In 2020, Success Magazine named Patrice Washington, one of 12 Inspiring Black Voices in Personal Development. As an award-winning author, transformational speaker, hope-restoring coach, and media personality, Patrice is committed to redefining the term “wealth” using its original meaning, “well-being.” Patrice started as your favorite personal finance expert, “America’s Money Maven,” but has since expanded her brand and mission to encourage women to chase purpose, not money. She uses her Certification in Financial Psychology to help the masses get beyond budgets and credit reports and dive into the heart of why we behave the way we do with money. She encourages women to have “wealth” in all aspects of their lives by pursuing their purpose, being fulfilled, and earning more without ever chasing money. Through her teachings, Patrice empowers women to look at life through the lens of abundance and opportunity, instead of lack and scarcity. As host of The Redefining Wealth Podcast, Patrice has built a thriving international community of high-achieving women committed to creating a powerful life vision--in their careers, home, health, and personal finances. Featured on Forbes.com as one of “15 Inspiring Podcasts for Professionals of Every Stripe” and highlighted by Entrepreneur.com. The Redefining Wealth Podcast boasts over 2 million downloads and counting!   “Don’t get caught up in the pretty, in what looks good and what looks like money. Focus on the nitty-gritty of the numbers and what you can sustain even in your worst month.” Patrice Washington   Worst investment ever Early real estate mogul Patrice was 19 years old when she got licensed as a real estate agent in California and quickly fell in love with the industry. During her senior year in college at the University of Southern California, Patrice got her broker’s license and became a real estate and mortgage broker. Her real estate business quickly took off and became a seven-figure business by the time Patrice was 25 years old. Riding on cloud nine Patrice was on top of the world. She and her now-husband and then-boyfriend were driving matching Range Rovers and owned almost 13 pieces of property collectively. They had 16 loan officers and real estate agents on their roster. They had all these things going for them, and they thought they ran the world, and it was a beautiful time. The one mistake that undid it all Around 2006 Patrice’s staff insisted on having an office to work from and fancy technology that would help them land more clients. She listened to them, and so they moved from the coworking space they were using to a larger office, almost 2,000 square feet, which they fully furnished. All these new changes took their overhead from about $2,000 to $14,000 a month. In 2007 the recession started to rear its ugly face. People were talking about the real estate bubble bursting. Other mortgage brokers in Patrice’s building were talking about giving up their office space and work from home. Patrice felt sorry for them, still oblivious of the looming crisis. The bubble...

Avi Liran is on a mission to delight the world; one person, one workplace, one community at a time. He was made in Tel Aviv in 1962 and came to Singapore in 1992 as the trade and tourism commissioner of Israel. He holds an MBA in Marketing and Entrepreneurship. He is a CSP (Certified Speaking Professional) who consults and trains leadership teams of top fortune 500 companies on how to cultivate delightful leadership that empowers a culture that delivers delight to the employees and customers. He was the Chief Marketing Officer of two software companies. As a diplomat and economist, he had initiated two funds between Israel and Singapore that now manage more than a billion dollars. As a VC strategist, he facilitated nine investments in startup companies in Israel for Singapore Telecom, which bought two companies in Israel for half a billion dollars. In the past decade, he has been researching values, welling, and appreciation. He is writing the Delivering Delight book that will be published next year after the book “First Time Leadership.” He is co-writing and researching now with Daniel Lee.   “There’s no half full or half empty. There is a glass issue to be grateful for, and there is an effort to go and fill the glass.” Avi Liran   Worst investment ever Putting his money where his mouth is Avi was working for Singapore telecom investing in Israel when he came across a startup company doing IP PBX over the internet. The company had the best technology at the time and was worth billions of dollars. Avi realized that the company was a goldmine and so he invested in it. Ego too big to say yes The company received an offer to sell for about $30 million; the CEO refused the offer. They got a second offer from Cisco. The proposal was much more than what the first company had offered. The CEO said no to Cisco, insisting that the company was going to be a billion-dollar company. Pride comes before a fall After the two offers, people in the company became arrogant. The CTO went to Boston simply because he decided he wants to go to Boston. Everyone was thinking about their own needs, and just because the company had the potential to make billions, people thought they had made it. The CEO kept refusing to sell while still operating with an air of arrogance. Then the dotcom crisis came, and the company evaporated. Unfortunately, Avi lost everything he had invested in that startup. Lessons learned People are the secret sauce to successful startups When investing in startups, remember that it’s all about the people and their ability to work together, put their ego at bay, and not be arrogant or cocky but be very prudent. Arrogance and lousy working relationships can kill any investment, especially startups. Company values are everything in a startup The most valuable companies have company values in place. If you don’t work on the company’s core values, people will stray from the company’s vision and goals. Focus on your strengths, not your weaknesses A common mistake that people make is to focus on correcting their...

Mike Ciorrocco, aka Mike C-Roc, is the CEO of People Building, Inc. He is a performance coach, author, dynamic public speaker, visionary, and thought leader. He has been featured by Yahoo! Finance as one of the Top Business Leaders to Follow in 2020 and is on a mission to build people. At his core, he’s obsessed with success and helping others achieve greatness. C-Roc is a guy who had a fire lit in him at an early age. That fire has led him to inspire others to see the greatness inside of themselves using past life events to fuel their fire.   “Accept and acknowledge the setback as soon as possible, so that you can prepare and launch for your next takeoff." Mike Ciorrocco   Worst investment ever Mike and his partner run a profit and loss company. A few years ago, when the P&L company was still new, it started to have some success and money was coming in. Mike and his partner planned to keep the money in the business to help scale it. So they kept the money in a company account. Not so much their money There was a catch, though. The company where Mike’s money was kept was not his company. The two partners weren’t the owners of the company. The owner of the company was Mike’s buddy’s uncle-in-law. So even though the money was theirs, officially, it belonged to the owner of the company account. All along, Mike assumed that their money was safe. The assumption got Mike in big trouble. Money goes missing Mike and his partner had built the company for 12 years and had about one million dollars in the account. The money was to be used to scale the business. The two partners had big plans. After a while, they found out that their money was missing. At the time, the company had 22 employees. Mike felt responsible for those 22 employees and their families. These employees had bought into Mike’s vision and were working hard every single day to achieve this vision. He had to make sure that they were taken care of and not affected by the mess. Getting out of the entanglement Mike had to create an exit strategy that was not going to get him in trouble, which would protect their investment and take care of the employees that were relying on him. So this happened over a few months. Luckily, they still had contracts and deals that they had to get paid. Mike and his partner founded another company, and the transition happened. During the transition, the two partners lived off minimum wage to sure everybody was getting paid so that the business could keep running. Unfortunately, they lost all the money they had previously made and saved. However, with the new strategy, they were able to recover and get the company back to its feet. Lessons learned Don’t mix business with friends and family Don’t trust family and friends as far as business goes, and just leave it to that. Make sure you have an ironclad contract or any written agreement that shows that the money is yours. Work on your company culture When you have a great company culture, individuals will look out for the greater good first, and then themselves. Build a culture in your business to...

Stephen Kalayjian, Chief Market Strategist and Co-Founder of Ticker Tocker, has over 30 years of experience in the industry trading stocks, futures, and currencies, having begun his career at the American Stock Exchange in 1983. In 2005, Stephen founded his firm to research and develop software to help identify trends, reversals, patterns, and divergences in the marketplace for all asset classes and time frames. Stephen seeks to generate high alpha trading ideas throughout the day. He and his team employ technical analysis through utilizing the proprietary charting software he developed on Ticker Tocker to forecast the market. Stephen has traded nearly 2 billion shares over his career.   “If you’re gonna invest or trade, you got to have discipline.” Stephen Kalayjian   Worst investment ever Thirty-seven years ago, before Stephen started working at the American Stock Exchange, he was making $2.10 per hour cutting grass, cleaning windows, washing cars, cleaning basements, and garages. He just did whatever he needed to do to survive. After about 1,500 hours of work, Stephen had a little over $3,000 saved up, and he wanted to invest it. It was while working at the floor of the American Stock Exchange when Stephen opened an account at his father’s friend’s brokerage and bought 550 calls, i.e., he bet that the stock was going to go higher. The novice trader Stephen only focused on the assumption that the stock could go higher, but he never knew about premium depreciation. He had no idea that if the stock went down, the call option would go down too. Over the next couple of weeks, the stock started to drift lower, and right before Thanksgiving, the stock got worse. Right around Christmas, Stephen was broke beyond broke. His entire investment had gone down to zero. Lessons learned It’s ok to be wrong Nobody wants to admit when they’re wrong. What they don’t realize is that it’s ok to be wrong because we are all human. We learn from the mistakes we make. No one’s bigger than the market Adhere to the preservation of capital and discipline. Andrew’s takeaways Take risk management seriously If you cannot afford to lose money, then you should not gamble. Be more careful and take risk management seriously. Discipline is a critical thing You cannot just roll the dice when you feel like it. Have discipline when trading to avoid losing your money. Actionable advice The key to success when trading is discipline. Just as you employ discipline in other areas of your life, you need to have discipline when trading so that you know when to keep going and when to quit. No. 1 goal for the next 12 months Stephen’s number one goal for the next 12 months is to inspire people to learn the right way with Ticker Tocker. His goal is to help people change their lives....

Chris Mayer is co-founder and Portfolio Manager of the Woodlock House Family Capital fund. He also blogs about the thing he loves the most, investing. He started his career as a corporate lender, which taught him about managing risk and how business works. Next, he started his newsletter, called Capital & Crisis, which led him into 15 years of writing investment newsletters. Chris has written four books: Invest Like a Dealmaker: Secrets from a Former Banking Insider; The World Right side up: Investing Across Six Continents; 100 Baggers: Stocks That Return 100-to-1 and How To Find Them; How Do You Know? A Guide to Investing, Wall Street, and Life.   “Valuation is important, but it’s secondary to quality. I won’t buy something just because it’s super cheap if it doesn’t have all the other quality aspects that I like.” Chris Mayer   Worst investment ever Taking advantage of the 2008 financial crisis When the financial crisis hit the US in 2008, Chris reasoned that it would be an excellent time to start investing in the stock market. His strategy was to buy the cheapest available businesses and ignore the expensive ones. So he went ahead and found a couple of inexpensive companies. Cheap is just cheap The businesses that Chris bought into were not necessarily good businesses with a promising future; they were just cheap. But he knew he could easily sell them off later. After the crisis, Chris sold off the companies here and there once they started appreciating or reaching his target price. He, however, didn’t make so much money to write home about. He should have gone with the expensive options The companies that Chris ignored because they were expensive at the time went on to recover after the market fall and continue to thrive. Had Chris paid attention to such companies and probably invested in just one or two instead of a handful cheap ones, he’d still be making money from that investment. Lessons learned Buy the best not the cheapest When looking for stocks to invest in, go for the very best companies. They may seem expensive, but in the long-term, these are the companies that are going to bring you the best return. Go for quality over price. Investing is a long-term game When it comes to investing, you have to think long-term. Most of the best performing businesses today were not built in a day. They...

Karen Foo is actively involved in speaking at various conferences, seminars, expos, workshops, toastmasters clubs, and publicly held events. Having overcome numerous setbacks in her life, she has gone on to inspire thousands of young people, executives, and leaders to REALIZE THEIR ABSOLUTE WILDEST DREAMS through her INTERACTIVE, INSPIRING, AND ENGAGING TALKS. Karen has been ranked #1 in a Singapore nationwide Forex trading competition, competing with over 200 traders and has shared the stage with top investment gurus and CEOs. You can find her on her YouTube channel and join 94,000 other people who are gaining from her videos about forex, stocks, markets, and much more!   “In any failure in life, there’s a good side to it.” Karen Foo   Worst investment ever Case of the curious intern Karen’s parents are full-time stock investors, and they exposed her to stock investing since she was young. That’s what sparked Karen’s interest in the financial markets. When she was on internship, she took her salary and put it into the Forex market, not knowing what she was doing. She thought she was smart back then, but it turns out that she wasn’t so smart and so she lost the $1,500 she’d invested. Once bitten twice not shy As if the loss was not enough, Karen went on to lose $6,000 of her mom’s savings. Karen believed that she’d make money by investing in unit trusts. Again, she thought she was smart enough to get a win, and so she went in blindly. No research, no guidance, nothing. Needless to say, she lost $8,000, part of which was her mom’s savings. Karen was broke, angry, and embarrassed. She’d assured her mom that she knew what she was doing, but now she’d lost all the money. Asking for guidance After losing money twice, Karen admitted that she needed help making the right moves. Now she works with various mentors, something that has seen her become #1 Singapore Forex trader. Lessons learned Forget get rich quick schemes Forex trading is not a get rich quick scheme, so don’t take shortcuts. Don’t ignore risk management One of the main reasons why a lot of traders lose money is because they don’t care about money management and risk management, which contributes to about 40% of your success as a trader. You don’t have to figure out everything on your own It’s ok to try and learn everything on your own, but you will be more successful if you work with a mentor. Mentors can teach you a lot more than you can learn on your own. Focus on your risk to reward ratio Don’t focus too much on the win rate; instead, focus on risk-to-reward ratio because forex trading is not about returns; it is about risk-adjusted returns. Andrew’s takeaways The best fund managers are risk managers <span style="font-weight:...

