology). He does also have another book you might like (Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible), though I only read part of it since I was familiar with much of it from his blog.

> If you guys have any other book recommendations along these lines, I'm all ears!

You should definitely read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, if only because it's a classic (and widely misrepresented/misunderstood). A little farther afield, one of my favorite popular science books of all time is The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, which looks at human language as an evolved ability. Pinker's primary area of academic expertise is child language acquisition, so he's the most in his element in that book.

If you're interested in neuroscience and the brain you could read How the Mind Works (also by Pinker) or The Tell-Tale Brain by V. S. Ramachandran, both of which are wide-ranging and accessibly written. I'd also recommend Thinking, Fast and Slow by psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Evolution gets a lot of attention in ex-Christian circles, but books like these are highly underrated as antidotes to Christian indoctrination -- nothing cures magical thinking about the "soul", consciousness and so on as much as learning how the brain and the mind actually work.

If you're interested in more general/philosophical works that touch on similar themes, Douglas R. Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach made a huge impression on me (years ago). You might also like The Mind's I by Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett, which is a collection of philosophical essays along with commentaries. Books like these will get you thinking about the true mysteries of life, the universe and everything -- the kind of mysteries that have such sterile and unsatisfying "answers" within Christianity and other mythologies.

Don't worry about the past -- just be happy you're learning about all of this now. You've got plenty of life ahead of you to make up for any lost time. Have fun!

It's very difficult to get around it.

You have to stay very focused on a goal. For me, since ROM7, it's been to finish every match I play. Has that happened? No, but I understand the situations it has not and I'm very pleased with how things have been going.

It also helps if you read autobiographies or books on sports psychology (or psychology in general) to get ideas & techniques on how to better your mentality.

Here are some that have helped me immensely.

• Golf Is Not A Game Of Perfect
  
  
  • Currently reading this. It's obviously about golf, but it's about the mental game of golf. It's applicable to Smash, or basketball, or most competitive subjects. One of my favorite take-aways thus far is to look at an error such as an SD or a missed tech and think of it like "Well, there was a percentage chance that this would happen. Odds are it wont happen again. Just gotta trust my tech skill and stay sharp."
    
    
• Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength
  
  • This goes into exactly what the title states. It gives a history of research into willpower, or ego, and describes how people can behave different based off their current situation. Sleep deprivation, poor diet, getting a burst of motivation and deciding to change everything (think January 1st) can all be detrimental to your mental state. It also discusses methods of improving your willpower which can be related to habitual actions.
    
    
• The Power of Habit
  
  • This is a book that goes into habitual responses and how one can better understand them/change them. Useful information across all parts of life.
    
    
• Thinking, Fast and Slow
  
  • This is one I've revisited multiple times. It's quite a long read, but there's much to learn. Specifically it goes into two systems of thought. Your system 1 is your implicit (unconscious) system. It's what tells you the answer to 2+2 as you read it even though I didn't ask you to solve it. System 2 is the system that takes over when I tell you to give me the answer to 72 x 103. (Mathematical examples are great for conveying the ideas of these systems) It later goes into more economic psychology and decision making.
    
    
    PS. I'm not telling you where, but if you don't want to create a book collection PDFs of each of these may or may not be online.

You need to know some programming to develop a model, if you learn web scraping that will be enough to gather data for a model. You should be able to learn how to do this online.

For books, I'd highly recommend reading these:

Fortune's Forumula - A great book about the Kelly Criterion but touches on a whole range of subjects, a fantastic read.

The Signal and the Noise - Very famous book about prediction in general.

Conquering Risk - Very good book about sports betting (relatively unknown)

Calculated Bets - About creating a model and automated betting system for a relatively unknown sport.

Who's #1? - A book about rankings systems, aimed at ranking sports teams but the authors previously wrote a book on ranking websites (like google search algorithm type stuff). The basis for my dota model came from this book.


I'd recommend everyone to read Fortune's Formula and The Signal and the Noise, even people not interested in modelling. They're both awesome reads.

Calculated bets is a pretty cool read if you're interested in modelling, the author has a really quirky writing style that's entertaining.

Conquering risk is basically about exploiting bookmakers, picking off mistakes. Not really about modelling but still pretty cool.

Who's #1 is a really good intro to making a model for predicting sports imo, there's some very simple ones that will get you started.

Wow, your story is so similar to mine. Sorry these posts are so long, but I wished I had someone to tell me all this stuff along the way..

I started a residential painting company. But I had no clue what I wanted to do when I started back to school at 25.

The key is that I started moving in a whole new direction. I had lots of job opportunities prior to college that I sabatoged for myself because I didn't want to wait to go to the next level. I would always excel, but I hated working for other people - busting my ass so some jerk can take his kids to Disney World while I trudge through another day.

Finally at my last job before going back to college, I struggled to work 40hrs a week because they just didn't have work all the time. That was it for me. I knew if I was going to get to a place in life where I could make the money I wanted and live the life I wanted I WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO DO IT AS AN EMPLOYEE. Due both to my past and in general that's just the way it goes when working directly for someone else.

I had no clue but I knew I wanted to be a boss, create jobs, be the man. And I knew to get to that I would have to work harder and smarter than the average Joe's in school and business.

I ended up going to a really good business school and through that experience I learned about the painting industry.

I'm not saying you have to start a business, but you have to start a journey. It took me 6 years to get my bachelor of science accounting degree. I met my wife and had a child along the way. I struggled with strained relationships, financial hardship, car troubles and even classes sometimes (which I dropped and took in the evening or summer when they're easier). But, I didn't waiver in my zeal to be the new me. A college man, father, businessman, job creator, client pleaser.

Just start SOMETHING. Choose a general direction and MOVE. You don't know for sure, but go in a direction that's forgiving. For me I reasoned an accounting degree will work regardless of what I choose to do in business. Once you gain new experiences you will realize your talents. Or find some you never knew you had. I thought I would never be a salesman, but through a close friend I met in college I learned that other than the owners of a business salesmen make the most money. And to create my own business I had to become a salesman. And I'm really good at it thanks to my past experiences.

Oh, And my buddy from college- he makes bank too and was just like us-that's why we got along so well. Because we had a deeper drive than the rest. We had to succeed to get where we wanted. And so will you.

Regardless of what you choose to do, you should read "E myth" as soon as possible!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0887307280?pc_redir=1404788599&robot_redir=1

You won't need to really do anything as far as getting your business in order, but it will give you a perspective on business that gives you an advantage over most regular people in society. The perspective the book gives is one of three things I paid thousands of dollars to learn in a top business school. The second thing I learned is to have a goal and move toward it; along the way make meaningful connections / network, and finally I learned about the opportunity in the industry I now work. You get most of this wisdom for free. You simply must do it. It's that simple; do it.

Let me know if you have any other questions, any time.

I would read a handful of books first - I'd highly recommend reading The E-Myth Revisited
and Business Model Generation

As for courses, I wouldn't just stick to one resource to learn these things, but take advantage of free trials like lynda.com, they have super good courses on SEO and Marketing.

There are also thousands of great YouTube videos, articles and blogs which you can follow too. Stanford Business School have many lectures online also.

Trust me, you don't want to rely on one resource for this stuff, build your knowledge from many different places.

Good luck.

This sounds really bogus, but have you ever taken the Strengths Finder test? It's really fascinating and interesting and can help pinpoint where your most innate (if not currently innate) interests are.

I have always liked biographies but never really noticed or knew why. The results from the test sort of explained why. Maybe this type of thing could really help you focus in on whatever you're going through? Maybe it turns out giving another genre (Raymond Carver's newer biography is fascinating!) would get you going?

Hope this helps in some way. I know the Strengths Finder test seems goofy and corporate-retreaty, but it's really very cool.

(In case anyone was curious, my results were, in order: Context, Input, Intellection, Empathy, Communication)

Good questions.

1 - What is the importance of a cofounder? The answer depends on a lot of things, mostly the value that a cofounder could bring. The challenge is finding someone who will invest a lot of time and is willing to see a 16 year old as an equal. I am 34 years old and I would have a hard time personally with that. When it comes to startups, founders don't spend a lot of time helping each other develop skills. Usually you have pretty distinct areas of responsibility and have to train yourself in whatever those areas are. Said differently, a cofounder is more about what skills they bring to the table that they can execute somewhat independently rather than their ability to personally help or train you. If you are able to develop what you envision yourself, a cofounder might not be necessary. But to be clear, a great cofounder is worth a whole lot. You just have to overcome unique challenges because of your age and background. My personal recommendation to you would be that you should at least learn enough to develop the MVP yourself. I think it is unlikely you would find a skilled developer to act as a cofounder for free for you (equity is still free until it is paid out, and it usually isn't).

2 - Should you use kickstarter? Hard to make any recommendation without a good understanding of your product and potential audience. Have you done any market research? Have you looked at what makes a product successful on kickstarter vs not? Is your product physical or software (what it sounds like)? How has that type of product performed before on kickstarter?

A good book I would recommend if you get serious is The Startup Owner's Manual by Blank and Dorf.

You might find some of these resources helpful to get a sense of some of the moving parts for the "lean" / "customer development" approach:

Steve Blank's free Udemy course: https://www.udacity.com/course/how-to-build-a-startup--ep245

And his protege Eric Ries' Lean Startup book:
https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898

And Blanks'
https://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417

A rough, top-level, possible roadmap for a bootstrapped solo product:

1. Talk with a bunch of potential customers to validate whether the problem you will be solving for is in fact an acute problem.
   
   
2. Validate that your solution is a good one to solve that problem. Again, you can start with customer interviews with a prototype of your product. Validation can also be pre-sales, one pager landing page "coming soon" sign ups and other things.
   
   
3. Product development and customer development happening in tandem. Customer feedback informing the product. Yeah minimum viable product: what's the minimum version of your product that proves your assumption that people will find this valuable?
   
   
4. Participating / building an audience / community around folks who value solving this problem can happen during development too. Some like to do this BEFORE building the product -- and having an audience to pitch different variations of products to.
   
   
5. Get early adopters in the door, helping you improve the product. "Doing things that don't scale" while you are still in learning mode.
   
   
6. Try different experiments to improve A) the product and B) different ways/channels to find customers.
   
   
7. McClure's Pirate Metrics: measuring the customer journey of acquisition, activation, retention, referrals, revenue. At this stage retention is probably #1: am I building a product people are finding valuable enough to stick around and continue to use?
   
   
8. "Product/market fit" means your product and the particular type of people you are helping are a happy fit. Time to make those "things that don't scale" more scalable. Time to hit the gas pedal on the marketing side. More experiments to find growth...

>Why does it matter - in daily life that is - whether people are the way they are because of nature or nurture?

It informs how you should go about achieving your goals. If a property is intrinsic and cannot be changed then you need to construct your systems of behaviour around accommodating that property.

For example, hobbes' leviathan. We know that when left to our own devices, humans aren't very fair to each other. Not even necessarily because of maliciousness, but because of a bunch of intrinsic cognitive biases, that among other things predisposes everyone to perceiveing losses they experience as far worse than gains they (and others) receive, which means that any time two parties take from each other they will both perceive the other party as horribly injust and themselves as perfectly reasonable, leading to ever-increasing escalations of reciprocation that rarely lead anywhere good. But you can mitigate all that by taking the enforcement of justice out of the people directly involved's hands and giving it to an (ideally unbiased) third-party.

Of course this is a lot more complicated than my simple explanation here, but hopefully you get the point I was making. When we know what parts of human nature can't be changed (at least not yet, eh), we have a much better chance of building an environment that leads us to the results we want to have. The same goes for interacting with others in daily life. You are much better equipped to interacting with people when you really understand why they do the things they do (and why you do the things you do!) than when you're not.

Incidentally, if you want to read a good book about a lot of these intrinsic cognitive biases then I recommend Thinking, Fast and Slow. It summarizes a lot of often surprising intrinsic cognitive biases - and outright cognitive illusions - that our brains fall prey to, which we have to be aware of when we design our systems in order to get those systems to do what we want them to do.

This doesn’t answer your exact questions but I couldn’t recommend this book more: Storytelling with Data - it’s an excellent primer on what makes a good (or bad) data visualization. This book provides tons of dos and don’ts to help you think about how and when to use different types of charts (be forewarned she hates pie charts though) as well as providing before and after examples as inspiration on how to make visualizations better.

Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals https://www.amazon.com/dp/1119002257/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_qMFQCbDCYBFGC

Another book to consider that’s more specific to Excel (still gives data viz tips but it’s more how to do this in excel technical) is Data Visualization & Presentation with Microsoft Office - this book was a little basic for my needs but still a good resource.

Data Visualization & Presentation With Microsoft Office https://www.amazon.com/dp/1483365158/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_vPFQCbQZQ5876

Submission Statement: Universality fairly easily leads to the conclusion that humans anywhere out of the left tail are fundamentally the same, mentally speaking.

>In computation, universality simply means a process that can simulate all processes — including itself. By simulation, we mean copying the behavior of a process to as much fidelity as we would like. At some point, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, we stop, and consider it a duck for all practical purposes. (There, I wrapped the Turing test for artificial general intelligence in a nutshell for you.) Replace “processes” with “machines,” and you roughly see how computers work: a universal machine is a machine that can simulate all machines, including itself. You can think of a machine simply as a process that transforms an input to an output following a fixed set of rules.
>
>...
>
>Think about it: if the human species depended on exceptional geniuses who nevertheless could never communicate their exceptional thoughts to another human being, then either they are intellectual con-artists (like postmodernist “philosophers”), or we would have been doomed a long time ago. Although a few critical individuals clearly hit upon the right ideas at the right place at the right time, many other individuals need to be able to independently verify and improve upon these ideas. The real intelligence lies in human cooperation. There is no such thing as an exponentially smarter human being for the same reason as there is no such thing as an exponentially taller human being. A genius who cannot communicate his thoughts to another human is, in fact, not a genius!
>
>...
>
>As an individual, what matters much, much more than your alleged IQ is what you do with your precious, limited time on Earth. Remember, universality says that we are all capable of exactly the same ideas. That is why even differences in human languages don’t really matter. (Whether or not the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is true, we get for free the result that it is ultimately irrelevant.) Remember, the insidious thing about IQ — as Nassim astutely observed with his owl eye— is that there are people who fancy “their” people genetically smarter than yours, and only want to “help” you. (They are often the same people who like to mistakenly think that the “West” discovered all civilization, and that the “West” is Nordic / North Atlantic / North Europe.) At best, they are overeducated idiots; at worst, they are racialists. No matter what anyone tells you, you can learn about anything you like. Go out, and find out what you are good at, what Nature put you here to discover, and teach the rest of us.
>
>So, who should care about IQ? Nobody! Why? Because we are universal!

I don't know if it's the link or the website, but I get a redirection...not the best for thrusting a website.

Wordpress (.org) is great just find a better theme and browse the plugins.
for example Louis vuitton is running on wordpress. There is a lot of multinationals using wordpress.
And do the updates !!! you're using wordpress 4.5.4, the last version is 4.7
You need a theme with a e-commerce integrated in it and a SSL certificate
in order to sell; I didn't get what you want to sell btw.

Also I hope you have a backup of your website!

Online Business query on youtube - Freemium is the trend you can find a lot of free tutorial to learn the basics of business on youtube.

Next I recommend some readings (not affiliate):
-The personnal MBA - Josh Kaufman
-Growth Hacker Marketing - Ryan Holiday

• This blog on growth hacking: https://www.hackisition.com/

there are a few really great resources that were mentioned already.

I found Tufte books a little bit abstract and more geared toward data visualization philosophy and not as practical as some of the other resources out there in terms of creating interactive, business-focused data visualizations. While I really like them, it may not be the first ones you grab.

I highly recommend books and blogs by these people---all but Stephen Few are active on Twitter (bolding the highest 3 recommendations):

Stephen Few:

• Book: Information Dashboard Design
  
• Book: Show me the Numbers
  
• Blog: Perceptual Edge (really succinct and opinionated articles. you can learn a lot by his support and criticism of visuals or books. Read the comments. He can be abrasive, but usually pretty enlightening)
  
  Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic:
  
  
• Book: Storytelling with Data (already shared but repeating for convenience) Super good at helping draw attention to the point you're trying to make within the visual and ensuring that you're using opinionated titles if in a presentation like Powerpoint or Keynote.
  
