The next three posts are going to be book reviews because I want to share with you guys some amazing money resources.

I learned a lot from this book. It covers the basics really well and I really credit it with filling in some gaps that I had in my own practices. Specifically I implemented new methods of handling my checking account, 401k and ROTH IRA.

Up until this point I had been self taught in terms of managing my money and there were things that I simply didn’t know. For example I used to leave all of my money in my checking account. Now, I move almost everything into a higher yield savings account and leave a certain amount in my checking. This forces me to pay attention to how much money is in my checking account before I make a large purchase. Do I need to move money from savings? If I do, do I really want to do that? These are important questions and helped me curb some behavior that wasn’t supporting my goals. Also, I now earn more just by having my money in the bank.

Additionally, I had not really paid attention to my 401k before reading this book. I had paid into it but I didn’t know much more than that. I know I’m supposed to be the expert, but I have my own money shit I need to handle! This was a great primer on how to think more comprehensively about your 401k. Compound interest is amazing and that’s why everyone recommends getting started with your 401k right away.

I had stopped contributing to my 401k because I was feeling the squeeze from cost of living increases (SF is expensive!) and I learned through this book (and some helpful advice from friends) that I just need to suck up the living increases and keep paying my 401k because I’m costing myself my retirement. I now need to pay more per month into my 401k than I used too so I could make up the difference and I’m diverting some of that money into a ROTH IRA based on the advice in this book as well.

This book provides good advice for which funds to put your money in but the specifics are going to be left up to your own personal choice. Additionally, since it’s a moving target I suggest talking to a professional to get the latest and greatest information.

This book also introduced me to the idea of a ROTH IRA. If you’re interested in starting one please see a licensed expert, but my general understanding of them improved greatly with this book. The bottom line is that you put money into them after taxes, so they grow over the year’s tax free. If you put $5000 a year into it for 30 years you will earn ~$30k in interest which you can take back out at retirement and not pay taxes on. You can only put so much in and you can only put money into them if you’re in certain income brackets, but it was a lifesaver for me especially since I was already contributing a lot to my 401k and I wanted to contribute more.

This book also gave me a handy calculation to figure out if my expenses are in line with the national average. 30% rent, 20% bills, 10% 401k, 10% savings, 30% fun. How are you doing on that? Some clients of mine are paying exorbitant amount in rent, almost 60%, and this really helped them reevaluate.

This book also has good advice on how to deal with your credit score. This is a tricky one, because it’s a lot of moving balls and a seemingly good step can cost you. For example, I wasn’t using a credit card so I cancelled it, thinking that it would be good for me. Turns out it wasn’t; it was my oldest credit card and my credit history went from 11 years down to 2 years. Oops, there goes the credit score. Lesson learned! A good website for this is creditkarma.com, its free and it will let you check your credit scores and see the breakdown of what’s influencing it. Going into the mechanics of credit score will require a full blog post so I’ll just leave it up to Ramit to go into the details http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/how-to-improve-your-credit-score/

What Ramit doesn’t cover, which I think is important, is keeping the habits going. Once you set it up, it’s not fire and forget. You will need continual maintenance. Are these systems working for me? In figuring out that question, you will get a deeper understanding of your money. Also, he doesn’t cover this in his book (but continues to discuss it more on his blog) is the emotion of money. How do you relate to money? What do you actually think about money? How does that influence you? This is the second half and arguably more important half of getting your money shit handled and its not covered in his book.

Bottom line, this book is a great primer on the facts of money. If you have been having any trouble with it up until now it’s not going to help you but if you find money easy and just need to fill in some gaps this book will do wonders. If you are having trouble, then you have a emotional story about money that’s making it difficult. For that emotional side, my next topic is going to be about “your money or your life”, a book by Joe Dominguez.

Hey folks, thanks for reading. Back in April I wrote the two preceding blog posts but since then my business has been booming so much I haven’t had a chance to post them. A little sunday evening break and here we go!

A lot can be learned from Michael all over the internet, but his book “The Education of Millionaires: It’s Not What You Think and It’s Not Too Late” is his primary manifesto.  You can find him at http://www.ellsberg.com/ and you can find his writings in the NYT, Forbes, WSJ and on Amazon.

First off, wow talk about clicking into something that I have been thinking about for years. His attitudes on higher education, and the fact that we are making a $50k – $200k investment up front without any idea how we are going to eventually use that education to pay back that money, are very similar to mine.

His book made a real impact on me in relating to how much strain debt puts on people because I get how much Michael feels betrayed by society. Managing that debt and the fears around it are going to be a critical part of my coaching practice.