Dr. Marcia (Marsha) Reynolds, Master Certified Coach, is fascinated by the brain, especially what triggers feelings of connection and possibility. She draws on her research and life events as she helps coaches and leaders make conversations into transformational experiences. She has provided executive coaching, training programs, and keynote speaking in 41 countries. Interviews and excerpts from Marcia’s books Outsmart Your Brain; The Discomfort Zone: How Leaders Turn Difficult Conversations into Breakthrough; and Wander Woman: How High-Achieving Women Find Contentment and Direction, have appeared in many places including Fast Company, Psychology Today, and The Wall Street Journal. Her latest book, Coach the Person, Not the Problem, became a bestseller the day it was released this past June. Marcia’s doctoral degree is in organizational psychology, and she has two master’s degrees in education and communications. She also feels she gained an invaluable education when she turned 20 in jail. With the support of her cellmates, she chose to rise back up and show the world she could succeed even when she was told she would fail. She went on to accumulate degrees, rise in male-dominated corporations, and now teaches leadership and coaching classes worldwide. She is recognized by the Global Gurus as the #5 coach in the world.   “Easy usually is a bad investment. You have to take your time and research your book well.” Marcia Reynolds   Worst investment ever Marcia always saw herself as a writer, and so when she left her last corporate job and had time, she wrote her first book. A friend insisted that she works with a certain woman to publish her book. She said that she would make life so easy for Marcia. The said publisher would make all the decisions, find all the people Marcia needed, do layout and covers, and anything else necessary to publish her book. Marcia would not have to worry about a thing. Hearing this made her quite excited since she had no experience. How nice it was to have someone do everything for her. A costly affair The publisher seemed a little expensive and kept charging her for stuff, but Marcia thought that meant she’d produce high-quality work and make her book a bestseller. She ended up spending $40,000, which she never made back. The biggest flop ever Marcia’s book was a colossal flop all because of the title the publisher chose. The publisher went with a title that Marcia thought was catchy. However, this title was the reason why Marcia’s book never got reviews and into bookstores. The title was The Rapture. <span style="font-weight:...

Mike Meissner is an entrepreneur, a people-oriented leader, and an industry expert in logistics and supply chain management as well as biological and environmental testing. He proudly wears 20 years of professional experience in many countries across Europe, the Middle East, the Americas, and the Asia Pacific, where he built several successful businesses “just for pleasure really.”   “We now invest in better quality and higher prices, and we shorten times. This means fewer headaches and issues. We provide what we promise.” Mike Meissner   Worst investment ever Barbeque, wine, business idea Mike and a friend had a barbecue a few months ago. After the second bottle of wine, they joked about inventing a digital container that would keep the required transportation temperature throughout the journey. The next morning, when sober, Mike and his friend researched their idea intensively. They found out that this kind of box doesn’t exist. So they started developing it from a design and an engineering point. Eventually, they came up with a fantastic container in different sizes for different commodities. The novel box The box is charged like a mobile phone for four and a half hours, you set your desired temperature, you lock it and the box guarantees to maintain this very same temperature for the next 72 hours. It has an integrated SIM card and sends push notifications with details such as the patient file, the box’s current location, who’s handling your product, at what humidity, luminosity, and at what temperature. Such details create transparency. So essentially, no more dry ice, ice packages that you freeze, and put on top of your package for your shipment. It doesn’t matter if your flight is delayed because 72 hours is plenty of time from anywhere in the world to reach its destination. What could go wrong? Nine months later, Mike’s box went into patenting and had a successful pilot with his clients. Everybody was happy. Mike was receiving compliments for a noble and promising idea. This box was going to be a hit. Nothing could go wrong. Or so he thought. However, the beginning has been terrible. Mike made a lot of silly decisions that cost them money and time. Once they had the box designed and assembled and the design documents approved by authorities, they started to source for components. Mike had two component suppliers. The first one was a friend who was selling the parts for $509. The second supplier was very far away, and Mike had no personal relationship with him. However, he sold the components for $240. Choosing the cheaper option So out of Mike’s nature of not being a big fan of finance and administration, he just wanted to get his box done. He wanted to touch it and was eager to put it on the table of the FDA for approval. So Mike chose the second supplier and placed an order for $25,000. Quite a considerable amount for a start-up. The components arrived six weeks later but got stuck in customs because wrong customs clearance codes had been used. They had to pay hefty fines for this. To make matters worse, the components turned out to be...

Mark Moss has been a full-time investor for 25 years and has invested in businesses, real estate, stocks, gold, and crypto. He is a market analyst on YouTube and newsletter publisher.   “We don’t learn from our successes, we learn from our failures.” Mark Moss   Worst investment ever The young entrepreneur Mark was just 18 when he started buying real estate. He was buying and fixing properties. Then he started building from the ground up, doing mixed-use buildings and commercial buildings. Mark knew how to make a lot of money. But could he keep the money? Turning everything into gold Mark was enjoying success. Every real estate project he touched thrived. He was steadily building his real estate portfolio, built himself a mansion, got married, had a kid, everything was great. What he didn’t understand is what got him in trouble Mark was smart enough to see the 2008 Real Estate crash coming. He had read a book, The Next Great Bubble Boom, by Harry Dent in which Dent kind of forecasted the crash. Mark knew he needed to get out and started selling every real estate that he had. But since he was doing development and these products took years, he got stuck with a couple of properties. Mark had put his entire energy into building his real estate portfolio. His investments started losing value first by 6%, then by 18% and in no time by 60%. All along, Mark thought he would ride the tide, and so he kept pushing. However, when the drop hit 60%, he ended up losing everything. And it was because Mark didn’t understand that you don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Mark went from having a $20 million real estate portfolio to being millions of dollars in debt. Helping others invest the right way Mark prides himself on being good at making money. So after his worst investment ever, he dusted himself off and got up again. Mark was able to make money again. This time, he had to learn how to do it the right way. Today, his mission is to make sure other people don’t repeat his same mistake. Lessons learned Diversify your portfolio Never put all your eggs in one basket. Diversify your portfolio by reinvesting your profits into different investments. Most people tend to put back profits into their initial investments. While this is ok, if your investment tanks, you lose everything. Understand the basics of investing If you’re starting to invest, be sure to understand the basics of investing so that you’re able to make sound decisions, and protect your wealth. You have to create wealth first to invest Investing is what you do with your money after you make it. You have to create wealth first, and then you invest what’s leftover. Then you protect your wealth through risk management. Andrew’s takeaways Creating, growing and protecting wealth are different...

Mark Pierce is an attorney, an accountant, and the owner of Cloud Peak Law. With over three decades of experience, Mark has truly “seen it all” - at least from a legal perspective, from bankruptcy and estate planning to oil/gas and securities. He’s not only a lawyer but also a CPA and a serial entrepreneur.   “When you find yourself in a hole, quit digging because it never gets better.” Mark Pierce   Worst investment ever Looking for a new venture In 2004 Mark was living in Florida when he felt that he needed a break from practicing law. So he looked around for his next venture. Considering the aftermath of 911, Mark felt that anything involving military or government services was going to be a booming business. So he bought into this trucking company that provided moving services primarily to the military in Florida. Gold turns into dust Mark grew the company from $4 million to $20 million in a little over six years. And just as he was getting the hang of it, the world was hit by the financial crisis of 2008. Additionally, the US was hit by government shutdowns that were perpetrated by the tea party movement that went on at the time. Mark believed that his business could power through the crises, and so he kept soldiering on. Unfortunately, the company could not beat the two disasters. What had turned out as a smart investment went on to become Mark’s worst investment ever. He went from having a net worth of around $9 million to have a net worth of about one million dollars. Lessons learned Have a stop loss Always have your stop loss. Have a mark by which if your investment goes below that mark, you sell it no matter what and then reassess. Having a stop-loss order in place makes sure that you don’t lose too much should there be a downturn in your investment. Andrew’s takeaways Question your decisions If you’re in trouble or dealing with a struggle right now, whether that’s a personal or a professional fight, ask yourself, knowing what you know now, would you make the same decision? Let’s say this person walked up to you today, knowing what you know about them, would you start a relationship with them? Would you start this business if this opportunity appeared? If the answer is no, then you’ve got to get out. If the answer is yes, double down and make it work. Appreciate times of discomforts We must take some discomfort now and then to prepare ourselves for the worst. This makes recovering from the worst easier. Actionable advice Have people around you to give you advice. People who are disinterested in your business from a monetary investment standpoint, or they don’t have a family relationship. People who can look at you and say, “You know what, here’s what’s going on. This is what’s happening. I think you should consider these things.” If you get that, you’ll be able to make those calls because psychologically, you’ll have the backup, and you’ll know you’ve got that independent corroboration that allows you to think you’re right. So surround yourself with people who

Rob Angel is a speaker, author, and entrepreneur. He recently published his book, Game Changer: The Story of Pictionary and How I Turned a Simple Idea into the Bestselling Board Game in the World. In 1985, using a few simple tools, a Webster’s paperback dictionary, a No.2 pencil, and a yellow legal pad, he created the phenomenally successful and iconic board game Pictionary®. Putting together the first 1,000 games by hand in his tiny apartment, Rob mastered all the needed business skills, including sales, marketing, and distribution, before selling the game to Mattel in 2001. Today, he makes his home in Seattle where he is involved in philanthropy and mentors young entrepreneurs.   “It’s ok to miss an investment. I’d rather miss 10 great investments than go into one bad.” Rob Angel   Worst investment ever What do I do with all this money? When Pictionary® became a worldwide bestseller, Rob made a lot of money. He was about 28 years old at the time, and he had no idea what to do with the money. He reached out to a couple of friends who also had a lot of money and asked them for advice. Every one of them told him first to figure out what he wants for his life. So Rob took time and thought about it. He decided that what he wanted most was freedom. So every investment he made from then on was focused on giving him financial independence and freedom of time. Going against his investment vision About four years ago, Rob received a call from a friend with an investment idea that would make him 56X his investment in four months. Of course, it sounded too good to be true to Rob, but the guy spun him a story that captured his imagination, and also, he trusted this friend. Rob looked at the paperwork, and it didn’t make sense to him, but he just couldn’t help himself. His gut feeling pointed Rob at all the red flags, but his ego made him go ahead and invest in the idea. It was just a scam Rob gave his friend a check and sat back, waiting for his investment to kick in. When the day that Rob was to get paid came, he got nothing. He waited a couple of days, still nothing. After a few weeks, Rob went looking for his friend, but he was nowhere to be found. It was now quite clear that he had been scammed. Rob wasn’t too concerned with the money that he lost, but he was angry with himself for going against everything that he knows about himself and investing. He was mad that he had let greed lead him to make his worst investment ever. Lessons learned Listen to your intuition Listen to yourself and your gut instinct. Don’t let your brain and your ego override your intuition. Trusting your gut will save you from making your worst investment ever. Stay true to your vision When investing, stay true to your vision. Don’t let the excitement of the moment distract you from what you want to achieve. Plan for your success <span...

