Podcast appearances and mentions of josh will

On this week's episode of the Play-Action Podcast, Colton & Will are joined by ToTheHouse's Josh and are discussing the Antonio Brown situation, Washington's new name.Colton, Josh & Will are having a debate thats been built up for months between Colton & Josh (can't miss content). They overreact to Week 17's wild slate of game. What is the buy and what is the sell for them? They also give their top moments of the week. Who will reign supreme with their picks for Week 18 and be the picking champion of the 2021 season

Hey everyone!On today's episode of Resourceful Agent Radio Show, We have a returning guest Josh Cates.Today Andy and Josh Will talk through several topics today but mainly focus on Time Management.Andy will share a project he's working on that will benefit business owners and entrepreneurs. Josh also has a project he's working on at the moment.  Social Media: @joshcates FB:@joshcates LINKEDIN: @joshcates-I enjoy hearing what you guys think of these videos; please take a second to say "Hi" in the comments and let me know what you think of the video...Also, if you enjoy these videos and my channel, it would mean a lot to me if you subscribed :)_ @andysilvius Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/resourcefulagent/Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/resourcefulagentTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@resourcefulagent?lang=enLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-silvius-091aa7190/Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSPNiepOCE1VpCRY1v5Pdtw #resourcefulagent #resourcefulagentradioshow #realestate #AndySilvius #AskResourcefulagent #ownedbusiness #business #localbusiness #entrepreneurs #entrepreneur #podcast #interview #onlineradio #financialadvise #helpingothers #NorthIdaho #cdaidaho #coeurdalene #investing #local #branding #brand #realestate 

Show Notes:Links:MicromortNoblesse obligeJosh's dotfilesGitHub Code SpacesFull Transcript:Ben:Yeah. I've been holding out for the new MacBook Pros. The M1 is pretty tempting, but I want whatever comes next. I want the 16-inch new hotness that's apparently supposed to be launching in November, but I've been waiting for it so patiently for so long now.Josh:Will they have the M2?Ben:Yeah, either or that or M1X. People are kind of unsure what the odds are.Starr:Why do they do that? Why did they make an M1 if they can't make an M2? Why do they have to keep... You just started, people. You can just have a normal naming scheme that just increments. Why not?Josh:M1.1?Ben:That would be awesome.Starr:Oh, Lord.Josh:Yeah, it would.Ben:M1A, Beachfront Avenue.Starr:So last week we did an Ask Me Anything on Indie Hackers, and that was a lot of fun.Josh:It was a lot of fun.Starr:I don't know. One of the most interesting questions on there was some guy was just like, "Are you rich?" I started thinking about it. I was like, "I literally have no idea." It reminded me of when I used to live in New York briefly in the '90s or, no, the early '00s. There was a Village Voice article in which they found... They started out with somebody not making very much money, and they're like, "Hey, what is rich to you?" Then that person described that. Then they went and found a person who had that level of income and stuff and they asked them, and it just kept going up long past the point where... Basically, nobody ever was like, "Yeah, I'm rich."Josh:Yeah. At the end, they're like, "Jeff Bezos, what is rich? What is rich to you?"Starr:Yeah.Josh:He's like, "Own your own star system."Starr:So, yeah, I don't know. I feel like I'm doing pretty good for myself because I went to fill up my car with gas the other day and I just didn't even look at the price. The other day, I wanted to snack, so I just got a whole bag of cashews, and I was just chowing down on those. I didn't need to save that. I could always get another bag of cashews.Ben:Cashews are my arch nemesis, man. I can't pass up the cashews. As far as the nut kingdom, man, they are my weakness.Starr:I know. It's the subtle sweetness.Ben:It's so good. The buttery goodness.Starr:Yeah, the smoothness of the texture, the subtle sweetness, it's all there.Ben:That and pistachios. I could die eating cashews and pistachios.Josh:There you go. I like pistachios.Ben:Speaking of being rich, did you see Patrick McKenzie's tweet about noblesse oblige?Josh:No. Tell me.Ben:Yeah, we'll have to link it up in the show notes. But, basically, the idea is when you reach a certain level of richness, I guess, when you feel kind of rich, you should be super generous, right? So noblesse oblige is the notion that nobility should act nobly. If you have been entrusted with this respect of the community and you're a noble, then you ought to act a certain way. You got to act like a noble, right? You should be respectful and et cetera. So Patio was applying this to modern day, and he's like, "Well, we should bring this back," like if you're a well-paid software developer living in the United States of America, you go and you purchase something, let's say a coffee, that has basically zero impact on your budget, right? You don't notice that $10 or whatever that you're spending. Then just normalize giving a 100% tip because you will hardly feel it, but the person you're giving it to, that'll just make their day, right? So doing things like that. I was like, "Oh, that's"-Josh:Being generous.Ben:Yeah, it's being generous. Yeah. So I like that idea.Josh:That's cool.Ben:So-Starr:So it's okay to be rich as long as you're not a rich asshole.Ben:Exactly. Exactly. That's a good way to bring it forward there, Starr.Starr:There you go. I don't know. Yeah. I think there's some historical... I don't know. The phrase noblesse oblige kind of grates at me a little bit in a way that I can't quite articulate in this moment, but I'll think about that, and I will get back with you.Josh:Wait. Are you saying you don't identify as part of the nobility?Starr:No.Ben:I mean, I think there's a lot of things from the regency period that we should bring back, like governesses, because who wants to send your child to school in the middle of a COVID pandemic? So just bring the teacher home, right?Starr:Yeah. That's pretty sexist. Why does it have to be gendered? Anyway.Ben:Okay, it could be a governor, but you might get a little misunderstanding. All of a sudden, you've got Jay Inslee showing up on your doorstep, "I heard you wanted me to come teach your kids."Josh:I don't know. I'll just take an algorithm in the home to teach my kids, just entrust them to it.Starr:Yeah. Oh, speaking of bringing things back, I told y'all, but I'll tell our podcast listeners. On Sunday, I'm driving to Tacoma to go to somebody's basement and look at a 100-year old printing press to possibly transport to Seattle and put in my office for no good reason that I can think of. It just seems to be something that I'm doing.Josh:Do you like that none of us actually asked you what you were intending to do with it? I was like, "Yeah, just let me know when you need to move it. I'm there." I just assumed you were going to do something cool with it, but ... Yeah.Starr:I appreciate that. I appreciate the support. I'm going to make little zines or something. I don't know.Josh:Yeah. If I get a lifetime subscription to your zine-Starr:Okay, awesome.Josh:... that would be payment.Starr:Done. Done.Josh:Cool.Ben:Yeah, sign me up, too. I'll be there.Starr:Well, I appreciate that.Ben:I mean, who could resist that invitation, right, because you get to... If you get to help with moving that thing, you get to see it, you get to touch it and play with it, but you don't have to keep it. It's somebody else's problem when you're done with the day, so sounds great to me.Starr:There you go. Well, I mean, if you read the forums about these things, this is one of the smaller ones, so people are just like, "Ah, no big deal. No big deal. It's okay." But I was happy to hear that there's no stairs involved.Ben:That is the deal-breaker. Yeah.Josh:Yeah. But it-Ben:If you ever get the friend helping you to move their piano, you always ask, "Okay, how many flights of steps," right?Starr:Yeah. Oh, I just thought of something I could do with it. I could make us all nice business card to hand out to nobody.Ben:Because we're not going anywhere.Josh:I just think of my last six attempts at having business cards. They're all still sitting in my closet, all six boxes of-Starr:I know. People look at you like, "What, really, a business card? What?"Josh:Yeah, like all six generations.Starr:Yeah.Ben:I hand out one or two per year. Yeah, just random people and like, "Hey, here's my phone number." It's an easy way to give it to somebody.Josh:Just people on the street?Ben:Exactly. Like a decent fellow, "Here you go." Thank you.Josh:Yeah.Starr:It's like, "I've got 1000 of these. I got to justify the cost somehow."Josh:We got to move these.Starr:We could start invoicing our customers by snail mail. I could print a really nice letterhead.Ben:I think we have a few customers who would be delighted to receive a paper invoice from us because then they would have an excuse to not pay us for 90 days.