Full disclosure. Michael Ellsberg is my friend, which is how I got exposed to his work. I’ve known Michael for years, meeting him in 2007, but I had fallen out of touch with him since he moved to NYC and have lately just followed his career on the internet.  I paid full price for his book and only told him that I read it when I told him about this blog post (Hi Michael!).

These 5 steps are what I took from his book.

Step 1 of Kicking Ass: Find your Purpose

Purpose. It’s a word that gets thrown around all the time, but what does it mean? I finally figured it out when I found mine, “to be a stand for our happiness.” It led me directly to launching my coaching practice. It is the thing you do effortlessly and brings you an incredible amount of joy.

Michael argues that we are way too risk adverse and too conformist and to take a risk doing something big. Purpose is BIG and most people shy away from it for this reason. This is what I’m doing, to take a risk at something big, and I appreciate that Michael is helping people figure this out. It also made me realize that I was taking this part too lightly because I had already found my purpose. It’s incredibly important to find your purpose and think big and I am grateful to Michael for reminding me.

Michael believes, as do I, that everyone has as purpose and can manifest it in the world in a way that makes them fulfilled spiritually and worldly. He has some very helpful tips which I won’t spoil because people still have to be able to buy his book when I’m done with this post.

Step 2 of Kicking Ass: Get Inspiring Mentors

Mentors are incredible because they lead the way for you. When you’re on purpose, you often have no idea what you’re doing because your exploring unknown territory within yourself. Of course, I know what I’m doing when it comes to offering coaching but in terms of pushing my edges, getting out of my comfort zone, it’s amazing to have people showing you the way. Once you have found them, find a way to contribute to them that’s very valuable. Michael does this by offering his copywriting experience among other things. This practiced inspired this blog post because I realized that Michael are already on the path that I want to go on and it’s important for me to contribute to him. I hope he reads this post and get something out of it and I look forward to being more inspired by him in the future and contributing more to him in the future.

Step 3 of Kicking Ass: Know how to Sell & Get the Word Out About Your Purpose

Next up, getting the word out. You have found your gifts, found the people to light the way; it’s time to do it. However, there is a significant roadblock here. “Selling is dirty!” you say. “I hate being sold!” you say. Get over it. If you can’t fully enroll people in what you’re up too, nobody will care. Michael turned me onto “SPIN Selling”, which is how I have been talking to people about what I do and it’s nice to see other people believe in it as well. I’m not trying to sell, I’m trying to authentically understand my clients needs and if I have value to provide. If it’s a match, I provide it in a way that’s beneficial to us both.

The final nail in this “Selling is dirty” coffin should be this: By not getting your message out there, you are denying the world your gifts. If you can’t find the people who your gifts would help, and you can’t work with them to figure out that your gifts would benefit you both, then fix it.

I also appreciate how Michael provides a tremendous amount of value in this chapter by telling you exactly who he has learned from in these fields and enabling you to learn from them as well. I have about 20 new RSS feeds now and I am literally drowning in more information. When it comes to delivering extra value, this chapter fucking delivers, especially from a book I only paid $15 for. Thank you Michael!

Step 4 of Kicking Ass: Have a Unique Personal Brand

OK, now you’re on purpose, you have mentors, and you can get your word out and help people. The way to true rock stardom is your brand. A lot of people focus on their “career” by focusing on choosing the right companies to work for. This works incredibly well up to a point, but think about the rockstars in your industry. You know them by name, right? Focus on getting yourself out there, as you, and no boss can take away the power that you get from that. Whether you work for yourself or for large companies, being well known is the key to an amazing career.

I have to thank Michael a lot for this chapter. Specifically, you are reading this post on brianmdriscoll.com and not getyourmoneyshithandled.com because of this chapter. After reading this chapter I immediately signed up for @brianmdriscoll on twitter & this blog. It echoed many other great thinkers about “personal brand” and pushed me over the edge into action.

Step 5 of Kicking Ass: Focus on Contribution, Not Entitlement

Michael calls this the “Entrepreneurial Mind Set.” I struggled with this because I desperately wanted to be in the “Entrepreneurial” mind set with my current job but I realized I was in the employee mindset. I was playing small, trying to protect the work that I was doing & only doing what was requested instead of looking for more work and trying to make my current work obsolete. I looked at the people who had been promoted in my company and saw that they did exactly what Michael was outlining. It was an important wakeup call and I need to be continually reminded of those things. Even running my own business, I need to focus on these things as they are habits I have acquired from my full time job.

However, his “focus on contribution” part was particularly intriguing because it’s actually a significant point and he could have spent a whole chapter on it instead of just a little bit here and there. This is where I get the energy to live my day, in contribution. This is why I give my gifts, because it is effortless for me and provides significant energy back to me.