• Book: Storytelling with Data: Let's Practice (recently came out and is very hands on)
  
• Blog: StoryTellingWithData
  
  Stephanie Evergreen:
  
  
• Effective Data Visualization: selecting the right chart for the right data
  
  Alberto Cairo:
  
  
• Truthful Art (good followup to his "functional art" book)

\> I'm open to suggestion about how to "demonstrate" to your satisfaction that I'm acting rationally,

I hardly have an idea what you claim. How could I know what would demonstrate proof of it?

\> Given the available evidence, I've concluded that Christianity best fits what we know about the world.

Ok, what evidence?

\> the most persuasive part is the ethical system laid out in the Gospels, which best expresses a super-human morality.

This expresses why you like it, not why it's Right.

\> I have some personal experience of God as well, and a strong sense of the numinous in general

More detail on that would be helpful.

\> when I first started having these discussions online it was hard to believe that not everyone has that same feeling.

There's a good chance that with training in meditation, most people can. Certainly, what little you've offered so far is similar to the description offered across many religions around the world... and that gets us back to the question of how you know that yours is the Right one.

\> I won't ask you to demonstrate that you come by your conclusions rationally, because I assume that anyone going onto a debate subreddit has done their homework until proven otherwise.

Which of my conclusions? Evidence suggests that people don't come to their conclusions rationally. See Daniel Kahneman's work.

I got this book at work.. There's a code for an online questionnaire that produces 5 strengths that are unique to you.


I thought that it would be like some lame free internet quiz but the 5 strengths and descriptions it spit out were incredibly spot on. It might not say "Be a doctor!" or "Be an archeologist!" but knowing what your strengths are will help you assess careers and how they would fit with your unique strengths. You'll be happier when you chose a career that you can excel in :)

Well, perhaps the most famous, and certainly the most influential, is the Dying Earth series by Jack Vance. Not only are the original books by Vance still available, but there was also a recent anthology by many famous SF authors set in the same milieu.

Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun is the next most famous work. Amazing stuff and highly recommended.

I can also recommend Hiero's Journey (and its sequel) as perfect examples of what you're looking for. One catch, though, is that these are out of print now. Very entertaining if you can find them (second hand copies available easily enough online).

And of course there are the Shanara books.

Read this book

The E-Myth teaches that in order to run a successful business you need to fill three roles:

1. Technician- who does the work
   
2. Manager - who sets up systems and focuses on the day to day...at the same time, not losing sight of the overall vision
   
3. Visionary - the entrepreneur, the big picture person...the person on top of the tree.
   
   In order to be successful, you need to be good at all three areas but the problem is that most people are only good at 2/3. Let's say, I can do the work (technician) and have the vision of where I want to be (visionary) BUT I can't focus enough on the plan to see it through...can't break it down to small manageable chunks. That's when I hire or partner with a manager. Someone that sees where you are going and helps you focus on taking care of the small things, so the big things can take care of themselves. I hope this helps because it helped me.
   
   Source: first generation American with no idea how to start a business in this country. The E Myth definitely made me see things differently. I now own 2 businesses, one has been going for 6 years grossing 15k per month and the other we just launched back in January. The key was to figure out my strengths very early on and delegate the rest either by hiring or establishing a strategic partnership.

Don't have much input on your financial situation (other than as other people have mentioned, grow that business!), but may I suggest that you read a book like The e-Myth Revisited - Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It by Michael Gerber.


It has some great advice for how to take a business of passion where you are an employee (like yours) from something that consumes your life to something that can enrich your life and increase your free time instead of taking all of it. It's a quick read, and your situation sounds like you could really use it's advice. I really want you to succeed!

I don't have any relationship to the book by the way, financial or otherwise, I just think it could help you, and it is a quick read so it wouldn't kill you with your schedule.

Edits were because I suck at reddit formatting.

I recommend Gene Wolfe's masterpiece The Book of the New Sun, easily my favourite fantasy work alongside AoIaF and LotR. Wolfe is not that well known about fantasy readers, but he deserves a top spot; Neil Gaiman calls him his hero.

The New Sun is wonderfully dense and complex, easily as complex as ASoIaF. The writing is superb (at a much higher literary level than Martin), with plenty of violence and darkness and weirdness. It starts out deceptively like a straight-faced sword and sorcery novel, and then it gets… complicated. It's notable for deconstructing traditional sword-and-sorcery fantasy and turning the heroic epic on its head. It's fairly gritty, and deals with amorality in a way which can be off-putting to some. Its plot is positively panoramic, spanning a huge amount of time. It even has a bit of apparent time travel, in a good way.

It's a single novel, comes in five volumes (with hoary cover art, just ignore it) plus an extra volume written later that is not mandatory reading. If you like New Sun, Wolfe has two series set in the same universe that could be considered sequels, and which together comprise a sort of thematic trilogy about the nature of identity and narrative.

This book has been suggested a few times so I finally got around to reading it. I think it has some good information in it. I'm only about halfway through it, but I like it so far.

Time Management for System Administrators

Other books would be any of the social books like "How to influence people", "7 healthy habits..." Etc.

I haven't read this one yet, but It has been suggested to me if you plan to go more into management/leadership Start with Why

Other books that have I have ear marked due to being mentioned:

• The Devops Handbook
  
• The Practice of System and Network Administration
  
• The Practice of Cloud System Administration
  
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy - This one might have been a joke, but as someone who has dealt with depression and burnout on the job. I think this could be beneficial.
  
• How to win friends and influence people
  
• How to win friends and influence people in the Digital Age
  
  Also, do a search for "Books for IT Professionals" to find a lot of other suggestions.

When I find myself in this position (which I'm currently in after burning 18 months and a big chunk of cash on my last startup only to have it fail), I usually slink off, lick my wounds, do a lot fo reading and then approach my next project feeling a little more educated, refreshed, and ready.

Some suggestions if I may:

• The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win: http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Successful-Strategies/dp/0976470705
  
  
• Founders at Work: http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-Early/dp/1430210788/
  
  
• Business Model Generation: http://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417/
  
  Founders At Work is an easy, fun and somewhat inspirational read. The concept behind 4 Steps to an Epiphany is pretty simple, so odds are you won't need to read the whole book as its a little dry. It is authored by Steve Blank and I highly recommend watching his lectures on youtube. Business Model Generation was a mind bender and I've read it about 6 times. I've run all my past businesses and current business through it plus a couple non-profits. It is fantastic and I love it.
  

> I am fairly ignorant on the different options available to me as far as investing goes, but that's what investment companies are for, isn't it?

Absolutely. We have a financial advisor that keeps a close eye on our money, and he's more than earned his pay. But I think it important to educate yourself enough to develop a functional BS detector. Otherwise, you won't know what to expect in different market conditions and will have a tough time picking an advisor.

We got in with our guy nearly ten years ago because he maintained the value of his clients' portfolios in the dot-com crash while still delivering good returns during market upswings.

I'd recommend interviewing a couple of advisors before picking one. Don't be shy to ask how they get paid. Many of them get commissions based on selling particular financial products. Get up and leave as soon as you hear that. Others are limited to selling a particular set of products. That would also make me nervous. Part of the reason we picked our guy is that he takes a flat commission off the value of our portfolio (originally 1%/year, now around 0.75%) and can get us into all manner of financial products including options, commodities, etc. We primarily hold mutual funds and individual stocks, though.

> but if people who are making moves on Wall Street do what they have done recently, there is no guarantee that my retirement fund will have any value by the time I'm ready to draw on it. My dad has been investing in his retirement for decades, and in the last two years, it lost $50k in value.

There's no sure thing. You have to do something with your money and realize that holding cash has its own set of risks, particularly now that we have a madman with printing press in charge of our central bank.

FWIIW, our portfolio value dipped in 2008/2009, but we were fully recovered in value by mid 2009. We recognized the housing bubble for what it was and stayed out of that sector. My parents were blindly turning over their money to a manager who had them heavily invested in Fannie and Freddie. They lost a couple hundred large in the 2008 crash, and it's not coming back.

> Do you have any advice on where to start learning without having to spend every hour after work piddling with it?

Four of my favorites include One Up on Wall Street, Fail-Safe Investing, The Black Swan, and How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes. The first book talks about picking individual stocks (gave me the confidence to load up on AAPL back when it was trading under $100/share), the second about structuring a portfolio for growth while still playing defense, the third about common fallacies and hubris, and the last about what drives an economy (particularly useful for recognizing bubbles).

Is this at all helpful?

Well, that's asking for investment advice from some stranger on the internet, and you should obviously never take investment advice from some stranger over the internet without using your own brain.

Also, right now is a tough time anyways. As you might know the stock market jumped up (a bit at least) right after the Fed announced to keep the quantitative easing coming. This was almost "marketed" in the media as if it's a good thing, but it was almost certainly inverters "fleeing" the dollar more than anything else, as shown by the quick decline shortly after.

I guess precious metals are a pretty safe bet, or stocks in mining company's. But it will always be you vs. the market in these types of situations.

That said (and perhaps therefore) I'm a Black Swan type of guy myself. I'd rather invest in a bunch of things that might either go to the moon or crash and burn, instead of investing it all in a "certain" 3% profit a year. (Especially since there's no such thing as certainty these days.) And even then you should probably not risk more than ~20% of your net worth in Black Swans - not at the same time anyways. Probably less, even.

Right now I think Bitcoin has got to be the most promising Black Swan. It will either be worth a lot in ten years time or it will be worth nothing at all. Big risk - huge potential pay-off. I know, the word "bitcoin" brings up a lot of scepticism in a lot of people, it almost rhymes with "dotcom-bubble". But just watch the video I linked to, it's not that long.

However, whatever you do, DO NOT, invest all of your money in bitcoin, or do so at your own risk. Even 1% of your net worth should be more than enough. But most importantly, do your own research.

Yeah, some of the wording was a bit awkward.

for example: "We want to provide you that place where you can share and access any file, when you want and for free"

Say something along the lines of "Access your files from anywhere in the world at any time"

Example 2 "Fufox is not using your personal data for commercial purposes"

Instead say "Fufox(or we) respect(s) our users' privacy and we pledge not to sell your personal information to third parties.

Avoid using "you" and complete sentences. You're trying to get a point across and not make someone understand a legal contract. It's ok to be a little vague.


The web design is nice. A bit cliche but nice.
Best of luck! Just remember that in order to be successful, your product has to be a heck of lot better than the competition or a heck of a lot cheaper. Being slightly better than the competition (dropbox) isn't enough to succeed. I sadly have had to drop ideas myself because of this.

You can learn a lot from this book. It's easy to read. http://amzn.com/0470876417

I wish you best of luck with the endeavour. A few suggestions

• Please quality control your product
  
• If it's cheap material and going to go bad after two washes than your business is not going anywhere. I can already buy extremely cheap shirts online
  
• Figure out what differentiates you from your competitors
  
• Take a look at Markhor.com. These guys (founders are a guy and girl) are doing an excellent job of product messaging and marketing, market differentiation, quality control and customer service. They way I found out about them was thru a blog talking about how they are trying to be a sustainable and a humane business who looks after their workers. They did a crowd funding for raising funds and message that worked for me personally was their desire (genuine or not) to pay their workers well and to support them.
  
• check out a book called ["The startup owner's manual"](The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0984999302/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_TdJWAb555BTCG)
  
• See if you can incorporate US pricing on the website of you hope to sell overseas and you should be planning to see oversees.
  
  Starting your own thing is hard but is well worth the effort. Again, wish you best of luck!

The better question to ask is why do you need this in the first place? If you were playing good and running good your mental game would be fine. The only thing that affecting poker player results are playing bad or running bad. Playing bad can be fixed by analyzing hands, reading good poker books and training. The effects of running bad can be lessened by understanding probability and randomness better. Running bad shouldn't really be an issue if you are bank rolled properly because if it is, then you are playing bad.

Most poker players that I know that are always frustrated or constantly tilting are almost always playing at stakes their bankroll doesn't support.
If you are using the 100 times big blind and 25 buyins recommendation, you shouldn't really have a mental game issue because you should be able to absorb the variance.

Mental Game Books

• The Mental Game of Poker
  
  
• The Poker Mindset
  
  More understanding about probability, randomness and focusing on the present can be helpful. If you understand those more it should help your mental game. I would recommend these books and at least understand their central points:
  
  
• The Power of Now - relates to poker because the hand you are playing now is the only hand you should worry about. There is no last hand. Each hand is a clean slate. Focus on the present hand.
  
  
• The Drunkard's Walk - relates to poker because whether you double up and lost two buy-ins could just be randomness.
  
  
• The 80 / 20 Principle - relates to poker because 80% of your wins or losses will most likely come from 20% of hands played. Thus making hand selection important.
  
  
• The Black Swan - one "black swan" situation could triple you up or make you lose your whole stack. Typically this means knowing when to fold big hands like AA or KK.
  
  
• Fooled By Randomness - relates to poker because you could win the main event and millions of dollars and still not be a good poker player. The poker gods and luck could have just wanted to hang out with you for a week.
  
  
  
  
  

Well, it's not a complete guide of "how to be a good manager" but this is the canonical (I believe) book about Scrum, which is a specific implementation of the vague mess known as "agile."

https://www.amazon.com/Scrum-Doing-Twice-Work-Half/dp/038534645X

It's pretty short, 256 pages. I think that after the first few chapters you'd have a pretty good sense of whether or not you think it's interesting or if you think it's bullshit.

If you want to know how to be a good manager, I'd suggest this book. It's not about management but it's pretty good primer on how to work with people.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0671027034

If I could pick two books for all my managers to read and really take to heart, it would be those two.

> also many people don't understand or exaggerate that developed and undeveloped part, years ago i was with a friend of mine and we were talking to some girl from germany for fun, and she asked us "do you in syria have cars and phones like us?"

That just means 'developed' and 'underdeveloped' are poor labels, or that 'underdeveloped' contains a much wider group than the other one. Factfulness separated people in 4 income groups, perhaps this is better with you?:

> Level 1: People live on less than $2 a day. Rosling estimates that one billion people are living at or below this threshold. They get around on their own two barefoot feet, cook over an open flame like a cookfire, fetch water in a bucket, and sleep on the ground.

This is what most people understand if they hear the word underdeveloped/developing. Basically, tribes and very conservative lifestyles.

> Level 2: This is the income group where the majority of the world's people live. They get by on between $2 and $8 a day and might have some possessions like a bicycle, a mattress, or a gas canister for cooking at home.

This is the stereotypical view of Eastern Europe, India, Southeast Asia, and Latin America in movies, and while this might be true in those regions for rural areas, most of the people living there are level 3 and 4.

> Level 3: This is the second most populous category on Rosling's list, after level 2. People in level 3 live on anywhere from $8 a day to $32. They have running water, might own a motorbike or car, and their meals are a rich and colorful mix of foods from day to day. They also probably have electricity and a fridge, which makes things like studying and eating enough varied nutrients easier.

What you were talking about are countries in Level 3.

> Level 4: Like level 1, roughly one billion of the world's people live on this level. They make $32 a day or more and have things like running water (both hot and cold) at home, a vehicle in the driveway, and plenty of nutrients on their plate. They've also likely had the chance to finish twelve years of school, or more.

Basically, the people who want to help.

Read this https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280 to see if it´s still a good idea for you. Do your research for your target market before jumping all in.

Start marketing asap: A website and building your online presence is a must. This one is a good one for one on one service: https://microbusinessapp.com or if you plan on selling a bunch of stuff online then https://www.shopify.com/ is good for selling a lot of stuff for shipping.

Use social media to start getting your brand name out there and just letting family and friends know you´re serious about starting your business they will help you get your name out there.

Use services that will help you automate your business where you may lack the skills: Some people use https://www.fiverr.com/ and the like to help when money is tight.

Have patience, be adaptable, roll with the punches and have fun!

Best of wishes on your new adventure!!

Some additional information can help a lot in recommendations. I'd like to know the following:

What is your team size?

Is your team co-located (all in one place)?

Can you describe the type and flow of your work?

Do you have open channels of communication with your customer, and if not, do you have people who can stand in and more or less speak for the customer?

Do you think the leadership would be on board for a drastic change?