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Isn't owning a printing press like owning a truck, though? Once people know you have it, everyone wants to borrow it.Starr:It's going to be pretty hard to borrow for a 1000-pound piece of iron.Josh:Well, they're going to want to come over and hang out in your basement and do their printing. This is the Pacific Northwest, like-Starr:It's their manifestos.Josh:Yeah. They got to print their manifestos, lists of demands.Starr:They don't want the establishment at Kinko's to be able to see.Josh:Right.Ben:I don't know. It's got to put you on a special kind of watch list, though, if you have a printing press in your home, right? All of a sudden, some people are really interested in what you're up to.Josh:It's like a legacy watch list.Ben:I'm just flashing back to, yeah, in the 1800s when cities, towns would get all-Starr:There you go.Josh:Well, yeah, because they're like-Ben:The mob would come out and burn down the printing press building and stuff.Josh:If you wanted to be a propagandist back then, you had to buy a printing press and then you get put on a watch list. That just never went away. They're still looking for those people. They just don't find as many of them these days.Starr:Yeah. It's so inefficient. It's not the super efficient way of getting the word out, though, I hear, unless you want to be one of those people handing out leaflets on the side of the road.Josh:Well, you could paper windshields in parking lots.Starr:Oh, there you go. Yeah.Josh:Yeah, that's how they used to do it.Starr:No, look at my beautifully hand-crafted leaflet that you're going to throw in the gutter.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:I think you just settled on what your next adventure's going to be after Honeybadger. You're ready to put this business aside and focus on printing up flyers for your local missing cat.Starr:There you go. There you go. Band flyers, that's big business.Josh:But you could get into fancy paper. That's a whole thing up here. It's pretty cool, actually.Starr:Yeah. I don't know. Really, I was like, "Oh, it'd be cool to have a big thing to tinker with." I'm learning about myself that I like having just a big physical project going on, and I'm pretty... Like, I built this backyard office, and that took up two years of my time. Ever since then, I don't have a big physical thing to work on, so I'm thinking this might fill that niche, that niche, sorry. I read a thing that's like don't say niche, Americans. Niche.Ben:I don't know, Starr. Maybe you should think of the children and then think about 50 years from now when you're dead and Ida's cleaning out the house and she's all like, "Why is there this printing press?"Starr:Oh, there you go.Josh:Have to move it.Starr:They'll just sell it with the house.Ben:There you go.Starr:Yeah. I mean, the funny thing is, is that it is wider than the doorway, so I would either have to dissemble it partially or take out the door. I put the door in, so I know how to take it out, so there is a good chance the door's coming out because I have less chance of messing something up if I do that one. But we'll see.Ben:Echo that.Starr:Well, thank you.Josh:You should've put one of those roll-up doors in there.Starr:I should've, yeah.Josh:Those are cool.Starr:What was I thinking?Josh:You really did not plan ahead for this.Starr:Yeah. I mean, walls are really only a couple of thin pieces of plywood, and you can just saw through it.Josh:Just a small refactor.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Starr:And that would-Josh:Did y'all see that someone listened to every episode of this podcast in a row?Starr:I know. I feel so bad. I feel so bad for them.Josh:Speaking of-Starr:We're sorry. We're so sorry.Ben:I was feeling admiration. I'm like, "Wow, that's impressive," like the endurance of it.Starr:I just think we would've made different decisions.Ben:I don't know. But not-Josh:Maybe it's pretty good. I haven't gone back and gone through it all and never will, but-Ben:Well, I mean, not only did they say they listened to every episode, but then they were eager for more. They were like, "When are you getting done with your break?" So I guess-Starr:There you go.Ben:... that net it was positive, but-Josh:We must not be too repetitive.Ben:Must not.Starr:Stockholm syndrome.Josh:We're sorry.Ben:Well...Starr:I'm sorry. I don't have anything informative to add, so I'm just going to be shit-posting this whole episode.Ben:Well, I've had an amazing week since we last chatted. I kept reflecting on how I couldn't remember anything that I did over the past whatever months. Well, this past week, I can remember a whole bunch of things that I did. I've been crazy busy and getting a bunch of little things knocked out. But today, today was the capstone of the week because I rolled over our main Redis cluster that we use for all of our jobs, all of the incoming notices and whatevers. Yeah, rolled over to a new Redis cluster with zero downtime, no dropped data, nobody even noticed. It was just smooth as-Starr:Oh my God.Josh:I saw that.Starr:Awesome.Ben:It's going pretty good.Starr:Just like butter?Ben:Just like butter.Starr:They slid right out of that old Redis instance and just into this new... Is it an AWS-managed type thing?Ben:Yeah, both of them were. They all went on the new one, but... Yeah.Josh:It's, what, ElastiCache?Ben:Yep. Smooth like a new jar of Skippy.Josh:I saw that you put that in our ops channel or something.Ben:Yeah. Yeah, that's the topic in our ops channel.Josh:So it's the subject or the topic, yeah. We're making ops run, yeah, like a jar of Skippy.Starr:Why isn't that our tagline for our whole business?Ben:I mean, we can change it.Starr:I don't know why that's making me crack up so much, but it is.Josh:Skippy's good stuff.Starr:Oh my gosh.Josh:Although we-Ben:Actually-Josh:... usually go for the Costco natural brand these days.Ben:Well, we go for the Trader Joe's all-natural brand that you have to actually mix every time you use it. I prefer crunchy over creamy, so, actually, my peanut butter's not that smooth, but... You know.Josh:Yeah.Ben:It's okay. But, yeah, I love our natural peanut butter, except for the whole churning thing, but you can live with that.Starr:We're more of a Nutella family.Ben:Ooh, I do love a Nutella.Josh:Ooh, Nutella.Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative), that's good stuff.Josh:We made pancakes the other day, and I was putting Nutella on pancakes. I did this thing, like I made this... We have one of those griddles, like an electric griddle, and so I made this super long rectangular pancake, and then I spread Nutella on the entire thing, and then I rolled it so that you have this-Starr:You know what it's called, Josh.Josh:What is it called?Starr:That's called a crepe.Josh:So it's a crepe, but it's made out of a pancake.Starr:It's a Texas crepe.Ben:Texas crepe.Josh:Yeah, a Texas-Starr:A Texas crepe.Ben:Yes.Josh:Is it really a Texas crepe because that's... Yeah, so, I-Starr:Oh, no, I just made that up.Ben:That sounds perfect, yeah.Josh:Well, it is now.Ben:Yeah, it is now.Josh:It is now, and I highly recommend it. It's pretty amazing.Ben:Throw some Skippy on there and, man, now it's a... That's awesome.Josh:Peanut butter's also good on pancakes.Starr:That's why people listen to us, for our insights about business.Ben:Yeah, there was this one time, speaking of pancakes and peanut butter...Josh:How did we get on pancakes? Like, oh, yeah, ops.Ben:This one time, I went over to dinner at some person's house, and I didn't know what dinner was going to be, but we got there and it was breakfast for dinner, which I personally love. That's one of my favorites.Starr:I knew that about you.Ben:So they're like, "Oh, I'm sorry. Hope you don't think it's weird, but we're having breakfast for dinner." I'm like, "No, no, I love it." So eggs and bacon and waffles, and so I'm getting my waffle and I'm like, "Do you have some peanut butter," and they're like, "Oh my goodness, we thought you would think that was way too weird, and so we didn't have the peanut butter." They whipped it out from in the counter. It's like, "Oh, shew, now we can have our peanut butter, too." I'm like, "Oh, yeah, peanut butter on waffles, yeah."Josh:Everyone had their hidden peanut butter.Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Yeah.Starr:And that's how you level up a friendship.Ben:There you go. So, yeah, the week was good. The week was good. Bugs got fixed, things got deployed, and, yeah, just a whole-Josh:Yeah, you had a bunch of PRs and stuff for little things, too, which-Ben:Yeah. And got some practice with the whole delegating thing, got Shava doing some stuff, too. So, yeah, just all-around super productive week.Josh:Nice. I got Java to run in a Docker container, so my week's going pretty good.Ben:And that took you all week?Starr:What do those words mean? I don't...Josh:Yeah.Starr:Was your audio cutting out? I don't know. I just heard a bunch of things I don't understand.Josh:Well, for your own sake, don't ask me to explain it.Starr:Yeah, it's like better not looked at.