Don Moore holds the Lorraine Tyson Mitchell Chair in Leadership at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley. His research interests include overconfidence, including when people think they are better than they are, when people think they are better than others, and when they are too sure they know the truth. He is only occasionally overconfident. He is the author of Perfectly Confident: How to Calibrate Your Decisions Wisely.   “We let ourselves get carried away when we think that somehow believing in ourselves is enough to ensure success. It’s not.” Don Moore   Worst investment ever Unleash the power within Don found himself at a Tony Robbins course, Unleash the Power Within that he believed would change his life. The life coach had been enormously influential in lots of people’s lives. Don had read his books as a young man and was thoroughly inspired. The four-day course challenges those in attendance to think big about their goals and their lives, to confront the challenges that are holding them back. To help them figure out how to break through those challenges so they can live their highest ideals and the best life that they could imagine for themselves. Walking on fire At the end of the course is the famous final firewalk. Before it started, Tony Robbins whipped the crowd into such a frenzy. The people in attendance were practically exploding out of the convention center, ready to walk across hot coals. They marched outside to find these huge burning pyres and embers laid with glowing coals that they were to walk on. Blinded by overconfidence In his enthusiasm, Don somehow failed to take account of the cautionary safety warnings that Tony Robbins had offered. Don was confident and ready to prove to himself and the world just how brave I was. So he marched bravely across the bed of hot coals. At that moment, overcome by enthusiasm and overconfidence, Don burned the hell out of the soles of his feet. It turns out that those glowing embers stick to the tender flesh. Tony Robbins had instructed them to get their feet hosed down and wipe them off thoroughly. But in his bravado, Don felt that he didn’t need to do all that. And so he suffered for his overconfidence. Lessons learned The time to take a pause is when everything is going right Whenever you find yourself feeling ready to cross the finish line victoriously, and you feel sure that success is guaranteed, that’s the time to take a pause and ask yourself, how might this go wrong? How might I fail, and is there anything I can do to protect myself now against those risks? What are the other competitors thinking about their chances? Learn to imagine failure When you’re confident that you can do it, that you can succeed, stop for a moment, and imagine failure. Imagine your investment has turned out to be a catastrophe, you’ve lost money, you’ve disappointed your investors,...

Christopher D. Connors is the bestselling author of Emotional Intelligence for the Modern Leader and The Value of You. He is an author, executive coach, and keynote speaker who helps leaders increase their emotional intelligence, prioritize goals, and build thriving organizations. He works with executives and leaders at Fortune 500 companies, sports organizations, schools, and universities. His writing has appeared in CNBC, World Economic Forum, Quartz, CEO World, Virgin Media, Thrive Global, and Medium, and he’s been a guest on FOX and ABC TV programs. Christopher is happily married to his beautiful wife and is the proud father of three amazing, rambunctious baseball-loving boys. He lives in Charleston, South Carolina.   “Adversity is your best friend. In every adversity, there is always an opportunity that is going to come out of that.” Christopher Connors   Worst investment ever The big move Christopher grew up just outside New York City on Long Island while his wife grew up in South Carolina. They had been living in New York when the wife said she wanted to leave. And so they decided to relocate to Atlanta. Christopher wasn’t emotionally or mentally prepared to make a move, but he did it anyway as it was the right move for his family. Physically, Christopher was in Atlanta, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, he was still in New York. He was living this life where he was just struggling to put the pieces together. A thriving career While Christopher was struggling to adjust to the new life, career-wise, he was thriving. Christopher landed the most prestigious job opportunity he’s ever had. The job was very high paying, and he got to work with some of the top corporate clients in all of Atlanta, including Coca Cola, Delta, UPS, and the Home Depot. His head was just not in the game Despite having landed the job of his dreams, Christopher was still not settled and was struggling to adapt. He was still trying to figure out a little bit more about himself in terms of what he truly wanted to do. Even though on paper, this opportunity looked like a dream job, the more he went through it, the more he realized it wasn’t. Getting booted Christopher tried out a couple of different assignments that didn’t work. He just wasn’t able to employ emotional intelligence to be able to separate his personal life from his work life. About 10 months into it,  he was fired. Here he was less than a year into a move with a young son and a wife, and all of a sudden, he didn’t have an income coming in. It was a big blow to his ego because he had been successful in all of the other previous jobs that he had been in. Figuring his next move Getting fired was entirely unexpected for Christopher, but with a family to take care of, he had to bounce back soon....

Libby Gill is an executive coach, leadership expert, and best-selling author. She guides emerging and established leaders to inspire purpose and drive performance. She is the former head of communications for Sony, Universal, and Turner Broadcasting, and her clients include Bank of America, Capital One, Disney, Ernst & Young, Intel, Microsoft, and many more. She has been featured on the CBS Early Show, CNN, NPR, the Today Show and in the New York Times, Time Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal. She’s the author of six books, including the award-winning You Unstuck. Libby’s latest book is The Hope-Driven Leader: Harness the Power of Positivity.   “Leaders ask questions that propel them into new opportunities. Managers answer questions and get the job done for those who have the vision.” Libby Gill   We’re going to change the format a little bit today because Libby has gained a lot of experience as a leadership expert through coaching, working with teams, and writing books about it. Since we’re at a critical time for every leader out there to figure out how to survive and thrive, we’ll jump straight to the lessons and nuggets of wisdom that Libby has collected along her career path. Libby started her career in communications working for various entertainment studios. In the process, she grew up the rank to become a young leader. After a while, Libby realized what she wanted to do was to continue to grow teams, which she had done a lot as a leader. She read an article in Newsweek about executive coaching and took great interest in it. Libby then started working with people in executive coaching, then she went on to writing books and speaking in big forums. Her career in executive coaching just continued to grow. It’ll be 20 years this fall since Libby started. Lessons learned A business needs both leaders and managers to succeed You need people at different levels in your business. Leaders and managers play different roles in the success of a business. Leaders ask the questions that get the business new opportunities, while managers answer the questions. Leaders provide the business vision, and managers get the job done. Business vision, passion, and drive will get you to success You can win a battle even when you are outnumbered as long as you have a vision, the drive, and the passion for winning. As a business leader, beat your competitors by looking for gaps where you might have slipped off the market and create your competitive edge. If you’re just starting, figure out the most important thing and focus on that. But remember not to spread yourself too thin. The curse of the visionary Most leaders tend to have a hard time focusing on one area, so they find themselves with too many ideas and too little time. Try and focus on one area. Before you think of implementing more than one idea, first ask yourself if you have a financial base under you. Then, how long can you play this...

E.B. Tucker is the former editor of The Casey Report, Strategic Investor, and Strategic Trader. He is a board director and major shareholder of Metalla Royalty & Streaming (NYSE:MTA), a gold royalty company. He is the author of Why Gold? Why Now? The War Against Your Wealth and How to Win It and has more than two decades active in capital markets.   “It’s okay to get a bruise, but don’t get completely broken.” E.B. Tucker   Worst investment ever About 17 years ago, E.B. was trying to get into the world of finance, but he kept hitting walls. Everyone wanted to hire him as a sales rep because of his charismatic nature. However, E.B. wanted to manage money not to be a salesman all his life. So he kept trying. Lady luck came calling Finally, in 2006, one of E.B.’s friends told him about a guy he’d met playing golf, who was trying to restructure his company. The guy was looking for a sales V.P. The position came with an equity position right away. To E.B., this sounded like a winner. What the heck did he get himself into? E.B. got to learn that the company was not trading on the primary exchange and wasn’t compliant with its filings. Therefore, people could buy stock in it, but they’d not be buying the stock in the New York Stock Exchange. They’d just be buying it on an off-market. Getting his friends to invest in the company The company claimed to have natural pest control and was raising money to get the product off the ground. E.B. introduced some of his friends who invested about $150,000. He then went out to meet the CEO at their facility, and this was a disaster. E.B. found the CEO strange and was like some kind of cartoon character. He came back a little bit put off by this, and his gut feeling told him that this CEO was not straight. He’d been scammed A week later, he found out that the company didn’t have the federal EPA licenses that they claimed to have in the presentation to investors. Worse still, E.B. found out that the permit they claimed to have did not even exist, so the whole thing was made up. On top of that, they had already spent the money that E.B. had raised. He couldn’t tell how it had been spent to help the business, though. When he realized that the company had real issues, E.B. went to the guy who got him in and told him about the problems he’d noticed. The guy dismissed him and didn’t want to have that conversation with him. It seemed apparent that the guy knew what was going on. Making things right The company stopped paying E.B. when he brought these issues up. He was there only two weeks before they cut him off. E.B. decided to hire a lawyer to represent him in documenting all these issues. The lawyer wrote a letter documenting all the fraud that E.B. had found and sent it to the board’s certified mail. This cost him about $10,000. Next, E.B. hired another lawyer who was...

Laura Cho is an International Certified Coach and Founder at Laura Cho Intl. coaching millennial talents to build a successful career by unleashing their full potential with her HR expertise. She is a public speaker sharing HR and career topics on various stages in Hong Kong, Singapore, Cambodia, and Myanmar at universities, radio shows, online platforms, journals, and public seminars. She has been featured in Stories of Asia, The Myanmar Times, Human Resources Magazine (Hong Kong), and 7Day TV.   “The best investment you can make is investing in yourself in the right way.” Laura Cho   Worst investment ever A hunger to be good at what she does Three and a half years ago, Laura started a side hustle as a career coach. To do it successfully, she had to pick up several skills. She was eager to learn anything that would help her. Buying her first online course Laura came across a Facebook ad by a lady living in Hong Kong. The online coach was offering a free business plan. Laura was impressed by the lady’s copywriting in the ad and by what she was promising. Being from Myanmar, Laura believed that the lady from Hong Kong had more knowledge and, therefore, the right person to learn from. So without taking some time to think about it, she invested in the lady’s course. The credit card privilege The course was quite expensive, especially since she had to pay in USD. But because she had a credit card, she spent anyway. All talk no action After Laura started the online course, she soon realized that the coach was just full of air and wasn’t walking the talk. The course offered Laura zero value. She did not learn a single new thing in that class. Whenever she tried to ask questions, the coach would dismiss them as stupid questions. Laura was devasted. And to imagine all the money she had paid! Freeing herself from the guilt Laura couldn’t help but feel angry for allowing herself to make the worst investment ever. She was mad at herself for not taking the time to research the course. Or at the very least see what other people were saying about the course and the trainer. She carried this anger for a while, and it prevented her from trying out any other courses. She realized that she was shortchanging herself and so she forgave herself and moved on from the terrible experience. Lessons learned Get to know the trainer before buying an online course There are very many coaches and trainers today. So, before you invest in someone, take some time to learn about that person. Follow the trainer for some time and interact with any free content they share and read reviews from their past clients. This will let you know if you can trust the trainer or not. Calculate the return on investment Before you invest in an online course, ask yourself what will be the return on investment. How will the course benefit your career or your side hustle? Not all ‘good’ trainers are good

Darin Kidd is an entrepreneur who has achieved success in various arenas. He was a leader and multiple-seven-figure earner in the network marketing profession, building massive teams all over the world. He has owned profitable franchises and has built his online digital brand, which is now consumed by hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. He has been featured in various magazines and books, was on an advisory council with John Maxwell, and has been interviewed by Grant Cardone on Grant Cardone TV. Currently, he is a speaker, trainer, and mentor for others. However, he was not always a successful businessman. Over 20 years ago, he was bankrupt and felt like a failure. He managed to emerge from that experience with a unique perspective and an “I Will Until” attitude on life. He genuinely wants to help people “be more, do more, and have more” in their life.   “It’s about progress, not perfection. Just get a little bit better every single day.” Darin Kidd   Worst investment ever From debt-free to bankruptcy Darin got successful in his early 20s. Everything was going superbly well. He was debt-free, had money in the bank, 401k, some investments, and more. One day someone moved into Darin’s town, and after some time, he convinced Darin that if he paid him up front, he could build his dream home for him for a lower price. The deal sounds too good to be true? It was. The dude walked off in the middle of the construction, and everything he had done to the house was off. And just like that, Darin went from debt-free, perfect credit, money in the bank, 401k, and new cars to bankruptcy and a repossessed car. He couldn’t feed his kids or support his wife. Darin’s family was now on government assistance, Medicaid, and applying for food stamps. Darin went from a successful businessman to a depressed man. The turning point Darin’s family had this big Coca-Cola plastic piggy bank, which they were putting change in. Darin had promised his daughter that someday they’d go to Disney World. One night, after losing everything, Darin and his wife were in their bedroom when the daughter walked in. They had dumped out the piggy bank and were going through the change to try to get enough to buy something to eat. The daughter ran out of the room, crying and saying dad had taken her money for Disney World. Darin was so devastated and couldn’t believe how low he’d gone to the point of stealing money from his kids’ piggy bank. It was at this moment that he decided it was about time he took action and start building a better life for his family. This was when he took on the “I Will Until” attitude on life, which helped him rebuild his life and become the now-renowned successful businessman he is. Lessons learned Obstacles lead to elevation It’s not the easy times that make us grow but the difficult times. There’s no elevation without obstacles. So appreciate the challenges and learn and draw strength from them. Learn the compound effect Practice getting a little bit better today than you were yesterday because the simple things you do daily that seem insignificant compound over several years and completely change you. Do what others are not...