It is unlikely that the visibility and continuous improvement of an agile framework will not bring about significant improvements within your company. Also, if you are the type that thrives on facilitating a team and helping them grow to excellence, then this will be a great career change. Personally, I love my job and enjoy every day. With the above simple questions answered, it would be a lot easier to spark a conversation.

Jeff Southerland's book (already mentioned) is a great intro for Scrum, and not a boring read. I also like David Anderson's Kanban, if you have a more steady continuous workflow like a compliance or support team, this can fit better. Also, a good read. The Scrum Guide is rather short and is the definitive guide for the Scrum framework. Exactly how you execute under that framework is largely up to the team, but everything is based on the idea of iterative continuous improvement. Once you get this idea down in practice, you'll be hooked.

Never let another player dictate your play to you. If they're pinging for something, take a moment and think for yourself about whether or not it's a good play - Don't automatically go for it because they're pinging, but also don't automatically dismiss it because they're being annoying about it. Deep breath, make a call.

After the game, take time to re-watch that moment in the replay, and try to see it from their perspective - what are they losing for you not being there, and what are you gaining for being where you decided to go? Did you make the right call? If you think so after looking at it for a few minutes, don't worry about it. Tons of people make emotional pings because they don't know what to do and they feel trapped and pressured. But, you can't change the likelihood of the play to succeed just because one of your teammates wants it to work.

Making the right play - the one that you know you can make, the one that feels right - is going to net you a better result over time, because the frequency of people actually afking when you don't camp for them is actually quite low - negativity bias will have you having an easier time remembering the ones that do because it's such a stand-out moment, and availability heuristic will have you overestimating the frequency of them because you can remember them happening more recently, but if you actually collect some data about how often it happens, over a large sample size, like say a month or two, you'll see that it's not that big of a deal. (For more information on the biases mentioned, check out "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman)

In short, make your own decisions, but consider other people's opinions while making them. Don't sweat the small stuff, because focusing on your own play (which you have control over) is much more effective than focusing on external factors like teammates (which you can't). The difference between you and a pro-player isn't your teammates. Learn, grow, win, climb.

https://www.amazon.com/Factfulness-Reasons-World-Things-Better/dp/1250107814

Please read a book like this. Wealth disparity might be getting larger but the world is getting better for people due to capitalism.

Wealth gaps are a red herring. Yes, we should tax rich people more and close loopholes and redistribute a bunch of it. However, rich people should exist and having billionaires is not a problem. Having rich people actually has made the world better in a lot of ways. We just need to have them provide more than they have already.

Ok, possibly secret nugget of awesome: Tad Williams' Otherland series. Starts off fairly slow but when it gets going, you're in for a good, long ride, as there are four books in the series, each with nearly 1000 pages.

Also, Connie Willis has a clever, almost frenetic writing style that I really enjoy. I particularly liked To Say Nothing of the Dog but she has a number of novels that involve her own particular take on time travel.

An older classic that not everyone reads, Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. Like Frank Herbert, Wolfe definitely writes for adults, and also like Herbert it's hard to say whether what he has to say is really significant or if he's just pulling philosophy from his ass.

Alright, I'll expand. Hope you bear with me, this might be long and slightly tangential.

Basically, most of our strong beliefs are not something that we inspect regularly in our conscious mind. They are rather part of a general worldview that seems natural to us and are not given much thought ever. These beliefs more or less fit the worldview of our surrounding social environment, and that makes them relatively invisible to us. Not only that, but they often get boxed with what we perceive to be an objective perspective on reality. It's not a belief if it's reality, right? The beliefs that we do notice tend to be marginal beliefs that are more centered around our own experience of reality versus that of those surrounding us.

So for example, an American (typing with broad strokes here) middle manager may have a very different view of how one should build a career in a productive manner than an American retail worker playing music with his band on the weekends. This perspective on careers will appear to be a strong belief they both have because it may clash when they interact with each other, and the intense interactions may end up crystallizing these beliefs into what you'd call "strong beliefs", which then become an important part of a person's ideas when evaluating potential social relationships. But these beliefs about professional undertakings are actually very marginal compared to topics such as whether or not everyone can or should be happy, or whether or not people are generally trustworthy due to their nature. Human nature is perceived (wrongly) as something static by many, many people (especially in the US) and it affects policy-making, charity-giving, business practices, etc. The idea that human nature is static will change how we see redemption, how we see economic policies, how we even see intimate relationships. The belief that people hold free will will affect how we judge criminals, how we judge people who wronged us (I won't start on the topic of betrayal but god that word irks me), etc.

Now how we build our personal worldview and beliefs (strong or otherwise) is complex, so might as well take the time to suggest further reading on the matter:

Conrad Phillip Kottak's introductory book on Anthropology is well-respected, and I would recommend it to have a better overview of how different societies view the world quite differently, and how the local culture's worldview easily becomes one's own without actually realizing that it's happening. It's called enculturation - the learning of one's culture by living through it and interacting with others in it - and tends to be invisible to most people, despite its impact on a large amount of our beliefs.

As a small example of this but one I find rather valuable, there is a documentary on India's Ladakh region, called Ancient Futures - Learning from Ladakh, in which you can see the anthropologist interacting with women from the local communiy, and talking about how she can't really sew. And the women are just surprised because to them, you learn by practice, simply. There's no acceptance that someone can't learn to use the techniques they're using because they literally don't know anyone who can't sew. As long as you practice and sit with someone who knows how, you'll learn. And it's fascinating because in our culture, there is a prevalent belief that some people just can't learn functional understanding of certain things. Seems obvious, right? Not everyone can be an astrophysicist, not everyone can be a competent engineer. But what if that was wrong? And there's actually ridiculously interesting research on how this worldview can affect women in math classes, as well as young blacks in academic grading. People take all of this for granted but it is a massive component in how we view social policies.

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett's researches in social epidemiology have done wonders in exploring the impacts of socioeconomic inequality on a massive amount of social factors, such as criminality, self-esteem, academic performance, etc. And this is only for one (albeit an important) factor in societies; how unequal the distribution of income is. 400 scientific articles later, one finds a clear trend; socioeconomic inequality has massive impact on things that you would never think of. They affect how people trust each other within a given society, because larger differences in socioeconomic circumstances lead to more conflict and different subcultures having trouble interacting with each other because their reality is so different. This seems beside the point but it really isn't; it strongly affects how the average person thinks others around him/her are worthy of trust. It has consequences on how we relate to each other and how we see the average stranger. This is not something we can inspect easily without knowing about it firsthand, so it's a "hidden" belief that is crazy in its impact on our lives.

And these factors all relate to general beliefs about others and the world, in an external manner. We also have trouble understanding a lot of what goes on inside our own decision-making process, which most people think does belong to them. Some researches have shown that you can impact someone's perspective on a stranger they just met by priming them with negative words or unpleasant experiences prior to the meeting, or by making them suffer through prolonged mental problem-solving. A paper studying the chances of getting paroled by parole judges observed that you had the most chance right after they had eaten, and the least before noon because they became more impatient towards inmates when their blood sugar was low. Other studies have shown that if you test cognitive reflexes for racism, most people who do not think that they are indeed racist will find that they have a ton more prejudice than they originally thought. This doesn't register as much when thinking about how you consciously view the world but it shows when writing or interacting with others without being focused on your own thoughts. This is probably one of the biggest reasons why you see minorities struggling so much to be represented in mainstream culture, except for the token black guy or the "faire-valoir" woman.

I'm written too much already but I strongly recommend Daniel Kahnemann's book Thinking, Fast and Slow to better understand what cognitive sciences have taught us about how our thoughts are affected by our brain's physiology and our prior experiences. I am serious in saying this; there is no way this book will not be useful to you in some way, no matter what kind of life you lead. If you have limited time or money, he gives this lecture which is kind of alright to summarize his book. I stress this man particularly because he is a legend. The man is reasonable, intelligent, and has more than three decades of solid research to back what he says.

I wanted to mention questions of free will more because they kinda relate to this whole thing but I'm gonna stop here and just recommend you check out Sam Harris' lecture on Free Will on youtube. I don't agree with much of what the guy says on other topics but he summarizes things well in that specific lecture.

Sorry again for writing such a wall of text. I hope that was worth the time to read it.

A few years ago, they made everyone at work read a copy of "Strengths Finder," and then go to a training class. The gist is that you need to find a job that you're good at, that the company needs someone to do, and that won't drive you crazy. And no one else is going to find it FOR you.
https://www.amazon.com/StrengthsFinder-2-0-Tom-Rath/dp/159562015X/

I thought the whole thing was blindingly obvious, and couldn't understand why people liked it so much. It got so confusing that I asked a stranger next to me in the training "Isn't this obvious? Why do people have to be told to balance those three things?" He got huffy and said "Well, I don't know about YOU, but I do what my boss TELLS me to do," like he was laying down a winning hand. Don't be that guy!

I met a lot of people in college who were studying something they liked, without asking if anyone was hiring for that job. And I know people who took jobs they didn't like, and ended up burning out and quitting.

So just start making lists. What are you good at? What do you like to do? And search the job listings - what's hiring? Pick something that ticks all three boxes.

Here's my list of the classics:

General Computing

• But How Do It Know? - The Basic Principles of Computers for Everyone
  
  
• The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles
  
  
• Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
  
  
• Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
  
  Computer Science
  
  
• The New Turing Omnibus: Sixty-Six Excursions in Computer Science
  
  
• Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools, 2nd Edition (aka The Dragon Book)
  
  
• The Art of Computer Programming
  
  
• Algorithms, 4th Edition
  
  
• Introduction to Algorithms, 3rd Edition (aka CLRS)
  
  
• Essential Algorithms: A Practical Approach to Computer Algorithms Using Python and C#, 2nd Edition
  
  
• Grokking Algorithms: An Illustrated Guide for Programmers and Other Curious People
  
  
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, 2nd Edition (aka SICP, available for free on the MIT website)
  
  
• Discrete Mathematics with Applications, 4th Edition
  
  Software Development
  
  
• Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems by Martin Kleppmann
  
  
• Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software (aka The Gang of Four)
  
  
• Think Like a Programmer: An Introduction to Creative Problem Solving
  
  
• The Pragmatic Programmer: your journey to mastery, 20th Anniversary Edition, 2nd Edition
  
  
• The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering
  
  
• Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction, 2nd Edition
  
  
• The Design of Everyday Things
  
  
• Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship
  
  
• Programming Pearls, 2nd Edition
  
  
• Soft Skills: The Software Developer's Life Manual
  
  
• Hello, Startup: A Programmer's Guide to Building Products, Technologies, and Teams
  
  
• Hacker's Delight, 2nd Edition
  
  
• Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, 3rd Edition
  
  Case Studies
  
  
• The Soul of a New Machine
  
  
• Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture
  
  
• Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
  
  
• Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet
  
  
• Fire in the Valley: The Birth and Death of the Personal Computer, 3rd Edition
  
  Employment
  
  
• Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions, 6th Edition
  
  
• The Complete Software Developer's Career Guide: How to Learn Programming Languages Quickly, Ace Your Programming Interview, and Land Your Software Developer Dream Job
  
  
• The Self-Taught Programmer: The Definitive Guide to Programming Professionally
  
  
• The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development
  
  Language-Specific
  
  C
  
  
• The C Programming Language, 2nd Edition
  
  Python
  
  
• Automate the Boring Stuff with Python: Practical Programming for Total Beginners, 2nd Edition
  
  
• Python Crash Course: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming
  
  
• Python Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science, 3rd Edition
  
  
• Effective Python: 59 Specific Ways to Write Better Python
  
  C#
  
  
• The C# Player's Guide, 3rd Edition
  
  C++
  
  
• The C++ Programming Language, 4th Edition
  
  
• Starting Out with C++: from Control Structures to Objects, 9th Edition
  
  Java
  
  
• Introduction to Java Programming and Data Structures: Comprehensive Version, 11th Edition
  
  
• [Java: A Beginner's Guide](https://www.amazon.com/Java-Beginners-Seventh-Herbert-Schildt/dp/1259589315/, 7th Edition)
  
  
• Java: The Complete Reference, 11th Edition
  
  
• Core Java Volume I - Fundamentals, 11th Edition
  
  
• Starting Out with Java: From Control Structures through Objects, 6th Edition
  
  
• Effective Java, 3rd Edition
  
  Linux Shell Scripts
  
  
• The Linux Command Line: A Complete Introduction, 2nd Edition
  
  
• Wicked Cool Shell Scripts: 101 Scripts for Linux, OS X, and UNIX Systems, 2nd Edition
  
  
• Linux Command Line and Shell Scripting Bible
  
  
• Mastering Linux Shell Scripting
  
  Web Development
  
  
• Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Web Graphics, 5th Edition
  
  
• Eloquent JavaScript: A Modern Introduction to Programming, 3rd Edition (also available for free on the author's website)
  
  
• JavaScript and JQuery: Interactive Front-End Web Development
  
  
• HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites
  
  
• You Don't Know JS: Up & Going
  
  Ruby and Rails
  
  
• Ruby on Rails Tutorial: Learn Web Development with Rails, 4th Edition (Note: this book is somewhat out of date compared to the live version on the author's website.)
  
  
• The Well Grounded Rubyist, 3rd Edition
  
  
• Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer
  
  
• Agile Web Development with Rails 5.1
  
  
• Programming Ruby 1.9 & 2.0: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide, 4th Edition
  
  
• Eloquent Ruby
  
  Assembly
  
  
• Assembly Language for x86 Processors, 8th Edition

I recommend reading http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555 to all of you.

"The Nobel economist points out that “in a predictable world, the stronger CEO would be found to lead the more successful firm 100% of the time.” In a world in which random external factors determine success, the more successful firms would be led by stronger CEOs only 50% of the time. In other words, the effect of top talent might be said to be random. In reality, stronger CEOs lead stronger companies only 60% of the time."

I think:

1. Different messages appeal to different people.
   
2. Cool-headed arguments will appeal to some voters, but emotionally engaging & snappy communication will appeal to others more strongly.
   
3. You're right that we need to be careful to ensure that any messages we make can't backfire now or in the future.
   
   In particular, I'd encourage you to read a book called "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Nobel-prize-winning-psychologist Daniel Kahneman. In it he goes into great depth about the way that our brains often substitute difficult decisions (like "who should I vote for") subconsciously with easier ones (like "who do I have a better general impression of") and I feel that's the playground we should be operating in.

• The Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham
  
  
• Security Analysis - Benjamin Graham
  
  
• The Interpretation of Financial Statements - Benjamin Graham
  
  
• Financial Shenanigans: How to Detect Accounting Gimmicks & Fraud in Financial Reports - Howard Schilit
  
  
• Applied Value Investing - Joseph Calandro
  
  
• Analysis for Financial Management - Robert Higgins
  
  
• Margin of Safety - Seth Klarman
  
  
• Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings - Philip Fisher
  
  
• One Up On Wall Street - Peter Lynch
  
  
• Beating The Street - Peter Lynch
  
  
• The Essays of Warren Buffett - Warren Buffett
  
  
• Snowball: Warren Buffett and The Business of Life - Alice Schroeder
  
  
• Buffett Beyond Value - Prem Jain
  
  
• Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond - Bruce Greenwald
  
  
• You Can Be A Stock Market Genius - Joel Greenblatt
  
  
• The Little Book That Beats The Market - Joel Greenblatt
  
  
• The Big Secret for the Small Investor: A New Route to Long-Term Investment Success - Joel Greenblatt
  
  
• Reminiscences of a Stock Operator - Edwin Leferve
  
  
• Fooled By Randomness - Nassim Taleb
  
  
• The Black Swan - Nassim Taleb
  
  
• Poor Charlie's Almanack - Charlie Munger
  
  
• Rediscovered Benjamin Graham - Janet Lowe
  
  
• The Theory of Investment Value - John Burr Williams
  
  
• Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger - Peter Bevelin
  
  
• Security Analysis and Business Valuation on Wall Street - Jeffrey Hooke
  
  
• Value Investing: Tools and Techniques for Intelligent Investment - James Montier
  
  
• Investment Valuation: Tools and Techniques for Determining the Value of Any Asset - Aswath Damodaran
  
  
• The Dark Side of Valuation - Aswath Damodaran
  
  
• Financial Statements: A Step-by-Step Guide to Understanding and Creating Financial Reports - Thomas Ittelson
  
  
• Buyout - Rick Rickertsen
  
  
• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - Robert Cialdini
  
  
• Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes: Lessons from the New Science of Behavioral Economics - Gary Belsky
  
  
• The Warren Buffett Way - Robert Hagstrom
  
  
• The Most Important Thing - Howard Marks
  
  
• Competition Demystified - Bruce Greenwald
  
  
• Accounting For Value - Stephen Penman
  
  
• Distressed Debt Analysis - Stephen Moyer
  
  
• Bankruptcy Investing - Ben Branch
  
  
• The Vulture Investors - Hilary Rosenberg
  
  
• Creating Value Through Corporate Restructuring - Stuart Gilson
  
  
• Distress Investing - Martin J Whitman
  
  
• The Aggressive Conservative Investor - Martin J Whitman

Ideas are damn near worth nothing unless they're in the pure areas like mathematics and such. Execution is everything.