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Why would you subject yourself to that sort of torture, Josh?Josh:Oh, well, because running Java on an M1 Mac is even worse.Starr:Oh my Lord.Josh:Well, actually, running it, period. But, yeah, like just our Java package. I mean, I've spent half this podcast ranting about our packaging, so I don't need to get too deep into it. But every time I release this thing, it's like it just doesn't work because I've forgotten my... I've changed my system, and Java and Maven package repository are just like that. So I figure if I can make some sort of reproduceable development environment using Docker, then in two years everything will just be smooth as a jar of Skippy.Ben:Skippy. Yeah, yeah.Starr:Well, I had a chance to-Josh:I reckon.Starr:I had a chance to dig into some numbers, which is one of my favorite things to do, and so... I don't know. There was this question that was just bothering me, which was... Well, let me just back up. So we've had some success, as you guys know, in the past year. We've almost doubled our rate of new user sign-ups, not new user sign-ups, like conversion to paid users. We've doubled our paid user conversion numbers, rate, whatever you call it. And so, obviously, revenue from users has gone up as well, but since we are a... Our plans are basically broken down by error rates, right? So what happens when people upgrade is they get too many errors for their plan. It says, "Hey, you should upgrade if you want to keep sending us errors," and they do.Starr:I had this weird situation where it's like I wasn't sure... In our system, revenue from users was coming just from whatever plan they picked when they signed up, and so I was wondering, "Well, what if they sign up, and then a week later they upgrade? That's going to be counted under upgrade revenue instead of new user revenue," which, really, it really kind of should be. So I got to digging, and I found that it doesn't really make that big of a difference. Some people do upgrade pretty quickly after converting, but they don't... It's not really enough to really change things.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Then, also, just sort of offhand, I took a little sneak peek. I've been running this experiment to see if lowering our error quota for our basic, our free plan, it would increase conversions. So I took a little sneak peek at the data. It's too soon to know for sure, but so far the conversion rate, I think, is going to end up being higher, which is what I would expect, so that's good, and-Josh:Nice.Starr:Yeah. And when we're done, I'm going to look at sign-ups just to make sure that they are still in line.Ben:Yeah. Anecdotally, I've seen a smaller window from trial to paid conversion. Well, not trial, but freemium to paid conversion. I've seen people who are signing up, getting on the basic plan, and then within some short time period they're actually going to a team plan.Josh:Oh, that's good to know.Ben:That's happening more often than it was, so... Yeah. So that's-Josh:Cool.Ben:I'm just saying the same thing Starr said but without real data.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, we need a little bit more time to see how things pan out, too, because it's... One thing I figured out that I will share with our readers, our readers, I'm used to doing the blog posts, I'll share with our listeners that I figured out that you really have to pay attention to, on free plans especially, is comparing conversion rates between time periods. So if you make a change and then you wait for a month of data to come in and you're like, "Okay, let's look at the conversion rate for the past month after the change with the conversion rate for the time period before the change," that is really an apples to oranges comparison because on the one hand you've had people who have maybe had a year to upgrade versus people who've had a month to upgrade. So you have to be really careful to make it apples to apples, right, where you only compare... If you have a month worth of users on one side, you compare it to a month worth of users on the other side, and you only count the conversions that happened in that time period.Josh:Makes sense.Starr:Yeah. So, anyway, that's just my little freebie data analysis thing for our listeners.Josh:We should have Starr's weekly data science tip.Starr:Starr's data corner.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Love it.Josh:Yeah. We could move the podcast to segments. We've never done segments. We could introduce segments if we need to spice things up on FounderQuest.Ben:Yeah. Totally. Well, speaking of spicing things up, I had a brilliant idea this morning.Starr:Oh, I want to hear it.Ben:Yeah. So one of the things that I keep an eye on is how much we spend on hosting because that's a good chunk of our expenses. We always want to make more money, and one way to make more money is to have fewer expenses. So I had this brilliant idea on how to cut expenses. We can chop our AWS bill in half by just not running everything redundant.Starr:There you go.Josh:Brilliant.Starr:Would you say the AWS is the sixth Honeybadger employee?Ben:Yeah, pretty much.Josh:Yes. That's a good way to put it, actually.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Well, in the early days, before we were paying ourselves a full salary, I remember we budgeted 25% for Starr, 25% for Ben, 25% for Josh, and 25% for hosting.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah, I don't think we ever exceeded the 25%, which is good. That would be a bit high. So, yeah, AWS is like our sixth employee.Starr:Yeah, it's funny because do we even have other expenses?Josh:No.Ben:I mean, salaries is definitely the biggest one, and our health insurance is not cheap either.Starr:Yeah.Ben:Advertising.Starr:I was thinking like marketing, advertising. Yeah.Ben:Yeah. Advertising and marketing, that's the next one.Starr:That's the next 25%.Josh:Can we make AWS our seventh and eighth employee, too?Ben:Eventually may. Yeah, I did some... Oh. Oh. So I told you my great success that I had this morning. Well, your comment just now about AWS made me think about the one failure, just amazingly huge failure that I had also this week, migrating a bunch of data from Redis to DynomoDB. So we have this situation where it's one of those seemed like a good idea at the time kind of thing where we're doing a bunch of counting of people and individuals that hit errors, and we're counting that in Redis. I'm like, "Okay, great," because Redis has this INCRBY and it's easy and it's atomic and, boom, you're done, and I just never paid much attention to it until a few weeks ago, and I was like, "Yo, you know what? That's actually a lot of data in there, and we're keeping that forever, and so it's probably better to put it someplace that's not Redis." So I'm like, "Ah, I know. I'll do DynamoDB because it has an increment thing and...Josh:Yeah.Ben:So I put a table together, and I wrote a migration script, and I migrated a bunch of data. It took two days. It's great. Everything is beautiful. Had buckets of data inside DynomiteDB, and then I went to go query it, and I'm like, "Oh, I can't query it that way because I don't have the right index." Well, that sucks. All right. So you can't create a local index on DynomiteDB without recreating the table. I'm like, "Okay, well, that sucks. I just lost two days worth of data migration but oh well." So dump the table, recreated it with the index, and started redoing the data migration, and I'm like, "Yeah, it might take two days, no problem." So I check on it every half-day or so, and it's not going to be getting done after two days. Three days go by, and I'm checking the work backlog, and I was like, "It's just flat."Ben:Turns out because of that local index, now Dynamo can't really write fast enough because the way they do the partition throttling and stuff because we have some customers who have huge chunks of data. So their partitions are too big for Dynamo to write very quickly. Hot partition keys is the problem. So I just gave up. I'm like, "All right, fine." Drop the table again, recreated it, and now we're just double writing so that, eventually, given six months from now or so, it'll be there and I can replace that thing in Redis.Josh:Nice.Ben:So this is my life, the ups and the downs. So, yeah.Josh:And just waiting six months.Ben:And just waiting six months.Josh:Yeah. That's funny, but that is kind of a pattern in the business. In some cases, we need to just wait for the data to populate itself, and we just have to basically wait our retention period because data tends to turnover and then we can drop the old database or whatever.Ben:Yeah. Yep. But, luckily, nobody noticed my big fail, so it's all good. It didn't impact the customers.Josh:I didn't notice.Ben:So, yeah, busy weekend.Starr:I noticed, but I didn't say anything because I wanted to be nice.Ben:Thank you, Starr. Appreciate that.Starr:Yeah, I [inaudible].Josh:Starr was over there just quietly shaking her head.Ben:Just judging. Just judge-Starr:No, sorry.Ben:So, Josh, I'm going to get back to this Java thing because I'm curious. I remember, I don't know, a year ago or something, we're kind of like, "Maybe we should just not when it comes to Java anymore." So I'm curious what prompted this renewed activity to do a new release.Josh:Well, I don't know. I figured... I don't know. Didn't we say we were just not going to do any releases?Ben:Yeah, it just-Josh:It's not high on my list of development. We're not spending a bunch