I’ve been having a lot of discussion with my girlfriend about “excitement” and “joy” and other related words. What brings joy into the world? What makes you excited to wake up in the morning? For me, and for everyone I know who has discovered it, its contribution.

I have a lot to thank Michael for and I am deeply indebted to him for his work on this book. Thank you!

Again, I appreciate you being on this journey with me and I hope that this post has inspired you to take new action in your life. I’d love to hear about it at Brian@BrianMDriscoll.com or as a comment on this post!

I took Bill Baren’s “Big Shift Experience” http://thebigshiftexperience.com/, which is an amazing weekend and I truly believe Bill when he says that his mission is to help small business add six figures a year in revenue. I walked in the front door of the hotel with the name of my practice, “help people get their money shit handled” but nothing else. Bill had helped me figure out that kickass name and it was solid gold so I figured if I got something equally valuable from the weekend I would be incredibly happy. I was mainly looking for details on what the right vehicle would be for the results I wanted to deliver. Wow, details, a plan and inspiration were delivered.

First off, full disclosure. I’ve known Bill for about a year, but just socially and never really knew what he did for work outside of being “a business coach.” When he invited me to his big seminar weekend I sent him an email asking him if it was right for me given the place I was in starting my business (essentially just a postcard with an idea written on it) and he said yes it was a good fit. I paid full price and he didn’t ask for this post, but I hope he reads it (Hi Bill!)

The workshop was back in March, and i’ve been sitting on this post as I get the rest of my blog sorted. My entire business has been a result from this weekend and I really appreciate it!

Rockstar Idea #1: Charge what your worth, and provide the value to back it up

The first major takeaway I had is how to be comfortable asking clients to pay me what I’m worth. Too often we have limiting beliefs about how much impact we can have in the world and first and foremost among those is how much value we can provide. The big idea is: if you had to charge $20,000 per year, what is the value you would provide such that after looking at it, your client goes “that’s a no brainer of course I’ll sign up.” This was very important to me because I kept thinking to myself “How could I ever charge more than $100 an hour?” By thinking the opposite way, “What value would I have to provide to charge $500 an hour?” I suddenly had the keys to the kingdom. I haven’t quite figured out what I could do to charge $500 an hour, much less $20,000 per year, but I’m getting there.

Rockstar Idea #2: Work  backwards from your goals to create a business plan

This is actually something I kinda knew for a while but it really crystallized here. By figuring out what end results you want (how many pounds, how many clients, how much money, whatever), the path becomes much clearer. If you need 10 clients, how many conversations do you need to have to get 10 clients? 100? What’s your plan to have 100 conversations? Reach 1000 people. How do you reach 1000 people? Etc, etc.

There are several ways to do each of these steps and he laid out several different ideas. I now have a 4 page document laying out exactly what my immediate next steps are, what my core offering is, what my big questions are, what business questions I have, what my business plan is and who my partners will be.

Rockstar Idea #3: Invest in your human capital first

Another important thing I got from Bill, which was also echoed in a significant way in Michael’s book, is investing in yourself. Investing in my own human capital is the significant way I’ll improve my business moving forward. I’m in a fortunate position that I have a day job, so my basic monthly money needs are met through that and I can afford to pay for sales classes or for 1 on 1 time with a marketing guru. This was a big shift for me because I had expected to do fun things with the revenue from my business, but I see now how important it is to invest in business skills. Therefore all the profit I make on my business for at least the next year will be put into improving my “human capital” as Michael puts it.

Rockstar Idea #4: Enrolling people in your vision is the key to success

Bill also showed me what the importance of enrolling is. “Enrolling” doesn’t mean the same thing that you and I think it is. It has nothing to do with signing up for classes in college. Enrolling, in Bill’s universe, is getting the listener to be inspired by your mission. After I got done listening to Bill’s big pitch for his ongoing coaching services (which cost way more than I’m in a position to pay right now) I was completely inspired by his desire to help me. I was also convinced about how he would help me, but that was a result of the entire weekend not just the big pitch moment. It showed me that an emotional connection at a human level, not just a quick “buy buy buy” message, was the key to really finding the people who you want to help and the people who want you to help them.

Bill’s weekend seminar was such a complete package that I’m doing it a disservice by only outlining these takeaways, but rather than just a review of the course I wanted to let you know what impact it had on me.

Again, I appreciate you being on this journey with me and I hope that this post has inspired you to take new action in your life. I’d love to hear about it at Brian@BrianMDriscoll.com or as a comment on this post!