Luckily for you, executing is arguably easier than it has ever been in human history. A few things come to mind.

1. Start a Kickstarter. Or one of the many clones of Kickstarter such as LocalLift http://blog.ycombinator.com/local-lift-yc-s14-is-a-kickstarter-for-local-businesses
   
   
2. Pick up a copy of http://www.amazon.com/The-Startup-Owners-Manual-Step-By-Step/dp/0984999302. Even if you're not doing a startup, it has a lot of great advice. It isn't just another get-rich-quick book, but instead a book by professors and successful entrepreneurs on how to exploit the long tail of needs. It might be true that you're not Google, but with 6 billion people on the planet you don't have to be Google. (There are 10 million women aged 25 to 30 in the US alone. If you have a product that you can make $1 in revenue from 10% of those you have a a $1million revenue company)
   
   
3. Hire folks to build prototypes if you can. Search and ask questions over at http://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur for places to build prototypes for cheap
   
   
4. Don't be afraid to talk about your idea and don't worry about your competitors at first. Just try to grow the idea and with it grow your customers. Digg already existed when Reddit was made. The creators of Breaking Bad said they wouldn't have done it had they known about Weeds.
   
   
5. If the idea has legs, like you could maybe see a company with 5->7% growth per week, then you're in "startup territory" and you should also consider taking on venture capital of some sorts. Something like maybe $20K (or more depending on where you live) in seed funding for 5-10% preferred stock. Is it the sort of idea that you could grow quickly and turn into a life-time thing? Would your competition find it easier to acquire your company than compete with you?
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

My pleasure friend!

Best negotiations I ever had were from me standing my ground and saying "I appreciate the offer, that really is super generous of you, but unfortunately that doesn't work for me." then they end up trying to compromise but if it's enough you need to say something to that effect again. Sometimes you even have to say "no" more than once in a negotiation to get where you need to be.

If you want to get some handy tips for negotiations I highly recommend Never Split the Difference. It's written by a highly successful ex-FBI hostage negotiator and has a wealth of information. I've reread it three times now just to make sure it sticks.

The E-Myth Revisited
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0887307280/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_dRTTDbDKHC1JV

If you have time for a read, this is a great one. Everything you said here is covered in some form or other.

Being a hobbyist game dev you can take your time and enjoy it as an art form. If you want to make money as an independent professional, then (whether you understand it or not) you have now started a small business and all of the rules of entrepreneurship now apply.


I tool around in my spare time because it makes me happy to animate things with code, and it's a break from the monotony of corporate dev. I have owned several small businesses in the past and can say from experience that the best way to make a small fortune in game dev is to start with large one, but that's how it is with all of the entertainment industry, a winner take all scenario.

Still worth the time sink because it's fun - just know what you are getting into :)

Np, glad I could help. To me it isn't as much about new ideas, man has always believed/forced that there is a unified theory, but talking oneself into a narrative fallacy. The human brain is super quick to match patterns where none exist; call it survival traits.

You might also be interested in Nassim Taleb, his book 'The Black Swan'; I especially liked it. He mentions that things are relative to the size of a dataset, which merits a good point to re-examine so called truths.

Edit: words

About 10 years back I came across recommendations for an oddly-named book. It was a great read.

I never did start a business but if I had, I would have jumped from the sole do-everything person to a designer/manager/facilitator as soon as I could. One huge problem with a small business is success, which kills a lot of operations. How many 20-hour days can you work? What happens when you need to work 30-hour days and 9-day weeks to keep up?

From the PDF summary (below)...

> The E-Myth, or Entrepreneurial Myth, says that most new businesses are not started by entrepreneurs who set out to build a strong business but by technicians who enjoy the hands-on work themselves. Because of that natural bias, most business owners focus on working in their business when really they should be working on their business.

> A business that is built and managed by someone who combines the approach of the technician, the manager and the entrepreneur will have a far greater chance of future success than one guided by someone thinking like a technician alone.

References:

> [Michael Gerber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Gerber_(non-fiction_writer) (Wikipedia)

> Michael E. Gerber Companies

> The E Myth: Why Most Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It (Amazon)

> The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It (Amazon)

> Summary of "E-MythRevised" (PDF)

The senior part is more of a technical grade level and not necessarily management... granted I'm in the lead role here, it's my first time as one. All I can say is what help me spring forward at a lull at mid-level was picking up Thomas Limoncelli's books, [the sysadmin one] (https://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administration-Enterprise/dp/0321919165/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1512041042&sr=8-1&keywords=thomas+limoncelli) and [the cloud one] (https://www.amazon.com/Practice-Cloud-System-Administration-Practices/dp/032194318X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1512041042&sr=8-3&keywords=thomas+limoncelli) /r/sysadmin recommends them too. These are your best practice books, these tell you why to do things, not how. It will turn you from being the guy that mops the floor in a burning building into knowing when to yell, "FIRE!"

Cert wise, unless a specific company or contract requires it, I don't bother with the time and money on certs if you already have years of experience on the books. I'd probably go for a Security+ and then go for a Red Hat and/or CCNA certification as they are both prestigious. Red Hat is a big deal just by its practical application test.

If you want to go into cloud related stuff, you might want to brush up on your programming. This is what is limiting me, I have very minimal bash scripting experience coming from military in the Windows world then making a move to Linux.

Honestly, I would focus on being both as they both overlap very often unless you are in really large stovepipe enterprise environments, but you never know if you need to make a move to something smaller where you have the many hats role. I'd get your degree in something Computer science related (CS, CIS, EE, CE, etc) and then go RHCSA/CE and maybe Sec+/Net+ or instead of Net+ just go for something Cisco related. My networking is Net+ strength at best and I resent not doing better when I was younger.

EDIT: Also, if you can do the math, BS is Computer Science all the way... sysadmins are still really kind of not doing well in the degree program department, mainly because were so... trade-like I guess. Honestly, we're the new Millwrights like my dad was. We keep the factory going and fix it when production stops. It's kind of cool actually, it's nice to be able to have some kinship to my dad in that way.

I had the same problem in business school. I'm went back mid-career and sometimes it felt like I was taking classes from the 90's.

If you're interested in a more recent approach to business models, check out Business Model Generation. It provides a canvas that helps you visualize how different components of a business model interact and influence each other. It's also filled with great examples of how businesses you know would be modeled through their framework.

Can you be more specific about your advertising ask? Google & Facebook are both anchored in ads to generate revenue. Many "freemium" products supplement subscriptions with ad revenue. If a digital experience feels like you're "getting it for free" it's likely either supported by ads or IS an ad for something else.

While it's not digital business model exclusive, I'm a big fan of Andrew Chen. His once a week newsletter is a must read for me (I'm a consultant in digital strategy/digital product). He talks a lot about the underlying economics of companies and why certain technologies win in certain circumstances and other don't. https://andrewchen.co

For candles I really like the overview on Incredible Charts.

Investopedia is a great resource for pretty much anything related to trading. Many people also recommend BabyPips for learning the basics.

I don't have any books recs from personal experience, though I see Random Walk Down Wall Street and The Black Swan recommended around here often.

Trying stuff out on a chart yourself is often the best teacher. Check out cryptowat.ch for basic tools and tradingview.com for more advanced stuff.

Good luck!

Supply and demand works if we are perfectly rational actors. But there is considerable evidence that we're not: see Predictably Irrational and Thinking, Fast and Slow. Salary in particular is known for irrational behavior. See the discussion of motivation in Drive or the short version in Daniel Pink's TED talk. Programmers are already fairly well paid and while I would certainly love to be paid more, I'm not convinced that alone would significantly increase the supply of developers.

The evidence for the talent gap is both anecdotal--every company I've worked at and many others I've interacted with complained extensively about lack of good developers--and some limited data (example 1, example 2), though it's not clear how to properly measure something like this.

Finally, I'm not sure that merely having 10x skill is enough to guarantee 10x pay. Perhaps in a perfect market with perfect knowledge and perfectly rational actors, it might be, but that's not how the real world works. You need not only 10x skill at your job, but also at turning that into money, which may be a completely different set of talents. For example, a 10x writer might make less money than an average writer if that average writer had their book turned into a popular teen movie. Similarly, the way for a programmer to make 10x the money is usually not to focus on salary (although there were some stories of Google and FB offering millions to retain some developers), but equity. And there, an exec-level programmer can get 10x the equity of a normal dev, though there is obviously a lot of luck as to whether the equity ends up paying off.

I think all of those things you've listed are valuable in their own right, however I think a bit of focus may help. First, determine what you are actually trying to accomplish because learning all those at once is not really feasible. Break that long term goal down into more meaningful steps.

For example, a good long term goal may be:
> Deploy an source controlled application on AWS using a configuration management tool, leveraging Infrastructure as Code to make it repeatable and Immutable Infrastructure to provide stability.

Breaking that down we have a series of things to learn:

1. Getting comfortable with source control systems (Git is obviously popular but others work just fine as well)
   
2. Learning the core constructs of AWS
   
3. Configuration Management
   
4. Infrastructure as Code
   
5. Immutable Infrastructure
   
   These things can be done somewhat in parallel, but I would say focus your efforts will most likely provide the best value. The order in which I've listed these I find is the most useful to instruct people that are new to the area.
   
   AWS:
   Building A Scalable Web App on AWS
   
   General Cloud Architecture
   The Practice of Cloud Systems Administration
   
   GIT
   Git Book

You're putting value on memories and emotions. That's fine from a personal aspect, but as far as winning a football game, they're the same.

I took a behavioral economics class which is basically focused around all the reasons and ways we don't think logically/rationally/statistically. This book is really good if you're interested in that.

The first day of class, my professor asked us, "You need a new alarm clock. The campus bookstore has one for $40. Walmart (a few miles away) has the same alarm clock for $20. How many of you would go to WalMart?" About 90% of the class raised their hands. He followed it up with this: "You need a new computer. The campus bookstore has one for $350. WalMart has the same one for $330. How many of you would go to WalMart?" Only about 20% of the class raised their hands.... Why? You're saving $20 each way. It's illogical to go to WalMart for one of those things but not the other. But people think it's better to do it for the alarm clock because they're saving a larger percentage, even though that's irrelevant. You're doing the same thing. Early game, late game, it doesn't matter, it's still the same amount of points, but it feels better if it happens at the end of the game just like it feels better to get a bigger percentage off.

I'll say my books aren't expressly feminine. They're more about dynamics, relationships, motivations, which have helped to prevent me from going wild with aggressive masculine approaches despite my surroundings and peers. Thank goodness I found these so early :)

I loved Captivating, which is about women from a Christian perspective and it's counterpart called Wild at Heart, which is about men. Neither of them were too overwhelmingly Christian, IMO.

Another book with Christian influences, The Servant is a book about leadership theory that's been very helpful to me stepping into a more nurturing and deferring approach.

Five Dysfunctions of a Team is my very favorite book ever, and it discusses the reasons teams (be it a couple, sports team, friend group, or work group) fail and how to prevent that. Very helpful in learning why vulnerability, an important feminine trait, is so important.

• Start with pretty much anything Seth Godin has written. Especially Purple Cow.
  
  
• I'm a big fan of understanding cognitive issues, so Thinking Fast and Slow can help you understand how minds work.
  
  
• to understand what CRM was really intended to be, read The One to One Future
  
  
• Given your interest in digital check out these books on lean methodology: The Lean Startup and Ash Maurya's brilliant compliment, Running Lean
  
  In general, when it comes to things like SEO, SEM, etc you are better off sticking with blogs and content sites like SEOMoz, Marketing Sherpa, and Danny Sullivan/Search Engine World. By the time a book is written it's usually out of date in these fields.

Also a "Windows" DevOps guy.

I'd recommend this .NET Rocks podcast episode. It's a pretty healthy way of look at the meta.

1. Understand where this hype train came from -- i.e. Gene Kim's The Phoenix Project. It's a good read and illustrates all the prescriptive advise sold by consultants nowadays is just that--sold.
   
2. All labels are arbitrary, but sometimes you need the hype train to get stuff done inside organizations. This is a fact of life; I'm sorry.
   
3. Understand your goals and objectives. Are you there to reduce the feedback loop for the developers? Are you there to help unburden the release management operations in the SDLC? Are you there because they really wanted a systems engineer who can also handle the developer stuff?
   
4. While tools aren't what make the man, try to get a sense of what tools won't become vaporware. Some companies can go as far as to rewrite the kernel by hand if they need to. Is your Org one of those companies?
   
5. Understand where the process breaks down. Sometimes new tools won't do it better. All tools have an activation cost, some strange edge case, and tons of implementation pains. But sometimes--even if under the hood it works EXACTLY THE SAME--the transparency/ease-of-use are worth it to the organization.
   
6. This is the single best book I have ever read for my business career: Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It
   
7. If you're a Windows guy, learn to love Powershell. This is seriously the backbone of the direction MS is going. Even with the best orchestration/container/whatever tools on the market, you're gonna have to get down and dirty with it.

Good and Real by Gary Drescher. Covers a similar philosophical stance to that of Yudkowsky in the Sequences, but with more academic rigor. A fun read that goes over computation, decision theory, morality, and Newcomb's Problem (among other things.)

Thinking Fast and Slow Daniel Kahneman's lifetime of research in heuristics and cognitive biases condensed into one epic volume. Highly engaging and 100% recommended if you aren't well-versed in this area.

A Mind for Numbers by Barbara Oakley. A scientific approach to studying, looking at good memory tricks, ways to learn better, and some interesting ideas on procrastination (including characterizing it as a malign reward loop).

I started a freelance web design business about 5 years ago. Within a year or so I had doubled the income of my FT job.

Now I help people learn to do the same at https://selfmadewebdesigner.com

I agree with refractal. Sales is a muscle you’ve got to build. And pay your taxes 🤣

One way you can start is by reaching out to people you know that have businesses and could use your skills. Practice your pitch on them.

Since they have a relationship with you all ready it’s not as a big a deal if you flop the pitch.

I think a lot of people have a problem with sales because they feel like they’re trying to pull one over on something.

Like you’re a multi level marketer convincing someone to get on the ground floor of this amazing deal.

A sales conversation is all about building a relationship with someone and seeing if you can help them. Don’t hide your limits and don’t over promise.

If you walk into it just wanting to care for and do what’s best for the person you’re talking to then it’s tough to get it wrong.

A good book to read is called Never Split the Difference

Don't know specifics of what you're after, so I'll shotgun you with links:

• Thinking, Fast and Slow [Book, cognitive science, rationality]
  
• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion [Book, cognitive science]
  
• Predictably Irrational [Book, cognitive science, rationality]
  
• The Elements of Statistical Learning [Book, publicly available, machine learning, statistics perspective]
  
• Inventing on Principal [Video, HCI, design]
  
• Edgar Wright - How to Do a Visual Comedy [Video, editing, film analysis]
  
• Slaughter Your World [Video, funny, musical]
  
• Gwern QS [Website, essays, quantified self]
  
• Metacademy [Website, learning platform, machine learning]
  
• Numerai [Website, hedge fund, interesting new development]
  
• Factorio [Game, indie, factory building, optimisation]
  
  Hopefully something was to your liking.
  
  Note: An active /r/rational book-club would be awesome. Community analysis would help to improve our definition of rational fiction; as well as improving our rational reading skills.
  