adding stuff to it, but there are dependency updates that have been getting merged in. I merged the Dependabot PRs and stuff. There's something else. There might be some small PR or something that someone submitted that was sitting there on release, and I just can't handle just unreleased code sitting on the pane. So it's just one of those things that's been sitting on my backlog halfway down the list just gnawing at me every week, so I figured I'd dive in and at least get some sort of quick release, relatively quick release process down so we can just continue to release dependency updates and stuff, like if there's a security update or something, so...Ben:Yeah.Josh:Some people still do use it, so I want to make sure they're secure.Ben:Make sure they're happy. Yeah.Josh:Yeah. But, yeah, that's a good point. We are not treating all platforms as equal because we just don't have the resource, so we need to focus on the stuff that actually is making us money.Ben:Yeah. Yeah, it's tough when very few of our customers are actually using that for it to get a whole lot of priority.Josh:That said, we have already put a lot into it, so as far as I know, it works well for the people that have used it.Starr:So are y'all encouraging our customers to do more Java?Josh:Yes, switch to Java. Then switch to SentryBen:Ride a wave.Josh:... or something.Ben:So I've been contemplating this new laptop showing up, right, whenever Apple finally releases it and I get to get my hot little hands on it. I've been thinking, well, the one big downside to getting a new laptop is getting back to a place where you can actually work again, right, getting all your things set up. Some people are smart, like Josh, that have this DOT file, this repo, on GitHub, and they can just clone that, and they're off to the races. I'm not that smart. I always have to hand-craft my config every time I get a new machine. But I'm thinking-Josh:Oh. Take the time.Ben:So, yeah, I'm not looking forward to that part, but GitHub has released Codespaces, and so now I'm thinking, "Ooh, I wonder if I could get all our repos updated so that I could just work totally in the cloud and just not even have a development set-up on my machine." Probably not, but it's a fun little fantasy.Josh:Well, then you could have any little... You could work on your iPad.Ben:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah, I don't even need a laptop. Then I could save the company money. That's brilliant, Josh.Josh:Yeah. You could work at the library.Starr:Yeah. It's like, "So your main ops guy, I see he's primarily working from a five-year-old iPad."Ben:At a library.Starr:In a library.Josh:An iMac.Starr:When he gets paged, he has to run to the nearest Starbucks and get that wifi.Josh:Yeah. I got to say, having your DOT files all ready to go and all that is pretty good. Also, I've got my Brewfile, too, so all of my Homebrew stuff is automated in that.Ben:Well, that's clever. I never even thought of that.Josh:It does make it very quick to bootstrap a new machine.Ben:Yeah. Maybe I should take this as initiative to actually put my stuff into DOT files repo and get to that point.Josh:Careful, though, because you might... I've had four computers between your current one and now, so you might end up switching more often because it's easier to do it.Ben:Appreciate that warning. That's good.Josh:Yeah. Speaking of the M1s, I love the M1 MacBook Air that I have. But the battery has been... I don't know what happened, but the battery was fantastic, I don't know, first few months. Ever since then, it's been kind of like it hasn't been lasting. I've been surprised at how fast it's draining, and I go and look at, whatever, the battery health stuff, and it says that health is down to 86% and the condition says it's fair, which does not make me feel warm and fuzzy.Josh:It has 50 cycles, so I think it might be defective, and that sucks because otherwise this machine is maybe one of the best Macs I've had. I guess... Yeah. I've had a few compatibility issues with the architecture, but it's not too bad. I mean, I'm not a Java developer at least, so...Ben:Yeah, I think you need to take that in for a service because that is way soon for that kind of degradation.Josh:Yeah. I might need to do something.Ben:That's a bummer.Josh:Yeah. I don't know. I might have to ship it in because I think our local Portland Apple Store is shuttered currently.Ben:All those protests?Josh:Yeah. It's got eight fences around it and stuff. Downtown Portland's a little rough these days.Starr:Yeah.Ben:Well, I mean, you can always take the trip out to Seattle.Josh:Yeah. Oh, yeah. Or there's other... I forget. There's an Apple Store that's not too far outside of Portland. It's where I bought this, so I could take it down there.Starr:Yeah. I'm sad now because I bought my second MacBook from that store in Portland.Josh:Yeah? It's a good store.Ben:Speaking of you coming out to Seattle, I was thinking the other day that maybe we should do a company-wide get-together sometime soon. Be fun to see everybody again in-person.Josh:It would be. Now that we're all vaxxed, we're all super vaxxed. I don't know that Starr is even down for that, though. I'm just looking at Starr.Starr:I don't know. Like, I-Josh:You don't look like you're too stoked on that idea.Starr:I don't know. I'm just-Josh:What with Delta lurking.Starr:The problem is, Josh, is that you have not been reading nursing Twitter.Josh:Uh-huh (affirmative).Starr:So I don't know. Yeah, it's doable. Currently, I think the CDC just released a thing that said vaccine efficiency of preventing COVID infections... It's very good still at preventing bad, I don't know, disease, health problems, whatever, keeping people out of the hospital. It's very good at that. With Delta, it's about 65% effective at preventing infections, and so if you get infected, you can transmit it to other people.Josh:Right.Starr:Yeah. So it's not impossible. It's just like we're just back to this fricking calculus where every possible social interaction you just have to run it through your spreadsheet and your risk analysis and... Ugh.Josh:Yeah.Ben:It's like, "Are you worthy of the hassle? No. Sorry, can't make it."Starr:Yeah. Yeah. It's like, "Okay, so what's the probability that meeting with you is going to send my child to the hospital? Okay, that's low enough. Sure."Josh:Yeah.Starr:It's just such a weird world.Josh:Wouldn't it be funny if when you get into your car in the morning, it reads out the probability of you dying in a car accident?Starr:Oh, yeah. Do you know about millimorts?Josh:No.Starr:Oh, you should go Google millimorts. A millimort is a one in a million chance that you will die, and so there's tables and stuff that you can find online that have different activities and what the number of millimorts is about them. So you can compare, and you can be like, "Okay, so going skydiving has this many millimorts as driving so many miles in a motorcycle."Josh:That's awesome. Okay, we have to link this in the show notes because I want to remember to look this up-Starr:Okay. I'll go find it.Josh:... so that I can depress people.Starr:I think there was a New York Times article, too.Ben:Yeah, I totally have to see this because I just signed up for a motorcycle training course and I'm going to get my endorsements so that I know exactly what kind of risks... Though that's probably part of the course, where they try to scare you out of actually getting your endorsement. They probably...Josh:By the way, I'm really glad my morbid humor or my morbid joke landed because for a minute there-Starr:Oh, I'm sorry, it's a micromort.Josh:Oh, a micromort. Okay.Starr:I was like, "Isn't milli 1000?"Josh:Minimort, like-Starr:Milli is 1000.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah, that grated at me. I know. My old chemistry teachers are just giving me an F right now.Ben:Yeah, I got to see that.Josh:Well, I'm sure you'll be all right, Ben. I mean, the risk of a motorcycle is much higher than a car, but you just can't think about that all the time because the fun... I'm sure the fun is much...Ben:[inaudible].Josh:It's worth it.Ben:It's worth every hazard. Yeah.Josh:Yeah. The risk is worth the reward.Ben:Yesterday, I just hit 250 miles on the odometer on my scooter, so loving that. It's a lot of fun.Josh:That's cool.Starr:That's a lot of miles for a scooter.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Starr:I guess you just love to scoot.Ben:I love to scoot. Well, there you go, Starr. There's our happy ending after that slight dip there.Starr:That slight delay into reality.Josh:I like the dark humor. I don't know. It's always a gamble, though, with depending on... Yeah. But I think, Starr, you're always down to get dark.Starr:Oh, yeah. I'm down with the darkness. All right. Well, should we wrap it up?Ben:Let's wrap it.Starr:Okay. This has been a very witchy episode of FounderQuest, so if you liked it, go give us a review and... Yeah, if not, just keep listening to us. Make it a hate listen. You got to have a couple of those in your line-up. 