Chris J Reed loves to share his uncensored, polarizing, and authentic thoughts on a variety of business topics on LinkedIn and for Forbes, where he is an Official Forbes Business Council Member. He is a quadruple international best-selling author on the subjects of LinkedIn, Personal Branding, and Social Selling, and he is infamously known as “The Only CEO With A Mohawk,” recognized globally by his notorious pink mohawk!   “You gotta have some kind of elevator pitch or icebreaker on LinkedIn, just like in real life.” Chris J Reed   Worst investment ever Replicating success Chris created Black Marketing, which became an instant success. With this successful experience, he believed that he could do it again, so he started another marketing company. However, it wasn’t as successful, but luckily he was able to sell it off after a couple of years. Believing in his hype After selling his second company and making money off it, Chris had it over his head that he could start a third company. He created another company, The Dark Art of Marketing, that was linked to LinkedIn marketing focusing on PR. He employed people and invested in office space, branding, marketing websites, the whole nine yards. For the first couple of years, it worked to a degree, but then the revenue dwindled. Chris decided that the solution to the now not so successful company was to create another company aimed at bringing female keynote speakers to the fore. Too much to handle What Chris didn’t realize was how challenging the market he had entered was. No one wanted to pay him for his services, but he managed to negotiate for commissions. He also, soon enough, realized that he had hired the wrong people who could barely deliver on promises. After six months, Chris figured this business was a sinking ship and closed it down after investing a million dollars. He went back to the basics and put his focus on Black Market that was still successful. Lessons learned Double-check your ideas Every single thing you do bounce it off to about 10 entrepreneurs before you start it. Don’t listen only to your instincts; listen to the right people too. Be a more cautious entrepreneur Practice being more conservative and calculating in terms of what you can win and what you can lose. Always weigh up the pros and cons. be much more conservative and calculating Andrew’s takeaways Powerful personal branding gives you a powerful platform Personal branding makes a lot of difference in your business success. You have more power if you have a strong brand. Go back to the

Rand Fishkin is CEO & co-founder of SparkToro, author of Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World, and previously co-founded and ran Moz. Since publishing his book in 2018, he has earned 4.7 stars out of 5 from 170 reviews, a remarkable achievement!   “Find something you’re passionate about, where you can add unique value, and where your audience wants to pay attention. Nail those three, and you’ll do great marketing.” Rand Fishkin   Worst investment ever Time to grow business funds Rand’s worst investment ever happened when he was the CEO of Moz. In 2011, the company turned down an acquisition offer from HubSpot, a very well known marketing platform. At the time, Moz had been growing at 100% year-on-year for about six years in a row and producing about $11 million in revenue. In 2012, Moz sought to increase funding and got $18 million, of which $15 million came from a new investor, Foundry group, and $3 million of it came from a previous investor Ignition Partners. Venturing into more forms of marketing Rand’s company used the Venture Capital (VC) funding ostensibly to grow the business from just providing search engine optimization tools and software to providing different aspects of web marketing, email marketing, content marketing, PR, and social media marketing. Essentially, all of the new forms of marketing that Moz had not served previously. Cutting off what was working Over the next few years, the company cut off all growth of its software platform. As a result, existing products stopped improving and staggered. While their competitors kept making investments, Rand was pouring all of his new money into hiring a huge team, trying to figure out the new management structures, growing his offices, and acquiring other companies. Rand thought that by putting on hold what was previously working and putting all his energy into launching his new idea, the new venture would propel Moz into superstardom with this exciting and incredibly broad software suite. The horrific failure The new venture fell flat on Rand’s face. Moz’s growth rate fell from 100% year-on-year to 50% and then from 50% to 25%. Over the years, Moz continued to plateau in terms of growth and was surpassed by two direct competitors – SEMrush and Ahrefs. Over the last few years, Moz has...

John Lee Dumas (JLD) is the host of Entrepreneurs on Fire, an award-winning podcast where he has been interviewing the world’s most inspiring Entrepreneurs. With more than 2,000 episodes, one million-plus listens a month, and seven-figures in annual revenue, JLD has learned a thing or two about podcasting. I learned about podcasting from John and joined his podcaster’s paradise in 2014. It is a community of more than 2,500 people and is the place to go to if you want to become a podcaster. I highly advise those who wish to become podcasters to go to the Apple Podcast called “Free Podcast Course” and listen up.   “I never have since then created something that I didn’t first get proof of concept by actual people investing actual dollars into that offer.” John Lee Dumas   Worst investment ever Clueless college investor When JLD was in college, he found this penny stock after reading some guy’s website. The stock was six cents at the time. JLD invested $1,000 instantly and planned to sell when the stock got to eight cents. He left it at that and went to class. Rich in 45 minutes JLD came back 45 minutes later, and the stock was at 12 cents. In literally 45 minutes, he’d made 1,000 dollars, which for a college student was a big deal. So he thought this is the best way ever to make money. So he cashed out immediately and sold his stock. Then the stock went up to 18 cents as he watched. JLD regretted selling and so out of guilt, he bought the stock at 18 cents and went to bed. He woke up the next morning and logged in around 11 am and the stock was down at 3 cents. JLD experienced first initial luck to double his money and then lost it all, and all this within 24 hours. Fast forward to 2013 In 2013, JLD was one year into Entrepreneurs on Fire when he thought it would be a good idea to come out with a course with an offering. He’d built an audience through his podcast and understood what it means to generate revenue online. So he sat down and came up with this great business idea. JLD’s idea was going to be this podcast platform where customers would simply record their episode, send JLD the mp3, he would edit it, add the intro and the outro, upload it to Libsyn and distribute it out to all the podcast directories. Putting his heart and soul to his offer JLD invested heavily in this idea. He hired about 10 people to work with the clients he had hopes of getting. He invested a ton of money, time, and bandwidth into it. And then he opened the doors. He couldn’t have failed faster Upon launching the offer, JLD got just two clients. One of them asked for a refund within 24 hours. The second one ended up being a nightmare client. He quickly learned that this was

Dennis Mortensen is an expert in leveraging data to deliver business insights. A serial entrepreneur, Dennis built and successfully exited several companies before founding x.ai in 2014, a company that is solving a painful problem—scheduling meetings—through a sophisticated AI platform that saves people time and effort. Dennis is a recognized leader, author, and university instructor in the field of digital data and analytics. Originally from Denmark, Dennis lives in New York with his family.   “Any startup is just the class of bad decisions. And the danger is that one of them might just be so bad that it kills the company. You just don’t know which one it is; you’ll know when it’s done.” Dennis Mortensen   Worst investment ever Dennis ventured into his first successful venture in 1996 when he started an internet company. He was the sole investor financing the startup on cashflow. He ran the startup for four years, and in 2000 he sold it for $11 million. At 27 years of age, $11 million was undoubtedly quite a kill. Moving onto the next successful venture Excited to have hit huge success with his first venture, Dennis took all the money he got from selling the company and invested it in another startup, a food delivery service this time around. From his projections, this was going to be an excellent investment. So Dennis jumped in the deep end, money in both hands, and started to build up the team. Soon enough, the company was driving up revenue. Doing things a bit different Dennis decided that he would run his business model a bit different from other similar services. He charged slightly higher for the service; however, if the customer had any complaints about their orders, Dennis’s company would shoulder the blame and not the food vendors. Slowly but surely, this business model started eating up his cashflow and affecting revenue. Pride comes before a fall As fate would have it, Dennis got the opportunity to turn things around for his business. Another delivery service that grew to become the most prominent food delivery service company in the world approached Dennis with a merger proposal. Dennis did his research and learned that indeed this would be a great merger. He got into negotiations with the company. The company offered him an 18% stake, but he negotiated to 23%. The company was adamant about offering him no more than 18%, which was still a staggering amount as Dennis would be the single biggest shareholder in that company. In his delirious optimism, Dennis declined the offer and opted to keep running his business on his own. Three months later, this decision came to haunt him when he had to fold his business as he had no cash flow left. The delivery company he walked away from is now worth 10s of billions of dollars. Lessons learned You win some you lose some Entrepreneurship is just a game you play to win, and sometimes you will lose. But there’s a game tomorrow as well. Don’t attach your life’s worth to the success of your company. Don’t dwell on the...

Ranveer Brar is a television celebrity, Masterchef India judge, author, restaurateur, food film producer, and benefactor. To put it simply, chef Ranveer is one of the most celebrated chefs in India. His popularity on television is matched by his tremendous fan following on social media as well. Getting the basics right and revering the kitchen as an artist would his/her studio, are mantras he lives by and propagates to others as well. With a bestseller in his kitty, a popular host, and judge on television and an artist both in and out of the kitchen, chef Ranveer calls himself a food-Sufi on a constant culinary quest.   “Failure is a part of your journey. It’s the outcome of the journey that matters. You can’t choose to end the journey when you want to; the journey will end when it wants to. You have to get up and play along.” Ranveer Brar   Worst investment ever Ranveer got success very young. He was an executive chef at 25, an age when a lot of people would be at least four levels below the post of an executive chef. Ranveer had met and been mentored by the right people. Nothing would stop him at this point. Chasing his passion Even though Ranveer was excited to be an executive chef earning a considerable salary, a year or so later, he got bored. Executive chefs in hotels in India don’t get to cook. And at 25, all he wanted was to use his hands to cook. A bunch of friends that Ranveer met on a trip to the US told him about someone who wanted to start a restaurant. They encouraged him to talk to him and partner up, and he figured why not. One day Ranveer was constructing a pizza oven in his hotel and had his head inside the oven when he got a call. The guy said, “Well, here we are, you want to do a restaurant, want to team up?”. Without a second thought, or asking him what the restaurant would be about or what the plans were, Ranveer said yes. So the same day, Ranveer typed his resignation, gave it to his general manager, and a month later, without much forethought, flew to the US to start a restaurant. The ceiling that kept the restaurant doors shut The restaurant was extremely design-driven. So the investment both in terms of time and money on the design was huge. The restaurant had a million-dollar ceiling that caused delays because the designers couldn’t get it right. They kept breaking and rebuilding the ceiling. Being a hotel chef, Ranveer did not bother about such things; he was simply focused on getting stuff for his kitchen. He just wasn’t an entrepreneur in the sense of the word. Shifting gears Gradually, the restaurant was ready to open its doors. The partner decided that they shouldn’t do Indian food but modern Asian cuisine instead. He argued that Indian food was overrated. Ranveer didn’t question the decision. He just went with the flow, something he came to regret later. The wrong business model Ranveer and his partner also decided to make the restaurant a small plate restaurant. Ranveer didn’t know much about business models, so again he just went with the flow. Unfortunately, the model didn’t...