  

Thinking, Fast and Slow by nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman.

It is an amazing book and I have recommended it to almost everyone I know. It is really thoroughly researched.

from wikipedia:
>Thinking, Fast and Slow is a 2011 book by Nobel Memorial Prize winner in Economics Daniel Kahneman which summarizes research that he conducted over decades, often in collaboration with Amos Tversky. It covers all three phases of his career: his early days working on cognitive bias, his work on prospect theory, and his later work on happiness.

>The book's central thesis is a dichotomy between two modes of thought: "System 1" is fast, instinctive and emotional; "System 2" is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The book delineates cognitive biases associated with each type of thinking, starting with Kahneman's own research on loss aversion. From framing choices to substitution, the book highlights several decades of academic research to suggest that people place too much confidence in human judgment.

Happy to help :) It is a near lifetime of just being a business junky and just loving to read about this stuff. The best and easiest book I give people when they want to learn business is the Personal MBA.

http://www.amazon.com/Personal-MBA-Master-Art-Business/dp/1591845572/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375464773&sr=1-1&keywords=personal+mba+josh+kaufman

It is a solid, easy to read overview of business. You wount become an expert from it, but it is a 'explain like I am five 'introduction into business.


For innovation and new market development specific (My specialty) I'd go with Crossing the Chasm Quick read

http://www.amazon.com/The-Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-Business/dp/0062060244

Lastly, take a strategic finance class. No numbers, simply the logic behind what is value. I've been told The Wall Street MBA is a good read but I can't vouch for it.
http://www.amazon.com/Wall-Street-MBA-Second/dp/007178831X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375464915&sr=1-1&keywords=wall+street+mba

Finance will ultimately change how you think. And not entirely for the better...

"All models are wrong, but some are useful." - George Box

From my experience, it generally appears to be that it's always possible to have more information from which to source; however, barriers such as cost and time often prohibit you from being able to do so.

I think there will always be a better statistical model out there; I don't see anything wrong with updating your model over time as you come across more information or more effective techniques to do the analysis you would want.

I think these two sources should interest you. (1) (2)

Also Nate Silver's Signal and the Noise might be worth a read. It's not a technical manual, but it will give you some things to think about regarding the use of models in a wide variety of fields.

Hope that helps!

Depends what you want to learn. Some of my favorites are

• Code by Charles Petzold if you want to know how your computer works under the hood.
  
  
• Peopleware if you want to learn how to manage knowledge workers.
  
  
• Clean Code by Uncle Bob if you want to learn about good practices and program structure. Impressive content, covers much more than I expected.
  
  
• Don't Make Me Think if you want to learn about usability.
  
  
• Algorithms by Robert Sedgewick if you want to learn about DS & algorithms.
  
  
• The Art of UNIX Programming by Eric S. Raymond if you want to learn about the unix philosophy. Lots of hidden gems in there. Have you ever heard: write programs that do one thing and do it well; don't tune for speed until you've measured; imagine all this knowledge distilled to you in one book.
  
  This a good list to get you started :) most of my favorite books are not language specific.

To quote Thinking, Fast and Slow:

"success = talent + luck. great success = a little more talent + a lot of luck"

I have no doubts that you worked hard for your degree and that you have quite a bit of talent. But don't knock the fact that quite a bit of luck was involved in you getting the job you wanted straight out of college and that it was high paying enough to let you pay off your loans right away. My girlfriend has been a teacher for several years and she's been working with the school system since she got out of college. She finished her Master's degree in 2010. She still has at least a decade of payments left before she pays it off.

While you are right that the degree you choose can influence whether you can successfully pay them off in a reasonable time frame, it is by no means the only factor. Painting all of them as stupid crybabies is a disservice to them.

I say we must choose because that's what our brain is going to do anyways. Our brain, with it's fast, automatic, gut reactions always takes a stance. We can intellectually say that we don't have a high enough certainty of knowledge to form a belief, but on a lower level we've already taken a stance.^1

Now that doesn't mean we need to be closed minded to the alternative or pretend that we have knowledge we don't. A belief is what we think is true based on the knowledge we have, so our beliefs can change just as quickly as we get new knowledge or perspectives.

---
^1 This is taken from reading Thinking Fast and Slow, a fantastic book on how our brain works and how the shortcuts our brain takes can lead to things like optical illusions, biases, and cognitive illusions. Highly recommend.

---

Consider this: Would you be surprised to find out that God exists? We are surprised when reality doesn't match our expectations. If we expect to never find out that God exists, that indicates that we already believe that He doesn't.

>no one tried to tell my that my thinking is wrong

It's a difficult task, because the way our brains work makes personal experience supersede external information that contradict it, even when scientifically, objectively, our experience is... not "wrong" per se, but so incomplete that it veers into "wrong" teritory. I teach people how to get along with people, which is mainly applied psichology and neurology (specifically social neurology), so I come against this feature (it's not a bug, it's a feature) every time. For reference: Daniel Kahnemann's work. For reference: Chris Niebauer's book.

Your brain dupes you (it meakes you wrong, giving you the impression you're right) in several key areas relevant to our discussion here:

1. What You See Is All There Is: our brains operate on the assupmtion they have all the info needed to make good decisions and reach true conclusions, neglecting that there are swathes of information that might be / are relevant and that finally change the outlook completely.
   
2. Our Left-Brain Intepreter has the task to keep the story in our heads logically consistent, not correct. As such, it will gladly add to reality, or substract from it, only to keep the story. Please see this and this.
   
3. To accomplish this task, the LBI resorts to cognitive biases like overgeneralization, personalization, confirmation bias etc.
   
4. Its work is so powerful and so well hidden from conscience that most people, when confronted with science, will readily deny science ("well, that might be true but not for me") than accepting our thinking might be flawed.
   
   In your case, in order to examine what biases are in play and what is their result, I'd start questioning the hidden meaning of your use of notions like "chad", "betabux" and such. It speaks to overgeneralization (with a heavy serving of dehumanization) and confirmation bias.
   
   Humans are unique. There are, of course, trends (sociology doesn't exist for nothing) but so far no human being looks and act exactly like another human being always and in all aspects; more, humans change over time: experience, opinions, world views and behavior shift as time passes. That would be the first step I'd take if I were you: stop working with archetypes and start looking for tiny differences. The world will get extremely rich if you do that.
   
   TL;DR: you're wrong, but your brains won't let you see that and you have to voluntarily challenge it to improve your life quality.
   
   Edited to add: and I didn't even touch the issue of cultural and social norms and conditioning, learned helplesness and many other phenomena that interfere and change all the stuff above.

> Peoples lives are made best by being allowed to make their own decisions and decide what they want themselves

Holy shit no they aren't. Example: If the "donate my organs on death" checkbox is an opt-out affair, most people will opt out. If it's an opt-in affair, many many more people will opt-in. In this case, a relatively minor barrier to "making their own decisions" results in a huge quality of life improvement for anyone on a wait list for organs.

Read this for citation

For other examples of where the government desperately needs to intervene in markets, see forced arbitration clauses between companies and citizens, non-compete clauses in fast food workers' employment agreements, the fiduciary rule for financial advisers, the hole in the ozone, literally every false advertisement law, multi-level marketing schemes, copyright/trademark/patent law (although maybe not as much as is currently exhibited in the US), Dumping laws (e.g. don't throw sofas on the side of the highway), public intoxication laws, anti-trespassing laws, (the lack of) vaccination laws, literally all of public education, FDA drug safety regulations, global warming (and, honestly, most environmental causes), and the list goes on.

I'd argue that the government should be in charge of making sure that consumer expectations actually reflect reality and normally externalized costs are felt by the individual[s] inflicting them, as well as ensuring that life is mostly pleasant for most people and at least tolerable for the lowest rungs of society. People expect that traffic won't be shit, but suburbia inflicts traffic on city centers, thus increasing commute times and lowering standard of living for those who live furthest from city centers, so maybe suburbia should be discouraged.

> Are you actually comparing workplace safety regulations to you deciding that no one actually really likes suburbia and thus you should run their lives.

Yes?

1. Not being able to live in suburbia does not ruin lives. That's just silly. You're not entitled as a human to being able to live in a 1 acre lot with a 4bed, 3 bath home and a 10 minute drive to the nearest grocery store. Be realistic - disincentivizing a decision != running your life, especially in a democratic society.
   
   
2. Sure, there's a difference of scale, but it's still the same basic idea. The employee is "choosing" to be employed by the corporation that may end their life early, usually due to lack of other realistic employment opportunities (e.g. coal-based company town in this situation) or a lack of education limiting employment opportunities. The government manipulates the decisions available to the worker and the company to make the world a better place. If you don't agree with me, where's the line? Social security? Workplace safety? Minimum wage? Anti-discrimination laws? I acknowledge that there is a line, but saying that people should be disbarred from public office for putting that line somewhere you disagree with is pretty extreme.
   
   If you don't want to have such arguments levied against you, don't make such absolutist statements like "If you think that the government should be setting the objective of reducing suburbia you should not be involved in government"

I think the trick is to read the book and allow the book to inspire you to create ideas for yourself. For example, I read "The E-Myth" which is somewhat crap if taken too seriously. But, it gets the ball rolling in my head and then I think of good ideas for making my own business better. I've also gain inspiration from "Influence, the science of persuasion."

As with any self help book, the value is in the inspiration. You have to come up with the idea then execute it. Ideas are easy, putting them into action is a pain.

http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Revised-Edition/dp/006124189X

http://www.amazon.com/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses/dp/0887307280

Thanks for the resource – bookmarked! I'm currently reading Sutherland's book, it's surprisingly really well written. https://smile.amazon.com/Scrum-Doing-Twice-Work-Half/dp/038534645X?sa-no-redirect=1

Our dev team thinks they work in agile, but they're definitely 'scrum but'. Also it's a sensitive political situation for me. The times I've even remotely showed interest in integrating our teams or getting involved, I've been reprimanded. So unfortunately I don't think my current situation is going to provide much in the way of opportunity to learn hands-on. I'm going to continue to see if I can find a creative solution outside of the dev side, but I'm more resigned to making the change wholesale with a new place. Also, I did sign up for the 2-day training in a few weeks, so I am committed, and hopefully soon, certified.

Curious - what kind of stormy waters have you experienced?

Hello, I'm an entrepreneur too and I code things for myself and for friends' projects. There is no "good rule of thumb", it depends on how willing are you to accept that the more you share about the idea, the better the feedback you get. Better feedback = faster iteration from a crap idea to one that works. I advice you to read this book called the startup owner's manual. It has helped me understand this idea better - http://www.amazon.com/The-Startup-Owners-Manual-Step-By-Step/dp/0984999302

Regarding the developer... A potential hire can't understand what you want to build, and won't bother dropping everything he is doing (most likely exciting projects too) to help you if you can't share the intimate details of how you are going to change the world. Just go ahead and tell him what you are trying to do and how he can help. Show him why you two can make good money together.

Yes, there's plenty of great reads, e.g., Storytelling with Data.

At a high-level, I emphasize the following to my direct reports & clients:

• The normal English reading order is left to right, top to bottom
  
• 1 in 12 men are colour blind
  
• The colour wheel is your best friend
  
• "The best design is as little design as possible"
  
• Bar/Column charts with fewer than ~8 dimensions make great alternatives to slicers
  
• Your skill as an information designer correlates to the amount of white space in your reports
  
• More than 3 visuals per report (excluding things like cards) should start raising alarm bells

I think the explanation Grey is looking for is something that a lot of people are grappling with today. One of the best explanations I have found for the same is in the book Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. I am sure Grey has probably already read this book before though it is beneficial to look at it in the context of social media and our brains today. For example, the book talks about Systems 1 and 2 of thinking. While system 1 primarily involves our instinctive reaction, system 2 tries to invoke our brain to try to think. The social media today, including reddit etc are all examples of systems trying exploit our system 1 just to get a visceral reaction without us really using our critical thinking. The fact that there are so many podcasts out there can mean that sometimes even long podcasts can be analysed by our system 1s. I most definitely have been guilty of the same in the past.

One of the reasons Facebook is being blamed for elections today can also come out to this. Its not like people haven't had access to information in the past. Nonetheless, the fact that news today is much more instant and dependent on getting us to click or grab our attention means we really don't critically analyse it as much as we should, leading to the rise of fake news and headlines. Another helpful albeit short book about the same which I can recommend is The People VS Tech which is much more recent and gives a much better context to the ideas of system 1 and 2. This is probably one of the context that can help people think about what Grey is doing in a better manner.

​

Clearly, using more of System 1 can deeply affect the way we think, as that is most definitely more comfortable and doesn't easily challenge our brains.

make sure everyone knows that you are the first and the best (politely)

"the original jonwondering adjustable bench!"

imitation is flattery, even if it does cut into your profits. just be better than the copy-cat. Be careful to build a business, not a job ( one of my failings). I highly recommend The E Myth, I read it too late to save my first business, next will be better.

Definitely look into bussiness management books as well. if you are going down this road, there is a chance you will want to start doing it on your own and having proper business skills will help tremendously in securing work, and balancing costs, and making money doing it! I am sure some people on this sub can recommend some great books on this topic as well.

Here are a couple books,

https://www.amazon.ca/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417/ref=sr_1_1?gclid=Cj0KCQjw5MLrBRClARIsAPG0WGxuwhyo-18J3-xPOVP8bXeTJ4zbGZHkpO4GqIGKlz-WCRxt3aUroqQaApECEALw_wcB&hvadid=229992601126&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9000745&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=e&hvrand=4412519744533501821&hvtargid=aud-748919244907%3Akwd-297504215686&hydadcr=16960_10238137&keywords=business+model+generation&qid=1567691052&s=gateway&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.ca/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_3/141-1005106-2495725?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0307887898&pd_rd_r=3ef234c3-168a-4156-bb6b-32f1e4f1ecca&pd_rd_w=PEqJa&pd_rd_wg=P882W&pf_rd_p=a62e2918-d998-4bbb-8337-35aac776e851&pf_rd_r=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H&psc=1&refRID=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H

https://www.amazon.ca/Startup-Owners-Manual-Step-Step/dp/0984999302/ref=pd_sbs_14_3/141-1005106-2495725?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0984999302&pd_rd_r=3ef234c3-168a-4156-bb6b-32f1e4f1ecca&pd_rd_w=Oruqz&pd_rd_wg=P882W&pf_rd_p=f7748194-d8e0-4460-84c0-2789668108bc&pf_rd_r=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H&psc=1&refRID=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H

https://www.amazon.ca/Business-Model-You-One-Page-Reinventing/dp/1118156315/ref=pd_sbs_14_4/141-1005106-2495725?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1118156315&pd_rd_r=3ef234c3-168a-4156-bb6b-32f1e4f1ecca&pd_rd_w=Oruqz&pd_rd_wg=P882W&pf_rd_p=f7748194-d8e0-4460-84c0-2789668108bc&pf_rd_r=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H&psc=1&refRID=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H

Had this list together from a blog post I wrote a few months ago. Not sure what exactly you're looking for, but these are my favorite books and I'd recommend everybody read them all. There are other great books out there, but this is a pretty well rounded list that touches everything a company needs.

The Lean Startup https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898

Business Model Generation https://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products https://www.amazon.com/Hooked-How-Build-Habit-Forming-Products/dp/1591847788

Talking to Humans https://www.amazon.com/Talking-Humans-Success-understanding-customers-ebook/dp/B00NSUEUL4

Predictable Revenue https://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practices-Salesforce-com/dp/0984380213

To Sell is Human https://www.amazon.com/Sell-Human-Surprising-Moving-Others/dp/1594631905

Rework https://www.amazon.com/Rework-Jason-Fried/dp/0307463745

Delivering Happiness https://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446576220

So, almost everyone here says you should not renegotiate. I am going to disagree with that and say you never lose anything by negotiating, unless you do it very, very wrong.

Couple points:

• At this point, they sunk a lot of time and effort to find you, they won't rescind the offer, they will just say no to the raise
  
• Negotiating when you're working there is going to be more difficult than now. Plus there's nothing stopping you from doing both
  
• Salary negotiations will be forgotten by anyone about a month in. You're not setting yourself up to fail by asking for more
  
• If they say anything other than "That sounds like a lot" to your initial offer, you've low balled yourself. Especially if they respond with something along the lines of "Seems reasonable".
  
