#75 December 17th
Blake Carroll, CPA
PwC People Team - Manager | Helping Aspiring CPAs Navigate the CPA Exam with Confidence
Thought of the newsletter: CPA studying tip: you're really hindering your progress if you're constantly getting distracted. You need blocks of focused time to really learn the material, and that's not going to happen if you have notifications popping up on your laptop or phone every couple of minutes. When you really need to focus it's okay to go as far as putting your phone in a drawer or even another room. For me personally, even if my phone is face down I find it distracting if it's right next to me. There are plenty of tools, like do not disturb mode, that can really help you out. It's also helpful to remember it's not like you have to intensely focus for hours on end; that isn't even possible. Just 30 minutes that is purposeful and concentrated study time can really add up over the long run.
Lifestyle inflation can have a bad connotation and in most cases is not a good thing, but there are exceptions as this author describes here. The author and his wife lived at the same expense level for several years, but due to career success they did eventually reach an income level where they could certainly afford to start spending?more?money. You don’t have to live like a college student if you are in your mid 30s making six figures. You also would not want to live like a college student if you have kids or others to take care of. You don’t want to deprive your kids of a full childhood just because you want to minimize expenses. It is OK in some cases to start spending more as you earn more, especially if that money is going toward creating memories and experiences. You cannot take the money with you when you die, so make sure you’re not depriving yourself of the things that you enjoy. Or if you have reached a level of savings that can fully fund a part of your lifestyle, then that can free up some of your income towards spending for enjoyment or time freedom as well.
Small consistent habits over time are how massive change happens. One minute a day might be all you need, and this article has three habit examples that fit that criteria. They might seem too simple, but have you ever actually tried any of them? How often do you actually take a minute to pause and breath and recognize what your senses are experiencing? How often do you actually journal and reflect on your day and see what you can learn or observe from that? Please do not dismiss these simple habits until you have actually given them a try.?
Morning routines?and trying to optimize for the perfect one are?definitely a hot topic nowadays. I think it’s important to note that there is no such thing as a perfect morning routine; it’s going to vary greatly from person to person and even depend on what type of season of life you are in. This article has a good list of different ideas where you could pick and choose what would be best to apply to your own situation. Often we think about what we need to do today but we may not think about how we want to feel today. What activities do you have planned for today that are going to help you feel curious, joy, connection, excitement? So much of our experience of life?is defined by the feelings and emotions we deal with every day. I also like the idea of thinking about what not to do, things to avoid. What are some traps that trip you up and take your peace, and how can you plan around them? There are also good details on the more traditional advice around prioritization and getting the biggest tasks done first. It’s so easy to procrastinate and think we will get things done later in the day, but how often do we wind down for the night and realize we were just busy all day without making progress on what really matters?
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This article has some pretty intense analysis on how we are actually almost conditioned to not feel good enough through every stage of our life, even starting off as young kids. It’s kind of sad to read about, but also good to have awareness of why we might be the way we are. Unfortunately a lot of parental-child relationships make a kid feel like they have to perform a certain way or achieve certain things in order to be good enough. Maybe parents also made their kids feel like the kid was a burden. Then when we’re in school we have to deal with rejection from other people or the pressures of trying to fit in. Middle school and high school especially can make kids feel like they aren’t good enough if they aren’t in with the popular crowd. Then when we’re adults we’re shown all these images of what we have to do to be good enough. We have to get the job, the house, the car, the family, and until then we will not be happy and not be good enough. It’s all so pervasive?and in all these cases even when we do achieve whatever goal we have in mind we find it emptier than expected. It turns out there is not lasting fulfillment and achievement from the goal. That just shows that the self esteem and worth that we are looking for is not going to come from anyone else or anything else. We have to give it to ourselves no matter what the outside world thinks of us.
Ideas are a dime a dozen is a cliché for a reason. Many of us may have had the experience of having some eureka moment where we think there is a great potential business opportunity as we go about our day-to-day lives. We may have a vision or dream about some things that we could create and become entrepreneurs. But all of those feelings are nothing without action and actually validating the idea. Knowledge and opportunity are just potential power. You have to actually get out there and test the idea, refine it, and find out if people actually want it. How many businesses have launched without doing that validation only to discover that the problem that they solve wasn’t really a problem, or that no one will buy the product that they have made? Then what? All of those sunk costs are kind of wasted. The bottom line is it doesn’t cost you anything to talk about your ideas and brainstorm them, but you have to actually test them if you are ever going to create some thing from it. It’s scary to test and put your ideas out there because you are risking failure or rejection or criticism, but you learn from all those things, and they show you what is or?isn’t worth your time. Isn’t that the best outcome??
This article gets into how the changing “standard” corporate career has made people seek alternatives to the traditional retirement path. The financial independence retire early, FIRE for short, option has definitely risen in popularity recently. But this author explores the idea that hustling on the side and overworking yourself trying to retire as early as possible just for the sake of retiring may actually not be a good solution. What’s the point of retiring early if you were burned out and overworked and miserable for your working years? It’s more about choosing a path and lifestyle that aligns with the values and things that you care about.