Neil Patel is a New York Times Bestselling author. The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he is one of the top 10 marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies. He was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations.   “Have the mindset of testing. What works today may not work a year from now. If you don’t keep testing, you’re not going to thrive and succeed.” Neil Patel Worst investment ever Creating a business to solve his own problem About 10 years ago, Neil’s website, at the time, was doing pretty well, so much so that sometimes he’d get a flood of traffic from social media. This upsurge in traffic would cause his servers to go down. This sounds like a good problem to have, right? While Neil appreciated the tremendous traffic, he had to pay for more and more servers. But then, in most cases, he would never use the extra resources. He thought to himself that it would be a good idea to be able to pay for the resources when he needed them, and not pay for them when he didn’t. Taking matters into his own hands Neil figured that there must be other people who were in a similar situation paying for all these resources and not using most of them. “What if we combine all our servers and have one big infrastructure, and we can each scale up and down as we want?” he thought to himself. Right there and then, a business idea hatched. Neil went to work to start Vision Web Hosting. The multibillion idea that sucked While Neil’s idea was a good one and would have seen him make millions of dollars, a few things turned it into his worst investment ever. First, Neil had no experience in hosting. Second, he picked partners that had no experience either and just paid them because they told him they could do it. Third, hosting was just not Neil’s core focus. He was doing many other things that had him distracted, and so he wasn’t focusing on it. Essentially, Neil ended up spending over a million dollars to start a business that wasn’t generating any revenue. He didn’t even get to launch it. His partners couldn’t figure out how to execute his idea. Eventually, Neil folded the business and had to figure out how to repay all the money that he borrowed to start the business. Lessons learned Ideas are worthless if not executed right Ideas are a dime a dozen. They are worthless unless you pick and execute the right ones. Partner with experienced people Pick business partners who have done it before because they come with learnings instead of starting from scratch and having to learn on the job. Start a business with a minimum viable product If you’re going to start a business, start with a minimum viable product and get it out there. You are never going to have a perfect product. It’s never going to be amazing. Just get something out there and improve it over time. Andrew’s takeaways Sometimes you’re just not ready to join the big leagues You may have a great idea that you want to launch in the global market, but before you go competing in the big leagues, ask yourself if you’re ready to do it. Do you have confidence in your operations? Do you have the money to do it? Do you have the right workforce? If not, accept, pull the plug and wait until you’re ready. Four main things to look for when...

Howard Whiteson’s economist father made him familiar with financial principles from a very young age. As a teenager, however, Howard rebelled and suffered deep debt and economic chaos. Having journeyed from that low point to master his finances, Howard has spent some 20 years as an expat, the last six in Shanghai, China. He uses a proven 5-part process to empower executive expats at such corporations as Apple, Coca-Cola, and Gucci to create, transfer, and protect their wealth internationally. To find out more, visit Wealth Without Borders.   “Rather than trying to conquer the entire world of finance, gently take small steps into that world.” Howard Whiteson   Worst investment ever Driving his way into debt It’s a bright summer’s day in Rolling English countryside, and Howard is in his hybrid sports car, with the sunroof down the music going, feeling like a million bucks. He’d just recently bought that car. It was one of the first hybrid cars made by Honda. He was very proud of all the gadgets and gizmos. Howard had spent 28,000 pounds on it, about 40,000 dollars. Riding on a promise Howard had just had two CEOs tell him that they wanted to work with him on a retainer basis. He was proud, confident, and dashing. What better way to celebrate than to spend all his money on the car of his dreams. He was going to be rich soon, anyway. His dreams turn to dust So in his sports car, Howard drove to one of the CEO’s offices in a farmhouse in the middle of Essex countryside, got out of the car, and walked in to see the CEO. The CEO told Howard that the company was letting him go. He’d worked for the company for about 12 years. The news was a huge shocker. As if that was not a blow huge enough, within a few weeks, the second CEO had the same story to tell Howard. He also let him go. So Howard went from being very comfortable and very well off into deep debt and a lot of darkness. He was now tens of thousands of pounds in debt. Letting rebellion rule over him Howard’s father was an economist, and so he grew up learning all about the stock markets, about bull and bear markets. But as an adult, he chose to rebel and ignore all the knowledge he had gained. Howard’s attitude towards money was that it was the root of all evil. It was all a capitalist plot. He believed one should live for today and forget about tomorrow. This kind of attitude led him directly into that dark abyss of financial chaos, debt, and struggling to make ends meet. Hitting a brick wall and making a turnaround Howard was now scrambling for a job. Luckily he had some close friends who managed to connect him to a job soon enough. He enjoyed the new job, but it was tough work and unrewarding. Howard was still struggling to pay off his massive debt. This remains...

Nicholas Hinrichsen was born and raised in Germany and played on the German National Golf Team and studied Computer Science and Finance in Germany, Chile, and Australia. At the start of his career, he looked into consulting and investment banking but instead joined a renewable energy startup that invested in projects in China and India. In 2011, he moved to the US to get his MBA at Stanford Business School, and by 2013 he started a company called Carlypso. He brought that startup through YCombinator in 2014, raised $10 million in venture funding by 2015, and sold the company to Carvana.com in 2017. Carvana went public at a market cap of $2.5B and is now the most valuable used car retailer in the US. Nicholas and his co-founder, Chris Coleman, recently left Carvana to start WithClutch.com, a fully digital platform that lets car owners refinance auto loans from the comfort of their own home. The team at WithClutch.com has seen that in the US, only 5% of auto loan applications were refinancing, yet 47% of all funded mortgage applications were refinancing. So, they are going to change that!   “To succeed as a startup, all you need to do at the very beginning is to leave the building and talk to customers.” Nicholas Hinrichsen   Worst investment ever Young investor When Nicholas was 16, the only thing he knew how to do well back then was playing golf. Then all of a sudden, his friends in school, even some golfers, started talking about investing in technology companies. Nicholas had about $2,000, which was a lot of money for him at the time. His friends told him to invest the money because he could easily 10x that money. Afraid to miss out As everyone around him continued to invest in the tech companies, Nicholas decided to look into it because he felt like he was missing out. He signed up for an account online, went to the physical branch to verify his identity, and then eventually got access to the stock market. Now with an account, Nicholas could shop around for a company to invest in. But with so many options, he was baffled. One of his friends advised him to buy some magazines and then just read about the stocks in these magazines because the magazines wouldn’t recommend buying those stocks if they weren’t the best. And that’s precisely what Nicholas did. Making his first investment and mistake Nicholas didn’t know any of the companies in the magazines, but one resonated with him because that happened to be Germany’s biggest telecom. He felt that this would be a good choice. Nicholas took the money he had and used it all to buy the stock at $120 per share. Sadly, that remains the highest price the stock has ever traded. The stock price went downhill a few months after...

Wim Steemers has a 30-year career working in over 40 countries around the world, of which the last 20 years were spent in funds management at AllianceBernstein, Macquarie, Colonial First State, and AL Capital. While educated at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, he always had his doubts about the Efficient Market Hypothesis, and he followed the development of Behavioral Finance over the years with keen interest. While he has a traditional fund management role at AL Capital, he spends his free time with his Rosevalley Funds, where he puts into action what he suspected for a long time: there has to be a way to take advantage of the systematic biases that exist in human behavior.   “People do not always behave rationally. They make errors in a particular direction, and if you’re aware of these behavioral biases, you’re gonna make money.” Wim Steemers   Worst investment ever New technology rouses his curiosity In 1999, a new technology of doing laser operations on eyes to correct vision piqued Wim’s interest. Wim had been wearing glasses since he was four years old, so anything to correct his vision was bound to interest him. Though the technology was relatively new, it had been proven to work, but it was still quite rare and expensive. Wim, however, decided to do it. Falling in love with the product The laser procedure took about 15 minutes, and voila Wim had perfect vision. For 30 years, Wim had not been able to see further than a meter ahead without glasses. When he walked out of the room, and he could see perfectly. It was literally as if the sun had risen for the first time in his life. The machine used for the laser procedure was big and cost a million dollars at the time. It was made by a Canadian company that was listed in the stock exchange. When Wim walked out of that operation, he was so impressed and believed that this machine was going to take the world by storm. So he bought shares in the company that made that laser equipment. The company wasn’t as good as the product Within about a year, Wim lost all his money after the company went bankrupt. Wim had done no research and simply thought that the laser machine was so great the company must be doing well. So it turned out that there were competitors that had cheaper products and better laser machines. So the company just couldn’t compete, and that’s how Wim lost all his money. Delving into the Korean investment market In the year 2000, while working as a junior analyst, Wim got a chance to delve into the Korean stock exchange. At the time, Asia was just getting out of the 1997 <a href=...

Oladipupo “Dipo” Ehindero is an independent analyst and was Head of Research of a mid-size asset manager before pursuing his Master’s degree. He has been in the research and investment banking space for over 10 years. He also has a passion for human resource management, having previously worked in that area.   “Never play with your documentation. Make sure you keep personal records of every single transaction.” Oladipupo Ehindero   Worst investment ever Oladipupo was on an internship with an asset manager in Lagos when the federal government of Nigeria made law through the central bank that all the banks in Nigeria should recapitalize. So he was told to also participate in bringing clients and advise them on what to buy and what to sell. Oladipupo went out and began making cold calls, meeting high net worth individuals, and trying to build his network. Landing his first client Oladipupo finally met a lady who was looking to invest her money in a bid to raise college money for her two daughters. The lady didn’t have a lot of money; nonetheless, it was a substantial amount to invest. Oladipupo advised her to split her investment money into two, and they invested one half in bank stocks and the other half in a medical diagnostic company. Ignoring his senior’s advice Oladipupo was feeling quite excited after landing this client as he was now more confident about his career growth. One of the senior managers got to know about Oladipupo’s client and the investments they had settled on. While he was proud of Oladipupo’s effort, he advised him not to invest in the bank he had chosen because the president of that bank didn’t have a good reputation. The manager suggested another bank whose MD was a better person than the president of the bank he had invested in. Oladipupo, however, felt that all the banks were the same, and thus he trusted that his choice was good enough for his client. Time to cash out A few years later, Oladipupo received a call from his client, who informed him that one of her daughters had been accepted into a medical school in Hungary and wanted to know how her investment was doing. At this point, her portfolio had grown from $10,000 to $57,000. This was enough to kickstart her daughter’s education in a year. Tragedy strikes Three months after Oladipupo talked to his client, the president of Nigeria died, and the vice president became the president. A new bank governor also came in, and the first thing he did was to say that some banks had been using the recapitalization money for illegal purposes, such as investing in the oil and gas sector. So he removed the bank MDs from the opposition and nationalized the banks. The bank that Oladipupo had invested in for his client issued a profit warning saying that it wasn’t going to make as much money again because they had a lot of bad debt to figure out. Stocks that were roughly selling for 60 Naira per share were now selling for approximately 10 Naira per share, an 80% drop! The client wants her money now Oladipupo’s client came to his office...

Tom Libelt was born in Communist Poland and escaped to the US when he was 11 in the early ’90s. At 9, his father sold products at soccer stadiums in Eastern Europe, where he learned the hard way how to sell and how not to be hustled. He is hyper-focused on helping course creators market their online courses.   “Becoming a big fish in a smaller pond often is not only more profitable but will make your life easier.” Tom Libelt   Worst investment ever In his early 30s, Tom was running a reasonably successful SEO business. Back then, it was easy to rank on Google using what people today consider as blackhat methods. Tom would pay bloggers to get backlinks. Tom had a team of 14 writers at the time, spending a lot of time, money, and effort getting into these blogs. Their goal was to get 50 backlinks pointing to a website every month to keep it ranking higher. While he had other tactics, this model worked the best. Google gets smart After riding the wave for a long while, Google smartened up and was out for businesses doing shady stuff. Google destroyed almost all the blackhat networks. They looked at IP addresses and de-indexed them. Thousands of SEO companies were pretty much back to square one. Tom now had a massive team of writers with nowhere to put the blog posts. Trying option B Tom learned about Amazon Kindle (e-books) at around this time and decided to see if he could make a business out of it. He had a ready team of writers anyway. Tom told his team to pick topics of their choice, do keyword research and write up short books of about 30 to 40 pages, then use images to fill in some gaps and just publish them on Kindle. Competition at the time was little and so getting into Kindle was pretty easy. Striking gold About three months later, Tom’s writers broke even. So he thought this could work. Tom would now sit down with the team for two days, go over hundreds of topics and then pick the best to run with. Eventually, the team was pumping out about 250 books per month, and for about four or five years, the money coming in was quite good. Kindle shakes things up Making money on Kindle was pretty straightforward. You’d get 70% of sales made, and $1 for every book rented. Tom’s business was making a killing by pushing rentals. One day, out of the blues, Kindle killed the rental payment model. Now they would focus on pages read. Turning to blackhat tactics again After the new payment model, Tom turned to a blackhat marketing tactic where he told people in the introduction of the books to skip to the end to get the “Golden Nugget” and then come back to the beginning of the book. So everyone would just go straight up to the end of the book, and Tom would get paid. While this still got him money, it just wasn’t as lucrative. Closing the doors for good Tom’s...