  On how to actually phrase this: I like your approach, and would say being honest is usually good policy. When you get the call with their offer, you can say something like: "Thanks for the offer. Based on the interview process and research I've done, I really think I'd enjoy working with the team, <more reasons why you like company >. I really appreciate your offer of X. However, upon doing further research on the salaries among my peers, it seems top companies in this area are paying between <your new range, low end ~+20% of their offer>". And then you shut up and wait for their response. Couple things can happen:
  
  
• they come back and say "sure", give you lower end of new range. Success!
  
• they come back and say "can't do that, <reasons>", and meet you half way or don't budge at all. This is your decision now. Either accept or push them further. Just note that pushing after a "no" might actually cost you the offer
  
  Couple points on how to do the negotiation:
  
  
• always give them a way to say no without loosing face. Don't say "Give me 60k, or I go to your competitor" or "Anything below 60k is unreasonable".
  
• express a lot of interest and excitement about the job. The goal is to convey you really like the company and role, and it's now just the money that stands in the way
  
• if they don't budge on salary at all, try asking what other things they can do. Maybe you can get a hiring bonus, extra vacation, whatever matters to you. Might be easier for them to provide and as valuable to you
  
  Good luck!
  
  Source: Analytics team manager, hired several people over the years and been in your position more than once. I never once lost the offer because of negotiation. I got paid much less than my peers at the same company because I didn't negotiate several times.
  
  Also, if you're curious about the topic, I'd recommend a book called Never split the difference. Explains a lot of negotiation dynamics in great detail, but gives very applicable tips

This is my issue with Gladwell and Lehrer:

>In works of less than 500 pages, Gladwell and Lehrer attempt to enlighten the reader on How the World Works, What People are Really Like, and How Greatness Happens without getting into any of the technical details that would absolutely overwhelm the majority of the readers traipsing through airport book shop before grabbing their flight home.

They set out to achieve something that's nearly impossible and people are willing to suspend disbelief just because they don't want to expend the energy required to become truly informed on a given subject.

Also this:
>More than actionable insights, this kind of popular analysis gives the reader something far more immediately valuable – the feeling that they have a sophisticated view of the world.

I'm still reading the article, but I fell in love with the following sentence:
>America splits its valuable time between blowing an enormously obvious housing bubble, demanding Master’s degrees for entry-level positions, and badly managing the bloodbaths of Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is an excellent article. If I may suggest a couple of anti-dotes to the Gladwell/Lehrer pop-science oversimplification, two books with excellent science and research on how we think, decide and react to stress are Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow and Choke, by Sian Beilock.

Here are some resources that have been incredibly helpful for me. :)

Books:

• Driven to Distraction by Dr. John Ratey -- I haven't read this one in a while, but I love Dr. Ratey. He is a great writer on issues of science, biology, and mental health.
  
  
• Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain by Dr. John Ratey -- Sections on how beneficial exercise is in managing ADHD, depression, and anxiety.
  
  
• Taking Charge of Adult ADHD by Dr. Russell Barkley -- Best book for adults with ADHD I've read. Backs everything up with science. Makes a very solid case for self-care and medication.
  
  
• Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World -- Hyperfocus == Deep Work. Use this philosophy to make the case to a boss or team about reducing interruption at work.
  
  
• Emotional Intelligence 2.0
  
  
• StrengthsFinder -- ADHD makes us painfully aware of our weaknesses. Learn what your strengths and positive personality traits are and how to build off them.
  
  Videos:
  
  
• 30 Essential Ideas You Should Know About ADHD by Dr. Russell Barkley -- Awesome series about the nature of ADHD. MUST WATCH
  
  Podcasts:
  
  
• The Value Of 'Deep Work' In An Age Of Distraction by Hidden Brain -- A podcast version of the Deep Work book if you're like me and have trouble getting through 200 pages.
  
  
• Embrace the Chaos: Why Disorder May Be Good For Us -- We may beat ourselves up over our struggles with structure, but here's a solid case on how less structure makes us more adaptable.

There are many books on how to be a good leader, and not that many on how to go from a good to a great leader. I know 4 really good books in the latter category:

1. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni
   
2. Primal Leadership: The Hidden Driver of Great Performance by Daniel Goleman, Richard E. Boyatzis, Annie McKee
   
3. Act Like A Leader, Think Like A Leader by Herminia Ibarra
   
4. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C Maxwell, Zig Ziglar

I read your comment. Then I look at the username of the comment above you. My head explodes.

Seriously though: you are 100% right in what you are saying, but I hope people is not thinking "yeah exactly people are dumb... they just need to be told off, they will wake up, and everything will be fixed". This is as efficient as "fixing" mass shootings by giving weapons to the teacher.

It is all about how the human brain rewards our actions, and how that influences how we act and think. We are designed to prioritize an easy chuckle (low effort, high reward) over a "computationally expensive" thought (source: Thinking Fast And Slow).

You want to convince someone? Be short, be precise, know how the human brain works and don't fight against it.

>Our fighting hasn't stopped because I haven't stopped fighting for control.

>I don't trust my fiance. There, I said it. I want to. I'm working on it. But I don't, right now.

I am not sure that I believe this, actually. I think you do trust him. The issue is, I think, the difference between an unconscious response (what you've trained yourself to do your whole life) and your conscious response (what you desire your reaction to be).

The unconscious responses are created in a part of the brain that is more instinctual - some people call it the "lizard brain". This response, to fight your fiance, or to act in a way that is mistrustful, happens in milliseconds. It is not under conscious control, it is by force of habit.

The conscious response, which happens in the parts of the brain that evolved later, takes longer to happen. The key is you have to re-train yourself, and it takes time and effort. You only have milliseconds to intercept the unconscious mind's response (mistrust) and replace it with your conscious mind's desire (trust).

So the first step is to recognize the unconscious response, be more aware of it, and at least try to stop yourself from reacting that way outwardly, or realize when it's happening and stop as soon as you realize that's what you're doing (which is sort of what happened with the airport story - you realized it, but after a few minutes, not in milliseconds.) Then you replace the instinctual response with your desired conscious response - instead of not trusting him you act as though you do trust him.

After you do this enough, your instinctual, unconscious reaction will change, and trust will become your new default.

An excellent book on this subject, if you're interested, is "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Kahneman.

edit: typo

If you have a chance, read a book called The Black Swan.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness/dp/081297381X

It's a bit technical in some parts, but it discusses how highly improbably events can have massive changes. How people meet their spouses/significant others is a good example. One of the things that encourages these black swan events is just getting out there and meeting people. You never know when you might meet the person you end up with. It might be at a convention, work, or a chance meeting at a library where you notice someone reading a great book ;) Plus, lots more options nowadays on-line ;)

Like I said in another comment, most of my work was on reading comprehension and assessment. My work on automatic behavior was actually much more low-level than stuff like leaving a child in the car. My automatic behaviors would be changing how people perceive distances, and then in turn whether this could change how quickly people walk when they don't know they are being observed.

That being said, Thinking Fast and Slow is a pop psychology book written by a leading psychologist on these topics. It's more broad than what we're talking about here and is more focused on thinking than doing, but it's a great read.

The article I linked above, The Unbearable Automaticity of Being is a great summary of how automatic behaviors affect our daily lives. My unpublished research on automatic behaviors was largely inspired by this article. I read it as an undergrad and designed an experiment with my professor, and then started running it and replicating the experiments in grad school.

I nominated Strengths Finder 2.0 because I was reminded of it while reading this sub's last book, Mastery - specifically, the second "Strategy for Attaining Mastery": "Play to your strengths", in which Greene tells Albert Einstein's and Temple Grandin's stories, emphasizing how each of them leveraged their strengths to great effect.

EDIT: Upon further research into Strengths Finder 2.0, it looks like those of us who typically check books out from the library may be somewhat out of luck in this case, as to take full advantage of the book's content you should take a self-assessment that's only available if you buy a new copy of the book or purchase it online for $15. The work-around is to read the book's descriptions of the 34 types and assess your own strengths, then follow the book's advice - or try this knockoff test.

I also voted for The Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth because it interests me and seems useful. I didn't vote for the other books because they seem less immediately applicable to my situation, though I'm basing these judgments on the descriptions above and Amazon reviews.

No matter what gets picked, I look forward to reading and discussing it with you all!

I agree with the Manual for Creating Atheists book. That is an excellent one. My shelf broke in one semester many years ago when I took my first statistics class. Literally in a flash I realized that anecdotes are NOT data. Mormons are fine but they aren't healthier, happier, less cancer ridden, less criminal, etc. than other similar demographics.

You may also find The Black Swan by Nasim Taleb an excellent book and I highly recommend it. I hand that one out like candy and it works very well at getting people to think about what they "think they know" in a different light. Its great to use books like that because they have nothing to do with religion but they really do open eyes.

Hi! Psych major + bookworm over here. Some well written and accessible books that I've enjoyed reading are:

Thinking Fast and Slow from Kahneman http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375192703&sr=8-1&keywords=kahneman+thinking+fast+and+slow

Willpower: discovering the greatest human strength by Baumeister http://www.amazon.com/Willpower-Rediscovering-Greatest-Human-Strength/dp/0143122231/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375192853&sr=1-1&keywords=willpower

And Outliers by Gladwell http://www.amazon.com/Outliers-Story-Success-Malcolm-Gladwell/dp/0316017930/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375192928&sr=1-2&keywords=10000+hours

Baumeister and Kahneman are the leading figures on the research done within their particalur fields and these books show a glimpse inside of the kitchen, so to speak. (Iḿ not 100% sure about Gladwell, Iḿ on my phone atm). The books are well written, accessible, entertaining and fascinating.

You shared a lot of information and I have just a few thoughts for your consideration. These are in no particular order. These more focus on the advice-guidance. I am in a technical field and though I lead some strategically, I'm more a technical advisor than director.

1. Identify why you want the degree. I offer this piece of advice to anyone seeking a degree. Is it for the knowledge-expertise (which you can obtain with research & practice), the contacts (which you can obtain through networking-socialization), the structure of the degree work-study, or for some “credential” or “authenticity?” I ask this because in America (my country), tuition, resources, and books can be… costly. (Consider a book like this that might provide summary information that would lead you to the expertise, “The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business,” https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591845572/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_9W8FDbHK047NT )
   
   
2. Cozy up to those two law seniors. Network them and their contacts. This will open up job possibilities, new perspectives, new contacts, and new knowledge-expertise.
   
   
3. Consider rather than “finding” a job or role that matches your vision, that you create your job or role. Immediately after digesting your post, the easy thought of “independent strategic legal consultant” popped into my head. I’m uncertain on the how just yet, but I’m certain there are plenty of opportunities around just in small-mid sized corporations. If Indian corporations are similar to American, a law firm will represent most of the larger ones.
   
   
4. Is it possible that you could also flex (assert?) your current role – department head and department roles and responsibilities to either carry you during this transition of finding a new job/role or grow into that new role?
   
   
5. Boredom will happen in almost all corporate, firm, or hierarchical organization type jobs, not just your current one. Routine diligence, repetitive work, are not areas we excel at, especially if the tasks have been mastered. There’s no challenge. You might have to trick yourself to look for other challenges outside of those routine tasks. For instance, what about your social interactions within the job? Or long term plans to move/shape the role/department to your vision.
   
   I hope they help and good luck.

I'm working on an MBA right now with about 12 years in the IT industry, 5 of which has been in IT Management. If I didn't have real world experience under my belt I wouldn't be able to apply a lot of what I'm learning. Personally, I have to apply what I'm learning for it to really stick. If I didn't have real world experience then sure, I'd still get good grades, but grades alone aren't the point right? School and the business world are very different. I highly recommend getting out there gaining some experiential education, and then take on the MBA if you still think it would be valuable.

A large part of the value in a good MBA program is networking and what you learn over and above the course material by interacting with your professors and fellow students. That said, if you want a crash course in some of the business fundamentals that may be taught in a typical MBA program, I've heard many people highly recommend the following book.

The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business

> Who?

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness-Fragility/dp/081297381X

> And yes. But that's just because that we can apply the Central Limit Theorem and assume the profits each day is normally distributed

> the central limit theorem (CLT) states that, given certain conditions, the arithmetic mean of a sufficiently large number of iterates of independent random variables, each with a well-defined expected value and well-defined variance, will be approximately normally distributed, regardless of the underlying distribution.

it's just a hunch, but models based on stuff like that might be the reason why the financial system is blowing up. When I read stuff like "independent random variables", the ludic fallacy (also from that book) comes to mind.

I can really recommend the book I linked above. Probably a good idea to write that thesis first, though ;)

It depends on what types of things you're interested in!

Over time, you'll come to know certain people who research in different areas and you can go to their personal webpages and access their Curriculum Vitae. Through that, you can find all the work they've done and many times they link to PDF copies of their papers.

But psychology is a very broad field. Here are some suggestions I can come up with:

For dealings with moral political psychology (the psychology of how people on the right and people on the left feel about moral decisions - includes religions and other aspects to our deeply-rooted conceptions of 'self'), see Jonathan Haidt - He just wrote a new book called The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

For dealings with the extent and limits of human rationality, I'd suggest Daniel Kahneman. He also just wrote a new book called Thinking Fast and Slow.

Stuffisnice suggested William James. James' Principles of Psychology is remarkable and very fun to read. It's quite dated both in science and in language, but his writing is impeccable.


In fact, James didn't just do psychology. He did philosophy as well. His later philosophy was at odds with the picture provided by most mainstream psychology that takes the brain as the source of our mental experience. These philosophical aspects have recently been brought into the empirical realm in the branch of Ecological psychology. This is my personal preference for psychology reading as I feel it is much more willing to ask harder questions than traditional psychology; it is willing to do away with assumptions and premises that are generally taken for granted.

This ecological framework deals more with perception and the role of the animal's action in perception. Instead of the traditional way of looking at perception (cells react to stimuli in the environment, feed this encoded stimuli into the brain, the brain processes things and makes sense of them, recreating a picture of the world through its activity, and finally sending out directions to the body to move), the ecological perspective focuses more on how the animal perceives the world directly and does not require internal processing to make sense of the world. It's much cleaner and much simpler. The brain is still crucial for the lived experience, but it is not the whole story.

For readings in ecological psychology, I would recommend Ed Reed's Encountering the World and Eleanor Gibson's An Ecological Approach to Perceptual Learning and Development.

After you get your bearings, then you can get into some really deep stuff that tries to synthesize biology, psychology, and the essence of human/animal experience (phenomenology). For that, Evan Thompson is my go to guy. His work is heavily philosophical and is sometimes overly dense, but you may find it interesting.

PM me if you have any questions!

I'll give you two book tips:

1. Never split the difference by Chris Voss, an ex FBI hostage negotiator. This is about negotiation techniques that everybody can use. A better negotiator has more power. Negotiating is not about overpowering and bluff, it's about finding common ground and making a connection.
   
2. Simon Simek - Start with why. This book was for me really useful, but given your situation, your "why" may be very clear. Still it's a good book as your "why", your (underlying) motivation may not be entirely clear to yourself. Sometimes you do things without really knowing why. Don't expect this book to explain the whole complexity of your inner self - it doesn't, but well - if you have the time and energy, it might help.
   
   I don't know if you can order these books. Both are available as EPUB as well if you use a normal e-reader or laptop.

That reminds me, there's a similar video summary of the Brain Rules book over here: http://vimeo.com/10954540

(and more info here)

Totally forgot about that one. It's cool, but you can pretty much get the whole gist of it just from those links.

And if anybody's craving more psych-y books, Subliminal is also pretty cool (it's like the diet version of Thinking Fast and Slow, which is good but long), though, the Willpower Instinct one already kinda touches on a bit of material from both those anyway.

I initially followed the principles of Stoicism, which is a philosophy that's very close to the principles of CBT. So my first resource was /r/Stoicism, where you can find things like this and this that have direct correlation with CBT principles. Greek and Roman literature might be hard to get into, but there are very readable translations and the principles are applicable.

Of course, not everyone is interested in philosophy, so my recommendation would be to find something along the lines of Judith Beck's Cognitive Therapy, or other similar resources that are based on research. I can't really recommend else because I haven't read much from other authors.