Keeping Your Business Sane With Brad Bulow Josh: G’day everyone out there in podcast land. I've got Brad Bulow here and he's an account advisor from Summit Villa and he's here to talk to us about some of the cool things that you can be doing with your books to make sure that you're keeping your mind sane. The last thing I'm going be doing is going insane in the membrane. There's lots of ways to do that with all these different things that are punching out with the government with job keep, the job seeker, all these other different things that are going on it can be lost in in translation, absolutely without having someone there to translate it for you. Learn more on keeping your business sane at dorksdelivered.com.au So Brad, tell me what have you found to be the biggest nightmare when it comes to this COVID crisis? Brad: Josh, what I have found, and thanks for that introduction and trying to make a camping thing sexy might. What I have found with the COVID-19 crisis, Josh is that clients live in Today, they're not living for the future. They're lacking some planes. They're lacking some clarity. They don't have that board chair. So there is panic. It is a tough time for business, but those that are resilient and those that have the foresight and can move and be agile, will survive and will thrive. But I think it's the also the way the government has been, it's been great the government have released some stimulus packages that are there, an asset to help businesses, but I think it's just the understanding of these packages, what's the eligibility criteria. Am I in, am I out, will be eligible in a few months time, I think that's what's created the most, the biggest uncertainty and for our clients, it's just, I suppose, leaning on someone to trust and hopefully, at some of the other that's been our function, we have developed a package and a probably to help clients through the job keeping process. and I suppose it's for a client, it's for a small fee. It's a massive value add that they can receive. So I think it's just all the information, all the propaganda, all the noise, all the noise is really just creating a massive disruption for businesses. But stimulus is there, it's there for short term bridging gap. It's something that we can't rely on forever. And I think the good businesses will still thrive and come and still be around post COVID. Those that probably were precarious pre COVID-19 one, maybe see it through, which is sad, but which is reality. Brad: It's about three weeks of saving Josh, and that's the average Australian I suppose if you're a wage employee or whether you do run your business, it is quite scary. And I think, you know, there's a lot of … I think the first industry to really be hit with, so the hospitality, accommodation, restaurant type businesses and who do employ the tourists, a lot of casual workers, I think within days there were a lot of screams in that sector of people that would not be able to pay rent, would not be able to feed their kids. That is scary. But I think that comes down to sort of the financial literacy education that we probably need to be diving more into at schools and even at adult level as well. But it is quite scary and businesses don't have the ability to sort of see it through if the client doesn't pay the bill, or something bad happens. Josh: We don't know, you don't know. What you said there about learning things at school. Oh, my God, if I'd learnt half of what I learned at school, but swap that out for half of what I've learned after school, I would have been in a significantly better spot. People aren't taught anything about money, economics, how things work, the fractional reserve, how and why banks exists, how and why debt exists, how and how things work, what inflation is, no one knows anything. All I know is that thing over there is nice and shiny. It's got a iPhone with a new number, the other end of it, so let's grab that. Even the other ones kind of maybe nearly working, let's just grab that Brad: Definitely Justin, I can't recall too much of those triggered normal trail calculus sessions I had in grade 12. And I don’t think I deal well in all of them but yeah, right. It's about a textbook and I they don’t tell you so much, a little bit loaded the stuff you get to sort of went on the run. And I think the fundamentals of accounting, and debits and credits, I think it is lost than children and even young adults in business today, you know, the foundations of what makes a good business, what makes a bad business and not living just today, but living for tomorrow as well it’s important. My brother has a business called umbilical tronic college, which is an RTO, which offers program cert twos and threes for in schools in business. And he's got he has his programs running in about 100 schools in Queensland. And I think a lot of those more of those type of courses, a lot of those sort of practical skills. And I think even going back to the Masters I think is the people doing masters, I think which was notoriously known as the veggie mess as opposed to being messy, they probably learned more. So we're dealing in basic maths and dealing currency and money and stuff. Those are people that have the common sense and are probably doing okay. But yeah, understanding in numbers is really important because I can tell a story about your finances and about you how you're tracking. Josh: I was one of those suckers that did math to be messy. So I can tell you all about it as the same parabolic equation matrices and, and shit that no one cares about. Brad: Exactly, not not a few bad. Yeah, bad results in those days as well. Josh: We deal with businesses from all from all walks of life, and we deal with some really, really smart, poor people, and some really, really stupid rich people. And now I've said that I can't say anything about what they do. But know that it comes down to your drive and action to whatever the carrot is at the end. I didn't do well at school either, I get Op 19 so anyone that's listening outside of Australia, that's 19 out of 25, one being the best. Not great. A couple of years later though, I did one of those after education material entry point, uni exam things I came up with OP two. It's a good improvement. huge improvement. Right? So, that's, that's great, but you can't always like hold on to those numbers for any of our younger listeners and shit, okay, I didn't do what I wanted to do and now where I'm at. But what I've learned being in businesses, you need to know where you're if you're a high risk or a low risk investor and how you sit with your finances. Make sure you're very very in love with your cash flow is really important. Make sure you understand your numbers, your forecasts, how long do you have until the day when you're selling something of your own or something like that just to keep your business alive? If your business isn't … you're not meant to be feeding your business your business is meant to be feeding you, and I think it's going to be a big wake up call to the COVID thing with heaps people that are going to be going shit okay we we had a great business and now it's just turn to shit either because the industry's changed because commercial real estate stropping or will be significantly older remote workers. I think it's going to be a lot of people waking up to situation Brad: Yeah, I think you're spot on there, Josh. To me, I think it with businesses and it's often not what this is as far as often an opposite bad businesses, it's cause the people running them and I have you know, we will have clients that might be in maybe lower sort of socio economic jobs right now they might be gardeners or have a lawn mowing business where their earning capacity is probably a lot lower than someone who might be a medical specialists or someone who sells properties on the coast. It comes down I think a lot of the times is personal budgeting as well. You know, I could see and working out what is success and what is wealth to the individual. Is it more time with a family? Is it more money in their pocket, is it more time to exercise? Is it you know, having a having a fleet having a having a bit of bulge in the stomach. But it comes in how you define success obviously some of the happiest people aren't the most wealthiest people but they feel fulfilled because the kids are they've sending the kids to school the kids are doing well sportingly they're living happy lives and I do see some of the more some of the sometimes more miserable people or those that are earning great money but not in careers that they like. Yeah, so I think it's really comes down to fundamentally gone back to those pieces that fall is know your limits. Know your earning capacity. If you if you want to if you need to earn 200 grand a year, don’t buy franchise that cleans windows or scrubs carpet, don't buy into the drinks it's not going to work out for you. But also going back to your point to Josh it's about not throwing all your eggs in one basket as well. It's about diversifying, If you're in a business have a backup plane, if something goes wrong with your core function. Similarly our business we do have a similar accounting and taxation is like bread and butter, but there will be there is the threat of offshoring. There is the automation, there is sort of the risk of AML Compliance fees reducing but it's about having a back up plan. For us that was Yeah, we can help clients more holistically and other consultancy services. We