Wilbert Wynnberg is an international speaker, award-winning author, and founder of the Think Act Prosper (TAP) Growth Conference. Since 2015, Wilbert has touched the lives of over 100,000 people in more than 20 countries through his seminars, live programs, and award-winning book, THINK. ACT. PROSPER.: How Small Habits Can Lead to Massive Success.   “If you want to stay in the investment game for the long term, sometimes you just have to take a short break so that you can enjoy the game.” Wilbert Wynnberg   Worst investment ever Wilbert’s worst investment ever happened just a few weeks ago. As a prolific investor, Wilbert has been following the business cycles since the COVID-19 pandemic erupted. He’s been tracking a lot of different indicators, data, and the underlying numbers. He felt that in 2018, a lot of things had kind of picked up, but there wasn’t any reason for him to go in and take any action, whether it be long or short. So he kept watching the market. Ignoring Coronavirus At the start of the year, when Coronavirus started hitting the news, Wilbert at first wasn’t paying much attention to it. He thought it was the US probably overplaying the whole situation. Wilbert decided not to do anything about it unless he had further confirmation. Getting ready to beat the market By February, it was almost inevitable that the market was going to be shaken up. Wilbert could foresee a bear market. And so he started raising money so that he could pounce on the market. As he was raising money, Wilbert was also tracking things like insider trading, whether CEOs were buying or selling companies, what hedge funds were doing, and more. At that point, his research showed him that it was not the right time to buy equities and go into the stock market. So Wilbert waited it out. Taking the market head-on Eventually, Wilbert found out that with this virus and a high unemployment rate, governments will have to start printing money. So he began to look at commodities. Oil prices started coming down as well. Now Wilbert was very confident it was time to invest. At this point, he had raised a decent few million dollars. Oil stocks seemed like a good option, or was it? Brent oil was at about $25, and the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was at about $22. This was a two-decade low. However, everybody believed that oil, unlike Bitcoin, would never go to zero because people need it for everyday stuff. So, Wilbert and his investment team were quite confident and stoked. They thought that this was going to be the trade of the lifetime. So without much further ado, Wilbert entered the position and started buying oil stocks. Falling flat on their faces At some point, Wilbert received an alert saying that Saudi Arabia and Russia were...

Kavee Chukitkasem is the Deputy Managing Director of Kasikorn Securities and completed his Master of Finance from The University of Toledo, Ohio. Kavee is also a TEDx speaker and is the author of a popular investing book on how to identify great stocks and how to sow the seeds for sustainable long-term results (original title:เพาะหุ้นเป็น เห็นผลยั่งยืน).   “It doesn’t matter if you give your money to a fund manager; you still have to know about investing.” Kavee Chukitkasem   Worst investment ever Kavee’s worst investment to date happened during the first year of his career. He had just received his first bonus, and all he wanted to do with the money was to invest it. While it wasn’t so much money, Kavee was excited to be able to enter the investment world. At the time, Thailand’s stock index was at 1,700 points, almost the highest it has ever been. A bubble near to burst Around the same time, the Tom Yum Goong Crisis (the Thai name for the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, and also a delicious soup with prawns) was building up in Thailand. Even though the signs were all over, nobody saw the crisis coming. Someone advised Kavee that this was the best time to invest, and he blindly believed him. Even though he was a finance graduate already working as a financial analyst, he put his trust in someone else. He never thought of researching the company he was putting his hard-earned bonus into. All Kavee knew was that he was buying at a high and was convinced the stock would keep going up. He never saw that burst coming Kavee bought stocks at 300 Baht each, but thanks to the Asian Financial Crisis the shares fell to a whopping low of 20 Baht in just three months. Kavee was utterly disappointed in himself because, as an analyst, he should have known better than to invest in a company he knew nothing about. Lessons learned What kind of investor are you? The first thing you need to do before you start investing is to know the kind of investor you want to be. What is your long-term investment goal? Before you start investing learn how it works Whether you’re interested in a long or short investment, you have to know how investing works. You don’t need to understand finance deeply but learn the basics and understand the market. Even if you choose to work with a fund manager, you still have to know about investing. Don’t expect to be an overnight millionaire Investing money for beginners can be exciting. Don’t get too excited and expect a hundred percent return in one year, that hardly ever happens. Give your portfolio time to grow. Don’t follow every investing advice you get There’s always someone out there wanting to force tips on investing for beginners down your throat. You don’t have to follow every piece of advice. Just listen and take into account

Robert “Bob“ Seawright is the Chief Investment & Information Officer for Madison Avenue Securities, LLC, an investment advisory firm and broker-dealer headquartered in San Diego, California. Bob’s blog, Above the Market, has received “best of” recognition from a wide variety of sources, including The Wall Street Journal and the CFA Institute, and is the #7 rated advisor blog in the country based upon readership, linkage, and influence. And don’t’ miss The Better Letter Newsletter that he writes about markets and life and comes out every Friday morning.   “Good advice wrongly applied isn’t any better than bad advice.” Robert Seawright   Worst investment ever Beginner’s luck Bob’s worst investment ever, like for most investors, was when he was starting as an investor. At the time, Bob was working on the fixed income trading floor for a big Wall Street investment house trading bonds all day every day. So what he knew and understood was bonds. Bod had learned from the bigwigs of investing, such as Peter Lynch, to invest in what you know. So Bob allocated his investment money heavily toward bonds. Thanks to beginner’s luck, he did just fine with his bond investments. Missing out on higher returns While Bob never lost any money for investing in bonds, he played too safe and missed out on other investments that he should have made early in his life. Such investments, with compounding they could have had a lot more returns. Luck and randomness have always been his saving grace In the course of his life, Bob has made a few more bad investments that somehow have turned out well for him, thanks to luck. For instance, he bought a house at the wrong time, but as random as this decision was, it turned out great for him. Bob also went against financial planning advice and paid for his kids’ education. Bob had not been able to go to college, where he wanted because his parents didn’t have the money. So it was a very important value for Bob to provide the best education possible for his kids. This is even though he knew that would mean working longer and having less in retirement. Bob knew from an investment standpoint, it was foolish, but he did it anyway. Lessons learned What...

Current times might be difficult, and the future may seem bleak, but we will make it through. We will survive and thrive. Our past guests share more advice to help us navigate the COVID-19 crisis. Dan Gramza from Ep43 Don’t Let Overconfidence Ruin Your Trading Strategy Dan Gramza is the President of Gramza Capital Management, Inc. He is a trader, consultant to domestic and international clients, an advisor to hedge funds, a developer of ETF/ETC securities, and co-inventor of two issued security patents. He has published works and has appeared on numerous media outlets around the world. We cannot control the social and economic impact of the virus, but we do have total control over how we react to these changes. Your focus should be on your reaction to thrive. Appreciate the restrictions that have come with this virus because they are causing hidden positive changes. This global pandemic has created a common cause that has brought people together locally and globally. This is an opportunity for us to do the things that we’ve wanted to do, but we always put aside for various reasons. If you’re feeling depressed, and you can’t seem to shake it, it may be time to seek professional help, or your spiritual leader or a good friend to express how you’re feeling. Sometimes just talking about it can put things into perspective. It is also important to relax. Take a break once in a while to relax your mind and body. Take care, and stay well as we go through this unique time in our lives. David Keller from Ep111 It’s OK to be wrong, It’s not OK to Stay Wrong David Keller, CMT, is the President and Chief Strategist of StockCharts.com, where he helps investors minimize behavioral biases through technical analysis. He is the author of the blog, Market Misbehavior, and most recently served as a subject matter expert for Behavioral Finance. Use this period as a learning curve. Keep an accurate record of your decisions and a good trading journal. This will help you to make informed trading decisions in the future. Whatever platform you use, make sure you keep notes of what you did and at what point so that you have a beautiful historical record of your actions once this is all over and we’re through this challenging bear market...

Our past podcast guests continue to share with us little pieces of advice that we can all try to maintain and do daily to keep ourselves on an even keel. Hopefully, with this wisdom, we’ll ultimately create a brighter future out of this situation. Philipp Kristian Diekhöner from Ep61 The Impact of Foreign Currency on a Managed Fund Philipp Kristian Diekhöner is a keynote TEDx speaker, global innovation strategist, and author of The Trust Economy, published in English (2017), German (2018), and Simplified Chinese (2019). Philipp has spoken at prominent global organizations such as Facebook, P&G, Microsoft, Turner, Munich Re, Zillow, Globe Telecom, CPA Australia, Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economics and Energy, the Economist Intelligence Unit and many others. We need to understand how we can make agility sustainable. We’re currently experiencing an exciting surge in agility in business. Organizations that are not usually very agile are developing quality responses and solutions to the current situation very rapidly and very effectively. We need to move from compliance measures to proactive ways of addressing the current issue and future issues to come. Let’s encourage more of the community spirit because the collective action to fight a common enemy is a powerful way. For that to happen, everyone must care about the situation, and we must feel in control of actually doing our bit. Think about sustainability in urgency. Use the current urgency for change and use it as an opportunity to create sustainable transformation, future of work, and digital transformation in your organizations, businesses, and governments. Understand that...

Here a few tips from some of our past podcast guests that will help you get through this COVID-19 crisis. These uplifting words of wisdom will help give you a positive mindset and come out of this pandemic stronger. Sal Daher from Ep152 To Win Big as an Angel Investor, You Have to Look at All Angles Sal Daher is an angel investor who invests in technologies that set Boston apart. He is a member of Walnut Ventures and MIT Angels. Sal is a syndicate lead and podcast host at Angel Invest Boston Podcast. Be very careful with your cash, renegotiate your rents, and consider the cost of your headcount. This thing is going to be here for a while; we’re not going to have vibrant economic activity anytime soon. So you have to think long term in terms of preserving your resources. Use the limited resources that you have, in a way that’s economical for you. This will help others and also help your long term survival. Think creatively; you might be able to build value in your enterprise. But remember to be very careful with your scarce resources. Joe Saul-Sehy from Ep155 Financial Risk Management Lies in Diversification across Industries Joe Saul-Sehy is the co-host of the award-winning Stacking Benjamins podcast, which focuses on earning, saving, and spending with a plan. He was the “Money Man” at Detroit television WXYZ-TV, appearing twice weekly. During this COVID-19 crisis, realize that there are things you can control and influence, and things you can neither control nor influence. Most people dwell on the things that they can neither control nor influence. Focus on your community and on the things that you can control, like, getting better at the things that you do. Even if your job is gone, your skills are not gone, you’re still the same person that you were before. Spend time not only growing yourself but also growing your community or keeping the people around you safe. Such are some of the things that you can control and influence. Jack Thomas from <a href=...

Scott Beebe is the founder and head coach of MyBusinessOnPurpose.com and author of Let Your Business Burn: Stop Putting Out Fires, Discover Purpose, And Build A Business That Matters. Scott hosts the Business On Purpose podcast sharing real stories of how he and the team are working with business owners and their key leaders. They’re building systems, process, and purpose using the Business On Purpose Roadmap to liberate businesses from the chaos of working in their business and help them get their lives back.    “Where there is no vision, people become detached, people then scatter, and eventually people die.” Scott Beebe   Worst investment ever Success as he knew it comes tumbling down in an instant One snowy Friday morning in February 2015, Scott walked into work and walked back home unemployed. He went home, ready to count his losses and figure out how to bounce back. Married with three kids, Scott needed to find his footing again and fast. Taking his side hustle more seriously At this point, Scott had already started Business on Purpose podcast. He figured he could take it a notch higher now that he had more time. Scott called up two of his friends and asked them if he would coach them on how to create visions, missions, and values for their companies. The two friends accepted, and that’s how My Business on Purpose was born. Instant business results In just a few months, the business grew locally through word of mouth. Scott realized that the business had potential and so he decided to invest in marketing it. He hired someone to run Facebook ads for him. Flushing money down the toilet Excited to do more with his business, Scott forgot the tenets of what he was teaching other business owners, having a vision for your business. Scott left the Facebook manager to run things without a clear direction, and as expected, the marketing failed. The business never got any leads from this marketing effort. Yep, $30,000 later, Scott never got a single lead from the Facebook ads. It was devastating, but he picked himself up and decided to follow his advice. He went back to the drawing board and drew up a master plan for his business, which is what he’s continued to use up to now with a lot of success. Lessons learned Vision is the most important thing in business Vision is the most important thing in business. It’s not your financial health. It’s not making sure that you’ve got the right employees, it’s a vision. Without a vision, people scatter, and businesses die. Have a business marketing master plan Before you start marketing a business, have a master plan. Create everything from front to back. This is what people call a funnel, or a sequence or a...

