Hey,

I’ve been thinking about communication and explaining/ understanding complex ideas.

With so much work being remote, being able to brainstorm on a live call or a video recording visually is a game changer for everyone involved.

I’ve enjoyed learning and exercising this skill by working with a master communicator, an incredible engineer, and a YouTube star for us nerds, Hassan Habib, over the last year and a half.

Whenever he has a complex idea, he pulls up draw.io and explains it in shapes and lines.

My team always leaves the meeting completely clear with where we are, what we will do, and how we will do it.

Now, I do this for everything. Here are some examples

The better I’ve gotten at visually brainstorming to communicate a process or idea, the easier it’s been to

• Sell to prospects (yes, I still do the sales at SOLO MEDIA GROUP)

• Train employees

• Document something that can be reused

(let me be clear: I’m still below average in building these visual maps, but I’m getting my reps in daily!)

Anyway,

Some significant business wins

1. We got our first two leads from being on Shopify’s Partner directory

2. I received my 10,000 order award for my Shopify Store

3. I attended my first NRF. 

4.  SMG and I relaunched  Yeezy.com with Ye’s new collection and the SL-01 (sneaker). (I am behind NDA, so I can’t share too much on this)

Built

At the beginning of this year, I wanted to automate my finances as much as possible to focus all my energy on growing the company.

At the end of this ‘‘build’’ session, I had an easy view of what I’m making, what I’m spending, what I’m saving, and what assets I have (track my net worth).

My Investment strategy? Boring. 60% of my income goes to a managed account by Vanguard. Vanguard invests it in ETFs.

At this point in my career, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m a good entrepreneur, not a good investor.

I take risks in my business, not my investments.

For day-to-day budgeting, I’m using Monarch.

After setting up some rules for transactions, budgets for particular categories, and connecting all my accounts, I have a straightforward dashboard I can review for 30 minutes at the end of every month.

For net-worth tracking, my good friend Tommy recommended Kubera.

I became a customer.

• It links your financial accounts

• you can manually put in hard assets like gold, watches, etc

• You can add real estate

• You can add users and beneficiaries inside the portal

• you can add legal documents such as will, trusts, etc

• You can forecast 5,10, or 20 years.

I know it's not the sexiest stuff, but now that it’s done, I plan to spend 1 hour a month reviewing and ensuring I’m on track.

The rest of my energy is spent on building the business.

Engaged With

I reread Matthew McConaughey’s book ‘‘Greenlights.’’

It came at a perfect moment in my life for reasons I’ll share later.

Here is a quote that I’ll end this post with. Thank you for reading