have an HR company, we have a well planning business. It's about if something goes wrong with something I've got a backup plan and the same thing comes to those people invest. If you've got a million dollars to invest, don’t throw it all into stocks. Yeah, yeah. When maybe you bought a property, maybe you diversify your share before it cross 2025 blue chip stocks. Don't put your house that you've worked your whole life to own outright, don't put it on the line to buy that restaurant. Because it feels like a good idea. Josh: Don’t do anything on feelings. Brad: Exactly. And also the gut tells you can't can tell you whether something is right or wrong. But yeah, seek advice and know who to trust about these things. But don't Yeah, I think it just comes down to one know your limitations from a skills and qualifications perspective. And from a financial perspective and to disdain for on the line for one little idea that you think might workout. I agree with you Josh as you said earlier you worked hard when you're young you built some discipline, you've bought a few properties at a young age which gave you a good base to grow and take opportunities and risk when they come. I think that's the same in life today. Don't leave it all to luck. Don't stop focusing on your wealth when your days are numbered when you can't work as hard or as as agile as you once did. I think it's all about planning and it's all about having a back up plan and that's the biggest thing about this COVID-19, which I think it's rise today. Have a back up plan that had that war chest had that ability to to change direction Josh: T he time is now absolutely if you want to action something action and now like you have Ray Kroc started investing and really turned over some dollars when he was 55 that doesn't mean waiting for your 55 and be like something awesome is going to happen. But are you familiar with Parkinson's Law. Brad: Not hundred percent but if give me a 15 second Crash Course. Josh: So Parkinson's Law is the amount of time and I'm probably quoting this terribly now. But the amount of time you have available will pretty much become elastic with the amount of work that you absolutely have to complete. So if you have the assignment due the day before, and you've been used to being been sitting on the desk for six weeks, and you go, shit, I'm going to create this in, you're guaranteed to get it done with the time that you've got available. But if you started six weeks ago, it would have also taken you six weeks. So it's just fills up your valuable time. And I think when you look at time, what I like to the way I look at money, and my time is I look at whatever the action is about to take, is it saving money? Is it creating money? Or is it saving time? And if it doesn't tick any of those boxes, it's not a task that I do. There's a caveat there. Brad: 100%. You got to look at yourself and your own well being. And that's one of those things my bill I think the old saying is they're busy people get things done It's 100% you’re right. And then you write if you sent yourself an hour to, to do that one thing you will take it for later. But if you gotta get four things down now you'll fit it all in. Yep. I think planning is important on one Oh, yeah, go to my desk and there are the post it notes there is the paper frittering all over the place, doesn't mean I'm not playing and I don't know where things are, but it's still not obviously a great safety bloke. But I think have you three things that you want to do on a day in take them off. Everyone loves a sense of accomplishment now that they've gone to work and they've got a few things off the desk even if only takes an hour You know, it's done. Josh: And I think literally taking or putting a line through it is more important than having it written on your computer Notepad or wherever else and then deleting it. Seeing that you had some progress I'll go through books that I like a business plans from like that every two years. I've revisit the business plan like every business owner, yeah. Brad: Yeah, hundred percent is basically one page but have it Josh: Yeah, exactly. You just have a SWOT analysis, your mission statement, it's enough. And I looked through, I achieved all those goals. I've achieved all those goals and I have a look Regional goals are like far out they've morphed and that's what it's about like again talking before we jumped on onto the podcast about setting your plans and knowing that you needed sort of just hit the ground running, don't wait until it's perfect. Brad: If you sit around and wait for the perfect you'll never it'll never get off the ground you know and it is about me in business myself I will sign earlier Josh that you know, I know I've made plenty mistakes or have learned from them. I've made some of those mistakes a couple times but yeah, my biggest priority is probably you know, having a great idea or having a what I think is a good plan but not having the right people steering that ship or working with you to achieve that ultimate goals and it's about communicating to the people that matter what those got that goal is as well so they can all go on the journey with you but everything, you need to plan for anything in life, you know, when you wake up tomorrow and go this I've got to take on a hot stock, it might go okay, but it may well not. Like most things that work out well, you got a long term perspective, a long term plan, anything that seems nice and shiny and apparently guaranteed quick win often doesn't work out. So 100% right, Josh, it's about planning. It's about giving yourself time. But it's not waiting for that perfect day, that perfect storm because opportunity presents itself and you've, you know, sometimes you got to think on your feet and take it. Josh: Anyone in business that's getting out in business today and goes, I'm going to be a millionaire in 12 months. Just stop what you're doing right now. And don't quit your job. Don't quit your job. That's something I've seen so many times that comes to us. Okay, we need to get website, online presence. I want 200 leads coming in a week Brad: And I want to see another cryptocurrency overnight success as well, because that's where I've sort of fallen low false, doing that. Yeah, it can't be easy ways to make to make money. And look, some people are fortunate that there's a lot of people that fall into that trap. Josh: Absolutely. Oh, what I was saying about the Parkinson's Law just circling back a little bit. You have this amount of time. So Parkinson's Law is more about time, but I think it applies just the same to money. I think that people that have more money that comes in somehow find a way to spend more money. And people that are living on a lower income, somehow managed to still get by and sometimes have nicer things than that's a higher income. So if you have someone down the coast property developer that's bringing in $200,000, $400,000 a year for themselves, and then they've got this car and it seems like they seem to somehow have nearly the same parity in expenses. And then if something goes wrong with them, they fall hard as opposed to someone who's like owning, I don't know, 50,000? Brad: Yeah, I think early 60,000 is the average median. Josh: Yeah. So early, early 60s to the early 60s. Seems like those people are still getting along. Still going fine enough. You know, I'm saying from no evidence, no citations perspective, just he said the pub talk but you see people's books and you see what people do. Would you say that that kind of correlates Brad: I think it 100% does, Josh. Now when it comes down to people's personalities and their profiles, how they are raises children, but I think the younger populace of today are a lot more into the consumable spin. They want that first house to be the house that their parents have worked their whole life in to retire in. I think people visit and we do have constant you know that modern collectively a couple modern $300,000 $400,000 a year and have no savings have no have nothing to really show for show for their hard work and their toil because they are living in the moment. I think a lot of it comes down to discipline. Maybe it might need yet man you gotta have multiple bank accounts or different investments where a percentage of pay falls into each week. Brad: But you're right earlier Josh said you gotta hold don't leave things to light when it comes to investing. The whole power of compounding, you have does work out that direction. $10 in you know, $10 invested today reinvested over, you know, over the next you know, 30, 40 years. I'm not smart enough to work it well that will be but more than $10 it will. It's about discipline. It's about making that little bit of sacrifice, and I think people can quite easily do that. Whether they sell a shock, forcing into superannuation, any discipline is better than a discipline, even if, yeah, worst case scenario, we're putting that X amount of dollars into that term deposit. Wanna do 1.6% right now. And yeah, which might only sort of match inflation. So I'm not saying that's an investment strategy worth adopting, but it's better than doing nothing. And in time, that might mean it might turn into a managed fund, it might turn into a deposit or