Daniel Gomez is an Award-Winning Business Strategist, Corporate Trainer, and Confidence Architect and is the President/Founder of Daniel Gomez Enterprises. Daniel speaks and coaches at events all over the world! His passion is to elevate businesses and entrepreneurs to achieve their true potential through their training and coaching programs. Daniel has empowered his clients to build epic success in their personal and professional lives. He is the international best-selling author of “You Were Born to Fly,” a book written to inspire and give people the high-performance habits and confidence needed to be the leaders of their destiny.    “The quality of your life is determined by the quality of the questions you ask yourself.” Daniel Gomez   Worst investment ever When anger impedes your success in life Daniel had been living with a lot of anger. This anger saw him sabotage himself and his business. He was full of hate and would barely bring himself to trust anyone, including his clients. This affected his personal and business growth. Daniel was hot-tempered and would quickly go from zero to 100. This strained his relationships and caused him so much anxiety. His biggest problem was that he couldn’t understand where all this anger was stemming from. Getting to the root of the problem One day Daniel had had it. The anger was consuming him, and he wanted things to change. Daniel turned to God and prayed without ceasing. He looked into his heart, thinking hard on the cause of this anger that had plagued him all his life. Daniel finally realized that he still harbored a lot of anger towards his dad. Life growing up wasn’t the best. Daniel’s parents moved a lot, and in the process, they had numerous disagreements and would separate a couple of times. One day, Daniel watched as his dad left and asked if he could go with him. His dad promised that he’d be back the next day, but he never did. From this day, Daniel never trusted his dad again, and he carried this anger to his adulthood. Learning forgiveness Once Daniel found the root cause of his anger, he realized that he had to forgive his dad to have any success in business and life in general. Lessons learned Forgiveness frees you When you don’t forgive somebody, the only person you’re hurting is yourself. The anger eats you up, and you end up adding more damage to your life and to whatever you’re doing. Be ready to go through the motions to find forgiveness Unfortunately, you usually have to go through trauma and pain before you see that the emotion is there. So feel the anger, release it, find the root cause, and then let go. Who do I need to forgive? Forgiveness is the key to success in life, and in life, there will always be someone that you need to forgive. So always ask yourself, “Who do I need to forgive?”. This will help you release any feelings

Three more of our past podcast guests graciously shared some words of advice to help us cope and make the most out of the COVID-19 epidemic. Giacomo Arcaro from Ep113 Don’t Chase the Money Giacomo Arcaro is one of the most important European growth hackers, with more than 140,000 “crypto-followers” and has been featured in the Financial Times,  Forbes, Wired, and the Los Angeles Times. He’s had 2-million-euro exits with two start-ups, CercaClienti.it and SocialAutomation.online, and is the founder of Black Marketing Guru. We need to understand that during the COVID-19 crisis, we are going to face a low touch economy where you have to consider a lot of factors. If you have a business based in a small area with a lot of people, you need to reconsider reinventing your business so that it remains standing if this crisis goes for a year or two. One way of reinventing your business, for example, is running it on social media platforms such as Instagram or Facebook Live. COVID-19 has not changed our lives; instead, it has anticipated the digital revolution. Johnny FD from Ep134 Stay on Track Johnny FD (Fighter-Divemaster) quit his job at corporate giant Honeywell in 2007 to move to Thailand, travel the world, and work as a professional scuba diver. He has since written two books: 12 Weeks in Thailand: The Good Life on the Cheap and Life Changes Quick (both on Amazon), started multiple six-figure online businesses, and since has been interviewed and featured in Forbes, Business Insider, Fast Company, <span style= "font-weight:...

In times of fear, uncertainty, and anxiety, a word of encouragement goes a long way to help cope with the situation. A few of our past podcast guests graciously sent us a few words of wisdom to help all of us stay hopeful for a brighter future after we beat the COVID-19 pandemic. Dan Passarelli from Ep 42 Struck by an Anomaly in Options It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay in your trading account, your IRA, in your career, in your personal life, and most likely with your health. You lived through the financial crisis, through the feeling of despair back in 2008. That was temporary, and then it had been good for a long time since then. You’ll still get through the current pandemic. The markets may be low now, but they won’t stay there forever. If you buy stocks now, at some point, those are going to be a loser, but five years from now they will be winners.   David Stein from Ep127 Trading Currencies and Commodities Is Harder Than You Think We are in times of radical uncertainty, and there is no way to accurately forecast what will happen or determine the optimal asset mix to position your portfolio for what lies ahead. The best thing to do right now for your portfolio is to choose an asset allocation that you’re comfortable with considering that the stock market falls significantly, or it rebounds significantly in due time because a vaccine is discovered. Remember that comfort means we will not be personally harmed and overly regretful if either of those financial scenarios takes place. Right now there is no right answer based on the numbers. It’s based on your level of comfort and your level of regret.   Dustin Heiner from Ep144 His Life Went From Loss to Success When He Mastered Passive Income Tough times will always come, markets will go up, markets will go down. We need to focus on what is important in our lives. If you were to lose everything right now, what would you not do without? Focus on that. Serve as many people as possible and take good care of them. If you help more people, you’ll get something in return, not just monetary, but you also feel so much better. <span style="font-weight:...

This is an all hands on deck moment. We all need each other in one way or another. Our past podcast guests sent us some inspirational thoughts to give you hope and keep you going through this challenging period. Beth Azor from Ep74 Keep Your Arrogance and Overconfidence in Check If you’re trying to work from home successfully, focus on time management. Identify the three critical things that you have to get done tomorrow. Take 50% of your day and focus on today, and 50% of your day and think about a year from now. Delegate and also ask for help. Use organizations such as Upwork and Fiverr to get some inexpensive help. It’s time to redo our 2020 goals. Allow time for distractions and interruptions in your day; they’re going to happen. Learn to say no. No is a complete sentence. It’s essential to have a morning routine that you do every morning. Time blocking is a good exercise. Also, batch calls and try to do all your calls in a two-hour setting. Get outside to get some fresh air, take a walk, and exercise. Create one place in your house for your workspace and clear out any clutter in your workplace. It’s a crazy time right now, so give yourself a break, but at the same time, don’t look back 30 or 60 days from now, and the only thing that you could be proud to say that you did was watch four seasons of a Netflix series. There are lots of ways you can still move your career forward. Chance Glenn from Ep135 Have the Courage to Stick with It The COVID-19 crisis is exposing our strengths. People are coming together, working together, being creative, and innovative to help their fellow neighbors out there. There’s something that you can do, even if it is just an encouraging word to somebody. Christopher Salem from Ep99 Meditate and Journal to Overcome Pain of Losing Don’t get sucked into problems. Not only the problem of the Coronavirus but also in other issues that were affecting you before this crisis. This is the time to reflect on where you are and where you want to...

Today we bring you more messages of hope from our past podcast guests. We are all feeling the pressure and anxiety from the COVID-19 pandemic. But together, we can beat this crisis and thrive in it. Mohd Sedek Jantan from Ep44 Panic Selling When Stocks Fall is Usually a Terrible Idea If you have invested for more than three years, but are only now experiencing short-term losses, do not obsess about the reduction in value. Losses of 20% to 30% are normal. Understand that equity volatility is the price you pay for capital appreciation over the long term. Now is the time to differentiate between income and wealth. During this COVID-19 pandemic, wealth that investors have accumulated over a lifetime has eroded in value as the market has crashed. But were you making good returns before? If yes, take this opportunity to top up your investment. Set up an automatic investment schedule. This removes the emotion from the process. If the market sinks further, do not fret, most of us are investing for the long term anyway. Azran Osman-Rani from Ep76 From Zero to a Billion Dollar IPO One thing that’s holding us back from dealing with this crisis even with excellent advice is acceptance. We subconsciously hope that after COVID-19, things will return to how they used to be, and so we are not living in the reality of the situation. The tension between the logical part of knowing what we have to do to change and adapt, and the emotional part yearning for the stability of the past is what is causing pressure, anxiety, and even depression. When we accept, we can move on and do what we need to do to move ahead and let go of that yearning for the good old days, and we will be able to cope better with the current situation. Lasse-Peter Pestel from Ep7 Eurozone Bailout Fund: Considering Risk over Return A crisis can be an opportunity for your company to thrive just look at delivery companies such as DHL or UPS. They are reporting figures which are the same as the pre-Christmas times, and these are the busiest times of the year. Don’t break the law even during holidays. Staying at home, it will calm you down and give you peace of mind. <li style="font-weight:...

We are living through the COVID-19 Coronavirus times. Times of fear, despair, and anxiety. We all need words of hope and encouragement to keep us going. Andrew reached out to our past podcast guests who took a few minutes to share nuggets of wisdom on how to survive and thrive through this epidemic. David Barnett from Ep136: Always Have a Clear Path to Plan B You are not your business. You, as a person, are a wholly distinct and separate thing from your business. There are going to be many businesses that will no longer be viable and will end up closing. That’s not a reflection upon the business owners; it’s just a function of the time that we’re in. There is going to be a long and protracted recession; people need to think about themselves as individuals ahead of their businesses. If your business survives this, that’s great. But if you don’t see a way out, then you need to look for the path to extricate yourself from the situation, while retaining as many resources as you can so you create opportunities for yourself once this thing winds up and is over. When a business starts to head downhill for whatever reason, cut your losses, and don’t put your resources into the business to try to help it survive. Your survival has to be paramount in a situation like this. Andrew Sherman from Ep133: Mistakes to Avoid When Selling Your Business Now’s the time to retool, repurpose, reevaluate your business and your value proposition. It’s also a time to look at the future of work and the future of the workplace. Will working from home be the new normal? How will that affect staffing, teamwork, engagement issues, and even innovation and creativity? It’s also an excellent time to be sure that you stay close to your customers. The small businesses and entrepreneurs that really stay close to their customers are being rewarded now with alternative business models. Erik Bergman from Ep112: Keep Empathy in the Start-Up War Room Lower the amount of media exposure, so you don’t get stressed out by watching the news and watching the numbers all the time. Focus on other, less stressful things. Use this as an opportunity to create new habits. You don’t get new results by setting new goals; you get new results by creating new habits. Habits are everything. Many of

A management consultant and venture capital professional, Henry Briffel advocates for the highest ethical standards, value of a secure and diversified supply chain, and the power of people and technology to bring innovation to the marketplace. Henry helps clients raise capital, operationalize their ideas into businesses, and monetize their products and services for the benefit of all stakeholders.   “Most people are good, but they are frequently influenced by money.” Henry Briffel   Worst investment ever Even veterans make poor investments Henry’s worst investment came just recently after working for years and moving on to entrepreneurship. Henry, over time, had made valuable business contacts and resources. He met a businessman who made him an offer to join his business as a partner. He offered Henry a 50% business deal. With Henry’s connections, together, they could build a successful business. Henry saw this as an excellent business opportunity. Working with blind trust Henry and his partner agreed on a temporary partnership. Henry gave everything he had into the partnership from the start. He brought on valuable venture deals and even put his resources into the business for several months. Soon enough, they had deals on the table from major tech companies. The cracks start to show As they got close to closing one of the significant deals, Henry started noticing behavior change in his partner. He brushed it off as two strangers getting to know each other. But, as more deals came in, his partner kept pulling away. Henry questioned him about it, but he convinced him that he was genuinely vested in the business. True colors are finally revealed Soon enough, Henry found out that his partner had been using all the deals Henry had worked hard to benefit himself. His partner had been going behind his back, lying to all the clients trying to snatch them from Henry. Eventually, on Christmas Eve, Henry’s partner informed him that he was never part of the deals that he had brought. He had managed to sideline Henry in all the deals he worked so hard to bring. Unfortunately, there was nothing Henry could do because they had not signed any contracts or NDA. Lessons learned Question people who refuse to sign an NDA are questionable Always question whether someone wants to sign an NDA or not. Make sure that you insist upon a mutual NDA; don’t make it one-sided. Temporary contracts only benefit one party over another If someone doesn’t want to sign a permanent deal, it’s because they don’t believe in you. Deal with that early into the partnership because it could get in the way of valuation. Everyone should be on the same page Everyone along the value chain should be on the same page and working towards the same goal. They should all be aligned for the business to work. Andrew’s takeaways There’s no shortcut to trust Occasionally, you could get lucky and meet someone that you don’t know well, but that person is trustworthy.

