Have you ever inherited something that’s really old?  When you held it, did you notice that it’s different than what you can buy at the store today?  Chances are your grandparents saved up for quite some time to buy it, and that’s why it’s lasted until now.

Often something that costs twice as much doesn’t perform twice as long, it lasts ten times longer.

When you multiply this over a lifetime, when it becomes the default, rather than the exception, you get more for your money.

People buy the cheapest stuff so they can afford to buy more with their money.  But because more expensive stuff often provides more value in the long term, paying more means you can actually buy more.  When you buy a John Deer or a Snapper you don’t have to replace it every other year like that random wally world lawnmower. Continue reading →

What often separates those with massive success and those that end up average is their ability to turn down work.

When I did IT audit the biggest thing that separated our company from the big four accounting firms was our inability to serve large companies. Large companies come with larger budgets, better margins, and longer smoother engagements.

It wasn’t that we didn’t have the staff or that our staff wasn’t as good. In fact our IT people ran circles around most any other firm.

The problem is that we never said no to clients that weren’t as profitable. We were too busy with small clients to focus on winning large clients.

We’d burn through staff people running them all over the country for one week jobs. They grew tired of the travel and tired of the pressure. Eventually I was one of those staff.

That same thing happens in small business and particularly the fitness industry. Type A, motivated people often fail because they can’t say no. They try to promote every way they can, serve every customer, and they never become really great at one thing. They’re not so great at everything. You never get famous for being mediocre.
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If you’ve ever asked this question, you’ve come to the right place. The importance of sleep can not be underestimated. Improving your sleep can, quite literally, change your life, if you’re sleeping poorly.

You may not even realize that you’re not sleeping well. If you’re always tired during the day, or having trouble falling asleep this guide can help you get better sleep as well as find ways to make time for more sleep. The improvement in quality of life can be substantial. Continue reading →

The Internet allows obsessive people to gather ‘round their obsessions and document the minute details surrounding a single aspect of life. Somewhere in the far reaches of the Internet I happened upon various groups of people who treat shaving like it’s some sort of hobby. Sociology might call this a tiny subculture.

To you and me shaving is just one more thing we have to do. But to some people, shaving is their profession. There are people who collect razors, people who spend their evenings arguing the merits of different shaving creams; and people who restore shaving gear.

What’s so great about these subcultures is that their years of expertise and trials can be condensed very quickly into a single recommendation. Novices can obtain answers that have taken years for experts to figure out. This can get us to that 80% proficiency without all the initial effort.

Whats more, these subcultures have found all the outliers; the best deals, the vastly superior products. They know about the $60 headphones that sound like $200 headphones. In this story, they know about the blades that cost twenty cents a piece, but outperform the latest $3 razor cartridge.

That’s what this blog is all about. Going straight to the answers, and more importantly finding answers to the questions we didn’t know to ask. Continue reading →