a property, it might turn into a chair portfolio might turn into an investment in the business. It's about discipline, and if you get it right, yeah, I mean, if you can, that in any set 10% you save can become 15%, can become 20% that you actually recycling and putting into investments your return will be a lot much better. Yeah. When you get to that age, and if you sort of leaving in the last five years to make things work Josh: A couple of things actually on that, what do you think about the government's super pullout scheme? Brad: I'm not obviously not a fan. I think you're just stealing for yourself, I think it should be a last resort, superannuation is there for retirement I think they had made some of the conditions to loosen easy for people and tempting for people to take. But the flip side of that from a social conscious perspective understand there are people out there who can't feed their children or really don't know where the next dollar is coming from. Well, I get that from a hardship provision it's better than taking that money than the nasty fallout which could happen on that side. I'm not a fan. I would much rather see our clients in particular use other sort of stimulus measures that are out there whether it be job sake, a job keeper. The cash flow boost is a lot. There's a lot of stuff out there, which hasn't hit every button but I'm hoping most people have had some sort of financial support, but I am, I think the superannuation one was a necessity, but I'm not obviously a fan of that because that's somebody that you’ve worked for, and you're going to be paying and you are technically paying for Josh: That's completely fair enough. I agree completely unless you absolutely have to. It's better just to sort of keep doing thing. Brad: And I don't think it's also just to it's an education around super, I think not many people look at their superannuation funds as a real investment until they do get closer to that retirement age as well. And I, you know, obviously, I do have a wealth planning business, I will not declare conflict here, but I think it's about acknowledging supers for a lot of people. superannuation will be the biggest asset that they will build outside of their house and it sort of their personal successes and triumphs. So something we spoke about compounding before and the difference that you might get from a standard fund that might give you a 6% return of a life. Yeah, well for the investment as opposed to maybe the average IC return which is either 9% it will make a difference in retirement as well. So I think there needs to be better education around superannuation. It's not just something that employers putting on habits in doing and not care about, yeah, it is an actual real asset and you're only taxed 15% on money that is invested in superannuation, contributions, early tax of 15% going in as well. It's a good low tax environment and it's something we shouldn't be playing with because it is it is that that is your rainy day investments. And when you do retire, we don't want to be living on a $400 a week government pension. So if it's still around, jury's out on that, if you want that goal of being self funded bowl, yeah, treat that super as a real asset and try not to touch it Josh: Will government give me like advantages to chucking additional coin in there you could put 1000 in a match 500 or something like that? Brad: There is the government co contribution it has it used to be 1000 4000 entities, it is probably phasing and in terms of the monetary benefit, and it does only apply to people who will sort of allow middle income salary but yeah, the government is obviously has made superannuation enticing investment vehicle due to the low tax rates and, and I you know, when in saying that I have been disappointed in a lot of us that they have sort of reduced the concessional contributions capped at $25,000, where it used to be a hell of a lot more. So it is harder to get money into super so you haven't, once again, I sort of get into back into that argument that yeah, if you can avoid dragging money at a super please do so. I'd much rather someone borrow some money from a family member to get them through this little crisis than draw money in which they had no intention of contributing into. Josh: This is this is a different problem. This is this is a money problem than a business problem. The problem that I've had for many, many, many years is I've looked at what I've been earning and I've been benchmarking what I've been earning against what I had been earning, or what I've been saving against what I had been saving, not knowing at all if I was sitting in a good position because I'm cashflow positive, or what the average spreaker is doing around the place. Is it sensible for a business to be sitting cashflow positive? Sounds like a stupid question, but I'm sure many businesses out there are not. And is it sensible for a business to be borrowing money or investing your own money and is it, I guess that comes down to the risk assessment? What are you what you're investing into? Brad: Josh, it comes down to borrowing, borrowing can be a powerful tool, if you're obviously using that borrowed money to invest in the right type of asset. Also, you don't want to have high interest bearing debt, things like credit cards, pawnbroking lines. Withdrawals once again, can work. But once again, it depends on what you're using that withdrawal for. If you're going to get a return on that investment, whether it be bought, you know, use net redraw to buy a property comes into that investment. Positively good, can be good, and generally it’s good I'd rather possibly deed property than negatively geared property, even though your tax benefits might be less, you're hopefully still going to be ahead but also comes down to what is that asset as well. You might have a positive geared property that you might be getting a 5% return on investment on and have minimal debt on that is actually ground value as well. That comes down to what is the income return? Yes. But is there a capital growth return on that investment as well? And some people might tell me the last 10 to 12 years Depending where you're investing your money in terms of property, there probably has been a flat property market. Brad: I think we're talking earlier, Josh about our first properties that we bought and I bought my first property when I was 21 in the sleepy town of Brasil, Ipswich and paid 83 grand for my parents … my wife. Now Carly and I were crazy. doing such a thing. Yeah, like spending that hundred $50 a week on the loan repayment. We were out in probably earning, I don't know, $100 could bond but it was the best decision we ever made because what it created and the property market moved. We've built some equity and build a good foundation where we can sort of continue our investment journey as well. So I think although we're not going to get the massive jumps in property prices once again, it comes down to discipline, but it comes down to using debt for the right reasons. And the end of the day, Josh using redrawn on your timeline to keep pouring money into a business which isn't growing, which is stagnating is going backwards. I don't think it's a sensible thing to do. Speak to your advisor and work out well. Is it worth putting good money after bad as well? Sometimes borrowing can be good, but it's a case by case scenario. Josh: So if you if you're in a position where you had a business and it's a no we're talking about low margin businesses stuff if you're turning over 100K and you see it's good and it's after all your expenses, maintenance and all your equipment. And I'm just using this is a nice simple example. But if you have $100,000 business and you Okay, cool, it's sitting there positive everything's good. You're more than capable to go to the bank and go and grab five more lawn mowers, five more right on zero 10s hedge, yep whippersnappers, whatever you whatever you got to get, and you could then have stopped with five and then you have the debt but you got your short term debt to then grow the business obviously you do it more organically and just smash on 500% increase in your business. But if you go okay, it's already working. It's already good. Does that come down to like the risk per se Brad: Yeah. And I'm speaking to earlier today, just before we got caught up and I'm a massive advocate for behaviour profiling. We as a business off of that too. Well, cons as well and I think it's worked amazingly well for me as a decided and I myself personally what my behaviours and my personality profile is what things motivate me, what things stress me. I think it does come down to the individual but it also comes down to what you want and aspirations are as well. But for some people not employing staff and working to your own you know working to your own accord not having any risk in life. You can still be happy and earn hundred thousand dollars a year and you know me obviously hopefully they structured in a company or somewhere where they're paying minimal tax on that hundred thousand dollars, Josh, but at the same time they people do want to grow they've got an expanding family they want to you know, get the kids into a job or a business they and their wife