In this challenging time of COVID-19 outbreak and economic shutdown, people need inspiration and hope that they will make it through. This is the time to rely on your family friends and the network you have built. Andrew reached out to his network of podcast guests and asked each to share their best advice on how to survive and thrive during these difficult times. Shaun Rein from Ep118: You Can’t Win Unless You Know How to Lose In times of panic, investors and business people should look at facts and remain calm to find opportunities to grow. Stay focused on data, not rumors. Stay patient and calm, and don’t let fear overwhelm you. Focus on your workforce because not long into the future, business is going to get good, and you’ll need them. Nick Bradley from Ep169: Buying a Business Based Purely on Emotions Rarely Works We’re in a state of fear and overwhelm, and people want to have some perspective just to get through it, and therefore, we are all allowed to react differently without any judgment. It’s ok to take this time to hibernate and try to work out what’s going on. It’s also ok to use this as an opportunity to build and grow. It’s ok if you want to slow down so you can speed up when this is all over because this is going to end at some point. Try and manage your emotions. Don’t let uncertainty and fear rule you because you won’t be able to see the things that you can be doing to make the most of the situation. Now more than ever is the time to be a leader for yourself, your family, your business, the community at large, and the world. As a leader, show empathy and capability. Demonstrate that you have the confidence needed to push through this. In times of uncertainty, people need that confidence. Be grateful, be brave, have faith, and show up. Josiah Smelser from Ep83: Push Through When Everything Goes Wrong This is a time to be very thankful and cognizant of the blessings that we have. It’s a time to press into our faith. Be aware of what matters in life. Don’t be so focused on the things that you can’t take with you, such as money and wealth. The things that matter are...

Samuel Kamugisha is a brand and growth strategist hailing from Uganda in East Africa but has been in Malaysia for the past five years, where he completed his Master’s degree. He is skilled in marketing, creative strategy, brand development, and project management that he attained from various fields. Samuel has over 11 years of work experience in Africa and Asia. Currently, he works in the strategy department at the prestigious iProspect Malaysia and Lemonade Agency that are Dentsu Aegis Network Companies. Finally, he is the host of the Wow Factor Podcast.   “Loss is just an investment in knowledge.” Samuel Kamugisha   Worst investment ever Chasing the excitement of being his own boss After working for about six years, Samuel quit his job and decided to open a business and be his own boss. He partnered with his friend, and together they started a business in Uganda focusing on bulk SMS. The idea was to offer SMS services to people who wanted to send bulk SMS messages. Raising capital for his business Samuel approached his sister with his business idea and requested her for a loan to set up the business. He showed her the valuation of the business, and she agreed to loan him the money. Excited to get started right away Happy to finally have the capital he needed, Samuel went to his partner, and they decided to hit the ground running. They were too excited to get started that they never bothered to do any kind of research to validate their business idea. First, they hired a developer to set up a website where they would host the SMS service. Next, they scouted for an SMS provider and found a gentleman whose rates seemed to be very good. They spent half of the seed money on buying the SMS:s. Tragedy strikes Things were going pretty well, and the business was starting to gain some ground. Unfortunately, the gentleman who sold the SMS:s to them suddenly died. His system went offline, and they no longer had access to the SMS:s they had bought. The gentleman operated his business alone, and so Samuel had no one to consult once the gentleman died. Seeking a second option Samuel and his partner decided to look for another SMS service provider. This time they chose to go with a company as opposed to an individual. They found a company in India and used the remaining half of the seed money to buy more SMS:s. Tragedy strikes again After about four months of successfully working with the Indian company, another crisis happened. The telcos in Uganda were blocking any SMS messages from entering into their network because they were not originating from their system. So now they had clients complaining that their SMS:s were not being delivered. Whenever they’d complain to the company in India, the company would say that there was nothing they could do as the SMS messages were being blocked from Uganda and not India. Trying to salvage the situation When Samual realized that there...

Mei Phing is the founder of Got A Phing and a passionate advocate of youth leadership. She has been recognized as a high performer and was fast-tracked to senior positions in multiple global multi-national companies whilst only in her 20’s. Nowadays, Mei coaches high-performing young executives and entrepreneurs to level-up future-ready skills to navigate complexity and thrive in tomorrow’s world. She regularly speaks about the skills of the future, youth engagement, and multigenerational workforce inclusion–as a TEDx Speaker and featured speaker for international events, conferences, and podcasts. Mei Phing is a culture enthusiast and has traveled to 37 countries and counting.   “Leadership is self-management. Before you lead and manage other people, you need to learn and be yourself.” Mei Phing   Worst investment ever For the love of helping people For Mei, her worst investment ever was investing time and energy, trying to convince people to take actions that they weren’t ready to take. Mei has done very well in her corporate career over the years and always been one of the fastest rising stars in whichever company she was in. It’s, therefore, not surprising that she regularly get questions from people looking to also advance their careers. For the love of helping people, she’d spend hours giving them advice. Just in need of a sounding board After doing this for so long, she noticed a pattern. No matter how good her advice was or how much time she spent talking to these people, they wouldn’t take any actions to change the situations they were in. They would just continue to whine and complain. She realized that all they wanted was a listening ear and a sounding board for their frustrations. Learning from her bad investment Giving her time to people who never quite needed it got Mei quite frustrated because, as an introvert, she’s very protective of her energy and time. She regrets having wasted all that time on people who didn’t see the importance of taking action. Mei wishes that she could take back all that time and do something more magnificent. Fortunately, this came with lessons on how to handle people, and it has helped her run a successful leadership company. Lessons learned You can’t force someone to take action A person is only ready to take action when they want to. No external advice or motivation will make them make changes in life if they don’t want to. They’ve got to want change badly For someone to take action, they’ve got to want to achieve their goals and be passionate about it. If they’re not, all the motivation and advice given will be a waste as it will wither off at some point. Understand yourself first before you help others You need to understand yourself first so that you can better understand someone else and help them understand themselves. Andrew’s takeaways You only have four productive hours in a day...

Amresh "Amar" Deshpande is a skilled communicator with a background in marketing, consulting, and sustainability. He is a public speaker and podcaster. He is the co-founder of Gaatha story, a podcasting company he founded with his wife in 2016. Amar is the creator and host of MyKitaab, a podcast on how to publish and market your book. He is also the creator of Baalgatha, Fairytales of India, and Veergatha Podcasts. He is a published author and blogger and has been featured in the Financial Times and Entrepreneur India. Amar has over 17 years’ experience in program management, construction, and communication with organizations such as Amazon, Schneider Electric, and Jones Lang LaSalle. He is an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad, India and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in the US.  He is passionate about sustainability and is a USGBC-LEED Accredited Professional.   “If you know you’re going to dive into the deep end right away, either have a lifeguard around or wear a floater so that you don’t sink.” Amar Deshpande   Worst investment ever Uprooting his life on a whim Eleven years ago, Amar found himself in a situation that demanded him to eradicate his life from the US and back to his home town in India. His parents were getting old and in need of care. At the time, Amar was supposed to go to Canada for business school, but without giving it a second thought, he put everything on hold and went to India. Amar planned to give everything a break for a year and then go back to the United States. He figured that the life he had built for himself would still be there after a year, but his parents might not live for long. So for an entire year, he gave his all to his parents. Putting his career on the back burner Unfortunately, life didn’t play out as Amar had planned. After the year was over, the situation with his parents hadn’t improved. Even though his senses told him to leave India for the sake of his career, Amar ignored his feelings and continued his stay in India. His love for his parents clouded his judgment. Since Amar had planned to stay in India for a year then head back to the United States, he never networked with people in India nor got in touch with his colleagues back in the States. Amar should have probably spent that year networking and cultivating relationships with his co-workers, his clients, and customers. Instead, he completely put everything concerning his career on hold. Now here he was a year later in need of a job in India with no idea where to start. Setting root in India Fortunately, Amar got a job consulting for construction companies, but he had to move from his hometown to Mumbai, where everything was super expensive. On top of that, India was going through the economic effects of the Lehman crisis, and businesses were suffering. While he had a few dollars saved, the...

Jonathan Slain’s book, Rock the Recession: How Successful Leaders Prepare For, Thrive During, and Create Wealth After Downturns came out in September 2019 and is a #1 Amazon Best Seller. Jonathan coaches high growth leadership teams across the United States to implement the Entrepreneurial Operating System®, also known as "Traction". He focuses on working with entrepreneurial niche/specialty firms and large corporations, spending over 100 days per year working with teams just like yours. Jonathan was Valedictorian of his graduating class and had the highest GPA ever in the history of Shaker Heights High School, where he was also voted “Next Bill Gates and Least Likely to Lose his Virginity.”    “There’s always going to be a disruption. Embrace it, and have a plan for everything.” Jonathan Slain   Worst investment ever Forging a business partnership Jonathan was working as an investment banker when he received a call from his brother-in-law asking him to help evaluate gym franchises that he wanted to invest in. Jonathan agreed to accompany him to Denver, where the franchises were. On the flight home from Denver to Cleveland, Jonathan, on a whim, suggested to his brother that they open the gyms together. His brother-in-law agreed, and Jonathan left his job at the bank and began working with his brother-in-law. Up to a good start Jonathan didn’t bother to do any research and had total trust in his brother-in-law. He believed that the business was going to work. They opened up their first gym in Hudson, Ohio, and went on to scale the business pretty fast. Indeed, the franchise was thriving. In less than five years, they had five units operating, all one-on-one personal training studios. The branches were in five locations across Cleveland, with 25 employees. They broke franchise records by recording the most personal training sessions in the year, the most locations, and the most revenue of any group. The great recession they never saw coming At 25, Jonathan was a thriving franchise owner and was riding the wave of success. Then the great recession hit out of nowhere. They had no plan on what to do at a time of such a crisis. Amid the panic, he came up with a plan to borrow a quarter of a million dollars from his mother-in-law. The business went on to barely survive the recession, but he had to live with the shame of having to borrow from his mother-in-law. Lessons learned You’ve got to have a plan Be sure to have a plan for what you would do if you ever hit an economic downturn. Have a plan for what you’re going to do to reduce expenses, cut overhead, do layoffs, etc. and survive a recession. Create your plan when you’re not stressed out Figure out your plan when things are calm, not when you’re in the middle of a crisis. People tend to make bad decisions when they’re stressed out and emotional. A recession can be an...

Joel Ong is the creator of the Expert to Authority coaching program for business owners to use their smartphones to make videos work for their business in 90 days (without having to hire a professional costing thousands of dollars).   “We have more processing power in our mobile devices than what Armstrong had in his spacecraft the first time he went to the moon.” Joel Ong   Worst investment ever Fueling his Instagram influencer dream Joel wanted to be like the travel influencers on Instagram and wealthy business owners that he saw traveling the world first class. However, he didn’t have the money or the influence to do it. He just didn’t have the confidence to be an influencer of any sort. But, Joel truly wanted this life, so he thought of all the ways he could achieve this. He figured that he could pick up the camera and influence from behind it instead of in front of the camera like the other Instagram influencer. This started Joel’s journey into travel videography. A humble beginning Joel started with a very cheap imitation of a GoPro camera that he borrowed from a friend in China. Slowly he started living his dream to be a travel influencer by collaborating with models and travel photographers. Doing it as the stars do As Joel interacted with famous influencers in the industry, the pressure to get sophisticated video equipment got real. He wanted to be like the rest of them, and so he invested thousands of dollars in video equipment. Joel bought better lenses, better lighting, a stabilizer gimbal, and more. His travel backpack got heavier and heavier. As Joel continued to travel the world more with his new equipment, he realized that something was still missing. Now he needed to improve his skills as well. So Joel paid a lot of money for several online courses. He thought that this would get him fame and glory quickly. In the end, after spending so much money, it didn’t work. Joel learned that besides proper equipment and courses, he needed to put in the work to get to the success he wanted. Lessons learned The key to success is to focus on simplicity Everything that works is simple, but it takes execution and work. Simple is not necessarily easy. Don’t expect a magic formula to find success; you’ve got to put in the work, trust the process, and go through it. Shift your thinking If you do not see any success, then you need to start doing things differently because, like Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” So shift your thinking. Decide what you’re prepared to lose Before you invest, think of the worst-case scenario. If it doesn’t work out or it underdelivers, what’s the most that you can afford to lose? When you think of investing in that way, then it makes everything very clear. Invest in your skills too People who are very good