But in general I would recommend reading about cognitive biases in general, along the lines of this, this, this, or this. Being conscious of how everybody thinks might help you see some negative spirals in your life, and can help you change the environment that might lead you to that negativity.

But again, professional help can be very useful, so definitely consult a professional who is maybe better for you. Good luck!

Read Rosling's Factfulness. The book format is nice, but the .pdf is everywhere. Watch Hans' TED talks, too. They're the core ideas, condensed. Here's one of his earlier ones, but I think it's one of his best, too.

The data is real. When your cynicism pushes back, tell it to get bent and accept the factual truth that it falsely proclaims it has sole access to. That's what I did to mine, and it was pretty effective, too.

I was looking for a job fitting me for years... what finally helped me, was the book and the test from the Gallup's StrengthsFinder book.
This helped me finding which types of tasks are most natural for me, and which would always be a challenge for me.
It took me some time to steer my career path towards getting the right job, but now I'm having something that perfectly suits me :-)

Good luck!

> Hi--I am considering law school and want to focus my studies on LLCs, Corporations, wealth and liability protection, etc...

You are an undergrad? If you want to be a lawyer, study an actual applied topic, now, while you can - and that means not government or english. Economics, computer science, any natural science, most social sciences, history, anthropology. Law is a tool set that without historical context, knowledge of the world at large, horse sense and business savvy is almost completely useless. So unless you are learning actual things, law school isn't going to teach them to you. If you are already out of college, it is not too late. You just have to teach yourself.

I'm exceedingly lucky to have the job I have. And I would not recommend entering this law job market. And one of the primary reasons I actually got this position is before even entering law school I had pretty deep knowledge about the types of business I cared about - I had a background in software and a very high level of financial sophistication for an early twenty something.

If you really want to go to law school, I have to say, it is not a very good investment unless you get in to a t14, get offered a near complete scholarship, have a very unique angle into an industry that you have a pre-existing matching skill set for and the passion to match, or a combination of all of the above. If you are lacking all three of the above, your money and time is far, far, far better spent doing other things.

And if you really want to learn about:

> Corporations, wealth and liability protection, etc...

You won't learn a damn lick of it in law school. You will learn the casebook method. And you will learn all about regulations, formalities, and a whole bunch of shit. But if you are interested in business strategy, which is what it sounds like you are, you can start learning about that now. Start by reading non-fiction business books. And I don't mean bullshit strategy, management or advice books. Use those for kindling. I mean read books about actual businesses, written by serious investigative journalists and businessmen. Here's a short list to get you started:

• Business Adventures. Bill Gates' favorite business book. 'Nuff said.
  
  
• Liar's Poker, The Big Short and Flash Boys, by Michael Lewis. You will get a real crash course in wall street.
  
  
• When Genius Failed. The story of Long Term Capital Management, the first catastrophic failure of a major hedge fund, that nearly imperiled the world economy.
  
  
• Conspiracy of Fools / The Smartest Guys in the Room. About Enron. Insane. Completely fucking insane. Learn what they did. Learn why it was wrong. Don't do it.
  
  
• Black Swan. About the most recent crash. If between Taleb and Lewis you have any faith left in the wisdom of wall street, I have a bridge to sell you.
  
  Just get started, and keep reading. Read about real world businesses - don't read guidebooks about how to do X. See what is in the world and go read it. Are there publicly traded companies that you find interesting? Log on to Edgar and read their public filings. They tell you every goddamn detail of how the business is run, the strategy, the risks they face and how they choose to mitigate them.
  
  Once you get started on this stuff, you will be drawn in and be able to keep up your own research paths. Follow the people on twitter that you find interesting - a lot of VCs are very vocal. Many publish reading lists. Look them up.
  
  But for the love of god, don't think law school will teach you any of this. Corporate law, securities law and corporate finance will teach you the technicalities of all sorts of bullshit you will likely never apply, and, if you do, you will be as good at it as you would be at basketball after having spent three years studying the rules without ever having touched a ball.
  
  Good luck, dotcomrade.

What an interesting question.

I don't think I've ever read before of a business idea to start a brick and mortar business where you will cut and run if you are not making money within 3 to 6 months. And then start another, and then another. Most leases are for 6 months or a year.

The start up costs for day trading are a computer or your cell phone, a few hundred dollars, and you fill out an online form with a broker. I don't think day trading is a good example to use when looking at a brick and mortar business.

I spent almost a full year doing market research before I started my small business. It was time well spent.

The E Myth Revisited is a book that was very helpful to me. There are many web sites that have reviewed this book over the years so you can find great summaries of the book if you don't want to buy it.

Best of luck.

Depending on what your goals for the teambuilding exercises are, personality inventories can be useful.

In my previous job we had about 12 librarians. We used Strengthsfinder and I think our team got some useful information out of it.

1. Strengthsfinder totally feels like some horoscope junk.
   
2. It actually has some good tips for "how to work with someone who works differently than you"
   
   If you're just looking to improve/strengthen the camaraderie, then I'd recommend doing a field trip together. We spent a morning visiting a museum, had a nice lunch (luckily covered by our staff development budget), and had a great time.

You are not alone in feeling this way. The way I think of it is I feel like I have the wrong kind of interpersonal Velcro for most people, so they just don’t stick like I perceive most other people stick to each other. It’s understandable for this to make one feel defective, and very alone.

I try to twist it and think of it as an advantage, I think the upside to this means that you can be capable of tremendous self-sufficiency. Invest in you. Take care of yourself even when you want more than anything for someone else to take care of you.

I’m also prone to beating myself over the head with painful facts like “everyone always leaves me”, “nobody loves me like I love people”, etc. these feel so true because you might not have instances to contradict these “facts”. But in truth this is a fallacy summed up as “what you see is all there is” by Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow link. Just because everyone has left doesn’t mean everyone will always leave. There are billions of humans and we happen to be a tiny percentage who have this sensitivity, there are still millions of us and millions more who have the empathy and imagination to understand us to some extent. Don’t give up. Good luck.

In Poker, each player at the table is playing against all the other players, rather than against the dealer. The house takes a cut of each pot instead of fielding a hand. Players in Poker aren't subject to the standardized behavior rules that a dealer in Blackjack is, and each player has significantly more hidden information in Poker than in Blackjack which means significantly more possibilities to account for in each hand for a "skilled" player.

It also means that more of Poker is built around reading other players, trying to divine what hand they might have based on their betting behavior—and based on their prior performance, whether or not they're deliberately trying to throw people by betting like they have a better or worse hand than they actually have.

Also, decks in Poker are shuffled after each hand, which makes Blackjack-style counting impossible.

There ARE people who make a living playing Poker, but it's not easy. Nate Silver talks about his experience as a professional Poker player in his book, The Signal and the Noise. One of the big takeaways is that the long run is even longer in Poker than it is in Blackjack—even a talented pro who consistently plays well and ultimately has a profitable career can have years where they lose tens of thousands of dollars.

Here's an "Intro to Tableau" Evernote link that has the detail below, but this is what I've put together for our teams when new folks join and want to know more about it.

http://www.evernote.com/l/AKBV30_85-ZEFbF0lNaDxgSMuG9Mq0xpmUM/

What is Tableau?

• What Tableau IS and IS NOT - Interworks/Dan Murry - Blog post - [2p]
  
• A New Approach to Business Intelligence: Rapid-fire BI - Tableau - [Whitepaper - 15p]
  
• What is Tableau - Quora - Forum - [12a]
  
• What is Tableau - Yusheng Huang - Video - [2:26]
  
• Tableau Software Overview - Tableau Software - Video - [2:20]
  
  
  Where do I get it?
  
  
• Desktop latest version - Download Page - Tableau
  
• Previous versions - Download Page - Tableau
  
• Tableau Public - Tableau
  
• Pricing overview - Tableau
  
  Now that I have it, how do I use it?
  
  
• Tableau Starter Kit - Tableau
  
• Tableau Training Videos - Tableau
  
• Data Analysis Fundamentals with Tableau - Pluralsight
  
• Big Data Analytics with Tableau - Pluralsight
  
• Enterprise Business Intelligence with Tableau Server - Pluralsight
  
• Data Visualizations Using Tableau Public - Pluralsight
  
• Data Science and Analytics in Context - edX
  
  
  How do I become involved?
  
  
• Tableau User Groups - Tableau
  
• Tableau Community Forums - Tableau
  
• /r/tableau - Reddit
  
  
  I want to know more
  
  
• Books
  
  • Tableau Your Data! - Dan Murray
    
  • Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals - Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic
    
  • The Visual Display of Quantitative Information - Edward Tufte
    
  • Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data - Stephen Few
    
  • Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten - Stephen Few
    
    
• Blogs
  
  • VizPainter - IFTTT
    
  • Tableau Viz of the Day - IFTTT
    
  • Vizioneer - IFTTT
    
  • VizCandy - IFTTT
    
  • Tableau Zen - IFTTT
    
  • Tableau Renders - IFTTT
    
  • Tableau Love - IFTTT
    
  • Viz Ninja - IFTTT
    
  • Paint by Numbers - IFTTT
    
  • Jewel Loree - IFTTT
    
  • Jen Underwood - IFTTT (BI)
    
  • datadoodle - IFTTT
    
    
• Podcasts
  
  • Tableau Wanna Be Podcast - Soundcloud iTunes
    
  • Podcast your data - Stitcher iTunes
    
  • Partially Derivative - Stitcher iTunes
    
  • PolicyViz - Stitcher iTunes
    
  • More
    
    
• Job Market
  
  • LinkedIn
    
  • Indeed
    
  • Monster
    
  • SimplyHired
    
    
• Certification
  
  • Tableau
    

I do for two reasons. First, for the competition and challenge of it. I love developing a strategy and seeing how well I can execute it.

Second, its to improve my ways of thinking about problems. Board games are very fixed problems with strong rules. In particular, board games are helpful in identifying cognitive biases in ways I think about problems.

One direct application of this is what is known as the Gambler's Fallacy. I think this obviously shows up in social deduction games. For instance, he can't be a werewolf three games in a row.

A second application of this way of thought is Anchoring. In Anchoring we get fixed on the first line of thinking we see. This comes up in games all the time, but I think its most obvious in word games. We find one word we like and we build off of that, we rarely consider other words. If you've ever played Paperback, you have probably seen your group do this as you open up the table for assistance.

Selective perception is another example. In this case we see a strategy that worked for us in the past and we fixate on moves related to that strategy. We don't think outside the box.

I'm going to write up a full article on this, but if anyone is interested, Thinking Fast and Slow is a fantastic book on this topic.

Mitnick's books are indeed mostly anecdotal, but The Art of Deception spends quite some time to explain WHY the attack worked and how it could have been mitigated. If you are to read one of Mitnick's books, this is definitely the one closer to what you want to do

As /u/demonbrew suggested, Cialdini's Influence is an iconic book on how you can use psychology to manipulate others. There are other schools, and you can read more about it in this thesis (as you can see Social Engineering was really popular at my university). My focus was Cialdini's work, my colleagues focused on comparing different psychological frameworks used in Social Engineering.

Carnegie's book is indeed focused in socializing, but the TL;DR of the book is: "How do i make people like me?". If you combine this, with one of the Cialdini principles - "Liking" - you can see how it can help you improve your Social Engineering skills

Former virtual assistant here wanting to put in my two cents from the internal side.

>Think of a task you need to do for your business, but you don’t have the time, or the knowledge on how to properly execute it.

Yes and no. You should have a general idea of how the task should be done.

For example, if you have no idea how to write a blog post, you should make an attempt to learn the basics of how to write a blog post before hiring someone to do it for you.

That way, you know the type of voice you're going for, what type of content your business puts out (authority/expert type? gathering info and presenting it? opinion piece?), the format, and relay that information to your contractor.

You can't delegate it if you don't know what you're looking for. You also won't know if the end product will be effective.

You don't need to know how to do it exactly or even how to execute it, but you should know the basics of what you're asking for.

> I have seen many freelancers in the Philippines charging up to US$50 per hour to manage an Instagram account. That’s a lot of money for such a task. Try to figure out what is the hourly rate in the country where you are hiring... This will help you to estimate the budget you can allocate on a task.

I don't get out of bed for less than $45/hour as a virtual assistant and a lot of people will balk at that price.

Here's what my former clients got at $45/hour:

• Text me. I'll respond within 15 minutes during my office hours.
  
• Keeping up with industry trends, obsessively go through your analytics, refine your strategies, and reinvest what you're paying me into courses/books/knowledge to expand how I can help you (for example, instead of just scheduling your posts, I may pick up graphic design, photography, copywriting, ads, etc. to expand my skill sets).
  
• Minimal management. You don't even need to ask me to update you monthly on your social media progress. I'll have a small powerpoint presentation with analytics, charts, and screenshots, detailing where you are, where you're projected to go, and how it aligns with your marketing goals. I'll also explain it in plain English instead of industry jargon. This will be pre-recorded so you can watch it at your leisure.
  
• Note - this isn't specific to me. I speak for a lot of USA based VA's I've known who charge a similar rate.
  
  Or, you can pay someone in India $10/hour to schedule your Instagram account, but good luck getting that VA to go above and beyond at that rate.
  
  
  >Use a "hidden word"
  
  On my end, when applications have these "hidden word" things, it screams inefficiency to me. You are REALLY going to base my ability to perform my tasks on whether I can I spy with my little eye a single word in your wall of text?
  
  Here's a more accurate way to do it:
  
  
• List the task and ask the VA for their process.
  
• Tell the VA a problem that you've faced (and solved) in your business and ask them to solve the problem in their cover letter.
  
  Here's an example: I recently hired a project manager/assistant to keep me on task with my clients. My clients text/email/call/etc. and I needed someone to organize and schedule my tasks out through Asana (a project management type of app) in an organized fashion because it's so tedious to do it myself.
  
  I asked the following two questions:
  
  

1. When would you use "Boards" in Asana and when would you use "Lists" in Asana? (Their response shows me their ability to think on their own, without needing me to hold their hand through how to do everything. People who are intimidated by the need for self-thinking will not answer this question and just not bother applying).
   
2. I need you to export my Toggl timesheet in PDF format so I know how much time I'm spending on each client. You log in, try to export the PDF file, but every time you try to open it, it says the file is corrupted. What do you do? (At this point, MOST entry-level virtual assistants give up and just say "hey the file is corrupted, what do I do?" which I do NOT want. I want someone who has the ability to GOOGLE and problem solve).
   
   That being said, this advice will not work for everyone.
   
   Your ability to teach, delegate, or pay, will impact your relationship with your virtual assistant. If you have money but no time, go high-end and hire an expert VA at $35/hour or higher.
   
   If you have time but no money, hire an entry-level/foreign assistant and take the time to train them.
   
   I'm currently transitioning out of being a VA to start a digital marketing agency. I am now hiring my own team of virtual assistants to help me. Here's what I've learned from the hiring end:
   
   

• Be prepared to train if you're not prepared to pay. Read The E-Myth (not an affiliate link).
  A lot of businesses fail in hiring because they want to hire someone to solve a problem they can't solve themselves. $10/hour virtual assistants are ENTRY LEVEL and will need a lot of hand-holding and training. You can absolutely go this route if your budget is low or you have a lot of time to train (or have processes at the ready) but in my experience, few business owners have been organized or patient enough to train someone entry-level.
  Within 6 months, they usually fire the entry-level assistant in favor of a more high-end one.
  The other thing is... if you got a "good one" who can handle their own at the lower rate, get ready to have people try to snatch your assistant for $12/hour or $15/hour or be forced to match a competitor's rate.
  
• Hire for culture over ability.
  However, what isn't replaceable and what is difficult to teach is culture and work ethic.
  I personally work with entry-level VA's due to lack of budget (I have more time than money) - but I hire VA's whose visions and lifestyles align with mine.
  For example, I am starting a digital marketing agency. I DO NOT want to hire entry-level virtual assistants who are digital marketer wannabes because they'll just work for me for a few months, gut me for all my knowledge, and take what they learned from me to compete with me.
  Fuck that.
  Instead, I hire people who have a full-time job, or children, or family obligations, and are seeking "side income" NOT full-time hours. They are happy with entry-level $15-$25/hour pay and they have no intentions to eventually compete. I've noticed they're usually easier to work with because they're not constantly looking for more/higher-paying clients and they aren't burnt out from the industry.
  Ultimately, I am working with a niche group of people (spiritualists, cannabis entrepreneurs, sexual empowerment coaches, zero waste/environmental coaches, etc.) so the people I hire MUST have a current interest in those subjects. I can freakin pay for a $29 Instagram course in Udemy or give them my Skillshare login to teach them Instagram but I can't teach them to care about our clients.
  