might not work so they need to sort of put some additional funds into the family budget, maybe on another you know, on another round or on another machine might be a smart thing to do but I think a lot of it comes down to as I said before an area where I've sort of you know probably have fallen in the past is putting too much faith in people. Or not telling me to put in pretty much faith or trust in people's is picking the wrong person for the job, you know. Brad: So there might be another area you want to invest in, there might be another sideline component you want to add to the business, but have the right person, have a person who has a complementary style to you, has the same ethics and morals as you and someone who's not going to create just more headaches and more problems as well. So I think a lot of it comes down to having the investment. Is it the right investment for me, is it part of my values? Is it part of my overarching plan, but secondly, is that person someone of credibility and someone I can work with, and trust. Most often, I've seen people expand a business and the business goes south pretty quickly, because we've got people who don't have the same values as them and people who are, I suppose, not loyal and not sticking to the business but sticking to themselves and just, yeah, and then let that business down. So it often depends on the person depends on what their goals are. But often there's someone in as you mentioned before someone's earning 100 grand a year with minimal fuss and minimal complications. Feels a bit wrong to say but often they'll probably be better off sticking to that, sticking to that plan and, and a country is full of successful self employed people or people might only have one extra additional employee. why have the stress? Why complicate it Josh: I completely agree I learned many, many years ago, they're all going have the biggest IT company in Australia. I don't want that. I don't want that. Cool to say to pub, I guess. Brad: Yeah, it feels good for a minute, but not good for your blood pressure. Probably not good for any relationship you're in as well. But we define success differently. A number of great businesses that have grand or normal size and normal scale and almost reputation, but often they've had good people. And you can't get there just on your own. Josh: No, and even if you've got good people I think that you can have if you're really great at mowing lawns, it does not mean that you're really great at managing people. You could have a high IQ and a terrible EQ, and then you're not going to get a mission understand people's problems, and that then means that you might have the best business but not the best person Brad: Hundred percent Josh like said it's often use the old trading scenario they do even a fourth year finish they tried ploy works out there. Yeah, they're too expensive so they got to go around and become a contractor and then they got to around GST registration, they got to start watching their own bears, you got to start keeping an accounting file. They got to start sourcing their own insurance, they need to need to work out what's the best mobile phone deal? What software do I need to run my database? It’s all these conversations come to us and you start to think about technology. You start to think about mobile phone technicians you start to think about bookkeeping support, accountants, insurance companies, it's messy and who do you trust? Who do you turn to? What referrals do you take on board? You can complicate your life pretty quickly and look, anyone is a massively successful and created a huge wealth has probably gone through these complications and thrive, but some people just haven't got it and they make up and they set up. And I think it's important that one, know yourself and know your limitations before you sort of go on a journey that could end in tears Josh: Think of that way you're going to be and you're going to enjoy that work. And if you're not, probably don't walk that road. Brad: Know yourself, know your limitations, know what type what it takes for you to burn out, and we will have our limits and we're all wired differently, doesn't mean you're a failure it just means that you're better at other things than the person next to you. Josh: Albert Einstein said if you measure the success of a fish's ability to climb a tree, you'll think fish is stupid forever. It's been great talking with you. And yeah, it's been it's been great having on the show, and if anyone is interested in talking to Brad, we'll Chuck a link in here to his website so that you can see a bit more information, maybe get your books, and maybe make sure that you're doing the video that you should be doing. And the last question I've got for you is if they had to read something to put them in business stance after they've just had this whiplash from COVID, what would you say they should be reading? Doesn't have to be an exact book, but what should they, what resources should they be utilising? Brad: There's a lot of resources out there, Josh, and I'm not I'm not going to stick into one book in particular. But for me, it's about anything that makes you unique or different. And I know as an accountant, I'm not going to go and read textbooks on accounting or tax but I'm going to read other books that might help me in other areas that I think might be beneficial clients and give me a competitive edge. So might be around things like leadership, how to influence people, different types of selling strategies. So I'm not a massive reader, or do you like yeah, my little quote, so little bursts of inspiration. So I think it's just about knowing you as a person and just being an interesting person to converse with and just learn about the world. Read the paper, buy the fin review, just read different this read different things on myself if I'm like three kids at home and I work long hours, so it's often fall asleep after five minutes. Well, so I think, right things that inspire you, read things that motivate you. But yeah, I think just be aware, just be aware, just be aware of what's going on in the world. Josh: But just don't use Facebook as a source. Brad: No, exactly right and just yet, just be someone who's buried and has multiple interests on it. It just means you're going be able to relate to a lot more people and make life a lot more interesting. Josh: So well, Brad, it's been great talking to you. And if anyone out there would like to jump across to iTunes, leave us some love. Give us a review and any feedback you have. That'd be great. Otherwise, stay healthy out there in the COVID crisis and look forward to tuning in soon. Brad: Thanks Josh.

Tennessee's 19-game winning streak will be on the line Saturday night when the Vols play at Kentucky. Today's show will get you ready for the huge game between two top 5 teams. The Locked on Vols podcast is available every day on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. And good news: the Locked on Vols podcast is now available on Spotify! .• Segment 1: Josh Ward talks to Grant Ramey of GoVols247 about Tennessee's game at Kentucky. How big is this game and will Tennessee's players be able to feed off the crowd at Rupp Arena?• Segment 2: Hear from senior Admiral Schofield and coach Rick Barnes as they discuss the magnitude of their game at Kentucky and making sure they stay focused and don't make too much of the matchup. Also, another ranking for 2019 has Tennessee's football team in the top 25. Hear about it in segment No. 2.• Segment 3: Josh Will talk to Kyle Tucker of Locked on Kentucky and The Athletic about Saturday's basketball game. Learn more about UT's upcoming opponent. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tennessee's 19-game winning streak will be on the line Saturday night when the Vols play at Kentucky. Today's show will get you ready for the huge game between two top 5 teams. The Locked on Vols podcast is available every day on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. And good news: the Locked on Vols podcast is now available on Spotify! . • Segment 1: Josh Ward talks to Grant Ramey of GoVols247 about Tennessee's game at Kentucky. How big is this game and will Tennessee's players be able to feed off the crowd at Rupp Arena? • Segment 2: Hear from senior Admiral Schofield and coach Rick Barnes as they discuss the magnitude of their game at Kentucky and making sure they stay focused and don't make too much of the matchup. Also, another ranking for 2019 has Tennessee's football team in the top 25. Hear about it in segment No. 2. • Segment 3: Josh Will talk to Kyle Tucker of Locked on Kentucky and The Athletic about Saturday's basketball game. Learn more about UT's upcoming opponent. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Josh Will, and Rob went to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens opening night, and of course that's all they could talk about. THIS EPISODE CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS. DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE.

Robert Omoto sits with Josh Will who is dropping everything to pursue a career in professional golf. They talk about the upcoming Frys.Com Tournament, what it will take mentally to succeed, and why now is the time.