  (Note: I'm not saying hire people who are absolute newbies with no experience. You can hire a mom who has a huge Instagram following to manage your Instagram account for $15/hour and then send her to take a Udemy course to refine her marketing skills in Instagram. You can hire a college student who wants to be a scientist but codes websites on the side, to help you manage your clients' Wordpress websites).
  
  I know this was super long-winded... Just wanted to give a perspective from a former virtual assistant who now works with virtual assistants.

Hoow. Well, I'm in the middle of re-reading The E-Myth, since it's a good refresher and I find myself having to scale up one of my businesses.

I'm looking at (re)reading Deep Survival next week because I'm going on retreat. I have saved it for a close reading and copious notes because I think there's something similar in the people who survive dangerous situations and the people who survive and thrive in starting small businesses.

I'm in the middle of The Social Animal, by David Brooks, which I adore. I think I'm going to keep it. (That's saying something, since I read voraciously, but I have only one shelf of books I felt was worth revisiting.) The way he's tackled the book is very interesting and it's incredibly deftly done.

I have Republic of Thieves out from the library, the newest in the Gentleman Bastards series. I don't know when I'm going to get to it. When I start a fiction book I tend to read it straight through, and nothing else gets done, so I'm loathe to start one.

I also have TapDancing to Work the new Warren Buffet autobiography, The Compass of Pleasure (which has been on my wishlist so long I've forgotten what I wanted it for) and Medieval Mercenaries a book about the history of mercenaries. I've always been very interested in mercenaries. I don't know why.

Today a friend recommended The Small Business Life Cycle which I already own, so it will be moving up on the list. I really admire the author, a US Army veteran and philosopher.

Go read the book e-myth revisted RIGHT NOW.

It will answer all these questions, or more importantly. What you should do about all these questions. You'll quickly find that the skills need to run a welding shop are not at all related to the skills needed to do fabrication and repair jobs and most people suffer at the former.

1: Quote based on what makes sense for you, track the accuracy of the quotes and revisit to learn where you're over or under bidding. Don't race to the bottom, if you're this busy raise prices. Do it now.

2: Yes, you walk in or call them up and ask them if they have any work they are looking to sub out. Owning a successful business is a large portion of having good people and sales skills. Listen to them and find their pain points. Is it turn around time, quality of work, difficult jobs they can't/don't want to do (large pieces, small pieces, one-off, difficult alloys). Pick something you're good at and layout why it's better to go with you than to do it in house.

3: No clue, all my work was B2B or done through web portals. Probably doesn't hurt to spend a few hours on a nice clean website as it makes you look legit.

4. Common rule of thumb is that you shouldn't be extract more than 2-10% of net profit. That is highly dependent on way too many factors. As a data point my side business did about 150K a year in sales and I was extracting 5-15K in profit the rest was reinvested. Once you start getting big enough I highly suggest you get an SBA loan or similar for working capital so that you don't have cash flow issues.

5: Make sure your business insurance, liability, waivers and paperwork are in order. Get good legal and tax advice for your area so you don't have any surprises come tax time.

The advice to "sleep on it" is not to be able to think about it at night, but to give yourself time to calm down from short term emotions that might be connected with a decision.

There is a book about decision making called ["Thinking Fast and Slow"] (http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555) with an explanation of how decisions can be made in those two ways, fast - intuitively, pretty much - and slow - using rational thought.

Both those approaches have their advantages and drawbacks, so you often can make a correct "fast" decision, but doing so will prevent you from checking back with the other thought process. So allowing you to do that is pretty much the value of "sleep on it".

The key being successful in the cake business actually has little to do with the ability to make cakes. The problem is that bakers often times make terrible business people. Making a cake here and there is great, but does your mom have the ability to manage inventory, follow-up with customers, keep costs down, keep good financial records, market her product well, etc.?

There is a great book you and her should both read, it's called the E-Myth. After reading it then decide whether you should move forward with a cake business.

All decisions have an emotional component, and research has shown that people who claim to care exclusively about 'the facts' are often more driven by emotion than the people they see as 'emotional.'

Daniel Kahneman actually won a Nobel Prize in Economics for the research and application of what he discusses (at lenght) in the book below.

It's an absolutely awesome read, and I recommend every engineer and especially project managers read it at least every couple of years.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555&ved=2ahUKEwiV4tLcpYjiAhXshOAKHaKxABsQFjAYegQICBAB&usg=AOvVaw3lAZqqPHlaSgKWv4V33dGs

Hands down, The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. It's actually a series of four books (The Shadow of the Torturer, The Claw of the Conciliator, The Sword of the Lictor and The Citadel of the Autarch) following Severian the Torturer after he is banished from his guild for showing mercy to one of their "clients."

It's just...beautiful and complex and you'll discover something new and fascinating each time you read it. The tetralogy has been ranked on par with the works of Tolkein and has been recognized all the major sci-fi awards, and gained wider literary recognition as well. See the editorial reviews section on the linked Amazon pages:

>"Outstanding...A major work of twentieth-century American literature." --The New York Times Book Review

>"Wonderfully vivid and inventive...the most extraordinary hero in the history of the heroic epic." --Washington Post Book World

>"Brilliant...terrific...a fantasy so epic it beggars the mind. An extraordinary work of art!" --Philadelphia Inquirer

>About the Author: Gene Wolfe has been called "the finest writer the science fiction world has yet produced" by The Washington Post. A former engineer, he has written numerous books and won a variety of awards for his SF writing.

Anyway...yeah, I kind of like these books.

EDIT: A Canticle For Liebowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. is great, too. It's kind of post post apocalyptic, and it examines the self destructive nature of humanity.

I'd recommend you spend a small portion of that $40k on:

http://www.amazon.com/Running-Lean-Iterate-Works-Series/dp/1449305172

http://www.amazon.com/Startup-Owners-Manual-Step---Step/dp/0984999302/

http://www.amazon.com/The-Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous/dp/0307887898

Then get creative and figure out how to validate your idea without writing a single line of code (validation = get customers willing to sign up and/or pre-purchase).

My favorite example of getting 70k users without building a thing: http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/19/dropbox-minimal-viable-product/

If you could generate that kind of buzz without a line of code written, you could get the investment required to build your MVP.

Feel free to PM me, btw. I love the SaaS space and I have 17 years software development experience.

The volatility in the marketplace has been fairly predicted in the previous months. Interest rates rose from the Fed, temporary trading restrictions overseas in China had been lifted, oil prices are plunging, etc. In general, sticking with an index like the S&P is a sound investment for longterm growth and sustainability.

I work in finance, and one of the very best books on investment is hands down A Random Walk Down Wall Street. I highly recommend it. I also recommend The Black Swan and The Misbehavior of Markets.

Some ideas from self-help books might resonate with certain people, so in that sense, they're not a scam. Personally, I've gotten more from books that aren't specifically "self-help," but focus more on a certain topic and help shine a light on why we think the way we do and some potential ways to change that way of thinking. A few examples:

The Power of Habit

Thinking Fast and Slow

The Like Switch

I also read The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck and got nothing out of it, but I see lots of glowing reviews for it, so some people must have enjoyed it.

Here is why open office plans became a thing: Money. Employee space is rated on certain amount of sq/ft per employee. If I rent a 1,000 sq/ft office space for open office plans each employee only gets about 30 sq/ft. With cubicles that jumps up to 50-60sq/ft an employee. Offices are about 110 sq/ft.

Looking purely at the cost which route do you think a company is going to go?

This is actually a good book on how people work and offices should be organized: Peopleware

> What does you ideal office space look like?

An office with a door. Doesn't need to be a big one but I need to be able to shut the door when I am on meetings or working on things.

> Do you have an idea of a better layout?

• All heads down people get pushed to the back of a row and have partitions between their individual work spaces to help keep sound down.
  
• Collaboraters get a more open office design with lower partitions.
  
• Everyone gets proper noise cancelling headphones and headsets for taking calls on.
  
• People won't gravitate to meeting rooms for a single call like people always propose in their layout designs. They will take it at their desk where they have extra monitors and all their material at the ready. Especially if you are on meetings 3-5 hours straight.

You will pick up the knowledge fairly quickly, but the wisdom part comes slowly.

Read some books:

• Phoenix Project https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Project-DevOps-Helping-Business-ebook/dp/B00AZRBLHO/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1495835961&sr=1-1&keywords=the+phoenix+project
  
• Practice of System and Network Administration https://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administration-Enterprise/dp/0321919165/ref=dp_ob_title_bk
  
• Toyota Kata https://www.amazon.com/Toyota-Kata-Managing-Improvement-Adaptiveness/dp/0071635238/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1495835986&sr=1-1&keywords=Toyota+kata
  
• GTD https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity/dp/0142000280
  
• Five Dysfunctions of a Team https://www.amazon.com/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-Fable/dp/0787960756/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1495836025&sr=1-1&keywords=five+dysfunctions+of+a+team
  
• How to win friends and influence people https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0671027034
  
• Powershell in a month of lunches https://www.amazon.com/Learn-Windows-PowerShell-Month-Lunches/dp/1617294160/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1495836112&sr=1-1&keywords=powershell+in+a+month+of+lunches
  
  Start humble, stay humble, be quick to listen and slow to speak, and don't make changes on Friday!

Well, we hit the 10000 limit. Reserving this comment for the misc. section.

FREE TIME/FUN/MISC.
The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security
The Art of War
Steal This Computer Book 4.0: What They Won't Tell You about the Internet
How to Disappear: Erase Your Digital Footprint, Leave False Trails, and Vanish without a Trace
The Best of 2600: A Hacker Odyssey
Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart
Casting the Net: From ARPANET to INTERNET and Beyond thanks sjhill
A Quarter Century of UNIX thanks sjhill
A Reading List For the Self-Taught Computer Scientist thanks zinver
How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk thanks segamix
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable thanks AgonistAgent
Snow Crash thanks AgonistAgent
Cryptonomicon thanks Mirple

It sounds like you want to do this as a hobby instead of a business. If you are wanting to do this to play more games then you will end up playing less games if you run a good business and if you try to run it as a hobby it's not going to be able to support you and will end up being more of a "clubhouse" than a professionally run game store. My largest piece of advice is to read https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280 If you do read that and still want to open a store feel free to reach out to me and I'll be happy to answer any specific questions you have.

You're not wrong. The timeframes vary based on what societal dimension you're discussing at a given point, but many aspects of global society are significantly better today than in the recent and distant past. Education levels, equality, access to food, mortality rates, life expectancies, literacy, and so on.

I'd you're not familiar with it, I'd recommend the book Factfulness. Pretty good book on this topic of perspective vs reality.

(Edit - fixed link)

This stuff is not easy, I'm not expecting to change your way of thinking with this one comment.
But maybe it could help you with exploring a different angle and realising that not all things are bad and that there's also a lot of good in the world.

I'd say:

Yes there is a lot of dumb and awful things in the world, but it is easier to focus on the bad than the good, there's also many amazing advancements humans are making every day by working at it diligently:

Worldwide poverty is lower than it has ever been in history and keeps dropping.

People are finding cures for awful diseases all the time.

Nations are becoming more and more developed, child deaths and births are dropping, there's no endless growth happening, it's all dropping off to a stable level.

Companies have always done shady shit, but we are getting better at calling them out and improving people's lives.

More people have the right to live happily, to marry who they love.

There's no widespread slavery anymore, there's not even a real war between nation states, just some terrorist dudes in a desert somewhere, and yes that is in the news all the time but compared to even the balkan wars in the 90s there's nowhere near as much suffering in today's world.

For every "bought" artist there's lots of people and groups making their own music and having success with it, it's easy to look at most listened to lists on youtube or spotify and dismiss all of those artists but take a look at smaller artists, browse bandcamp or something to find people that do what they love and support them with it.

There's a great book that puts a lot of these fallacies of thinking the world is getting worse to the test but I forgot the name of it, you'll have to take my word until I can find it again.

Edit: found it, check it out for another perspective on things if you wish:

link

I have to draw a lot of conclusions from your post, but I have to second therapy or talking to someone about your thoughts. It seems like you might be doing that already.

About your business, it sounds like you're so stressed out because you don't know how to deal with problems that arise or why they're happening in the first place. First thing is you need to learn how to blame the process, not the person. When someone makes a mistake, you need to figure out how your process has allowed them to make that mistake in the first place. I think if you had better tools to solve your business problems, your passion for the business might spark up again. Hiring an additional person as people are suggesting I don't think is the right move. You'll have to pay them a large salary to deal with the stress and then you'll be held hostage when they quit or ask for a huge raise. The real problem is the stress itself and that's what you have to focus on getting rid of in your business.

Read the book The E-Myth Revisited if you haven't already. I think that can relate to a lot of your struggles and will help you to hopefully work more on your business than in it.

Then I would try and read 2 Second Lean. I don't know what kind of business you have, while this book is geared towards manufacturing, it doesn't matter. Lean is all about making work struggle free and even fun. The concepts can be applied to any business and for me implementing the ideas has made my business fun for me and gave me a new found purpose within it.

I'm sure you can turn things around for yourself. It's impressive you've gotten as far as you have and you're bound to have bumps along the way. Just have to keep looking forward.

Thanks for sharing. Great story. I recently read a great book on the subject on facts of modern time that I highly recommend to this group called
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Th... https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250107814/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_c_api_i_ouisDbFCXZSAN

I am in a similar situation. I have spent my summers working for my family business. I worked at the assembly, warehouse, R&D you name it. I think its important to understand the people that you work with, understand their day-to-day jobs and really know your company.

Start with the product, learn every detail of the process it goes through to become a final product. You will also build a good relationship with your workers that is important too.

Once you feel confident, dive into management. Accountants and marketing people are the backbone of the business. Know what they are doing, their strategies. Learn how financing works in the company and who you are selling your products. Make some cold-calls to new customers, learn the trick of the trade.

Only once you really know how things work, set a goal! Say "I will grow this company 2 times the size it is today!" - its easier said than done.

If you didnt receive a former education in business, here are my top sources where I learnt a lot:

https://www.amazon.com/Personal-MBA-Master-Art-Business/dp/1591845572/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473345589&sr=8-1&keywords=personal+mba

https://www.amazon.com/HBR%C2%92s-Must-Reads-Boxed-Books/dp/1422184056/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1473345608&sr=8-2&keywords=HBR+essentials


These books wont tell you how to run your grandfather's business but they will tell you what a business is/does and how you can steer it. The rest is creativity, hard work and vision.

Hope this helps!

I mostly have a lot of books that helped me, but here are the most influential ones that I've read recently:

• Thinking, Fast and Slow
  
• Good and Real: Demystifying Paradoxes from Physics to Ethics
  
• Thinking and Deciding
  
• The Oxford Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning
  
  I can't overstate their importance, but I also don't think I can do four large books worth of content justice without a very substantial amount of writing. The gist is that they're books about how our minds actually work, and how we can use that knowledge to our advantage to make better choices and have beliefs that reflect reality.

The Black Swan, by Nassim Taleb

Catching the Big Fish, by David Lynch

A note on the second choice. I know it's not standard non-fiction fare, but I'm a huge Lynch fan and I really enjoy this book. It's short and I think reading it would benefit anyone. He was an Eagle Scout for Christ's sake!

Sometimes it makes a huge amount of difference to go through a proper exercise in understanding the business model. Use this: http://6w2x.com/mm-devel/mmc-canvasv01explained.html to fill out all the sections so you understand your business model. Ideally, you should get your hands on the book itself: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417

Traffic, fan base, etc come later, once you've decided on things like your value proposition, customer segments, distribution channels, etc. Then you execute on the plan, targeting the segments and measuring the responses. Be data orientated from day 1 so learn about customer acquisition and retention. It may be that assumptions that have gone into the model are not correct and you have to make changes. Investing your time now on this will pay dividends later.

Good luck.