Past Posts
- Investing in Stories as an Asset Class
- Agency Journey Episode 50 (Y18M5)
- Agency Journey Episode 49 (Y18M4)
- The Agency Feedback System
- Agency Journey Episode 48 (Y18M3)
- Agency New Business Sales Basics
- Agency Journey Episode 47 (Y18M2)
- Following Other People’s Advice
- Agency Journey Episode 46 (Y18M1)
- A Tale of Two Agency Owners
- Agency Journey Episode 45 (Y17M12)
- Thoughts on Reinvesting Agency Profits
- Agency Journey Episode 44 (Y17M11)
- Simple and Repetitive
- Agency Journey Episode 43 (Y17M10)
- Pros and Cons of Small and Big Projects
- Agency Journey Episode 42 (Y17M9)
- Agency Journey Episode 41 (Y17M8)
- 2023: An Annual Review
- Agency Journey Episode 40 (Y17M7)
- When Agency Business Operators Get Blindsided
- Agency Journey Episode 39 (Y17M6)
- Control What We Can Control
- My Personal Finance Snapshot (November 2023)
- Agency Journey Episode 38 (Y17M5)
- From 2 Contacts to Many More
- Agency Journey Episode 37 (Y17M4)
- Levers to Achieve Project Profitability
- Agency Journey Episode 36 (Y17M3)
- How Well Do You Know Your Agency Business? Try These 25 Questions
- The Agency Cold Start Problem
- Agency Journey Episode 35 (Y17M2)
- How Much Cash Reserves Makes Sense for An Agency Business?
- Agency Journey Episode 34 (Y17M1)
- Resisting Complacency in Business
- Reassessing My Definition of Success
- Agency Journey Episode 33 (Y16M12)
- Lessons from “Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service”
- Agency Journey Episode 32 (Y16M11)
- Agency Business Lessons: Distilled and Oversimplified
- Agency Journey Episode 31 (Y16M10)
- Four Things to Consider for My Forties
- Agency Journey Episode 30 (Y16M9)
- A Beautiful Day
- Agency Journey Episode 29 (Y16M8)
- Agency Lead Sources and Going Deeper with Each
- 2022: An Annual Review
- Agency Journey Episode 28 (Y16M7)
- Agency Annual Financial Planning Tool
- Agency Journey Episode 27 (Y16M6)
- The 10 Times Question: What Happens to Your Business When You 10X?
- The Satisfactions of a Small Business Owner
- Agency Journey Episode 26 (Y16M5)
- Agency Journey Episode 25 (Y16M4)
- Unproductive Thoughts of an Agency Owner
- Agency Journey Episode 24 (Y16M3)
- Building Willpower
- My Personal Finance Snapshot (August 2022)
- Agency Journey Episode 23 (Y16M2)
- Continually Evolving Thoughts on Talent and Hiring Vol. 2
- Transformative Books We Read Together as a Leadership Team
- Agency Journey Episode 22 (Y16M1)
- Strong Company Culture vs. Weak Company Culture
- Agency Journey Episode 21 (Y15M12)
- Resisting the Urge to Problem Solve
- Ten Reminders for When Times Are Tough
- Agency Journey Episode 20 (Y15M11)
- The Emotional Bank Account Applied to Agency Business
- Agency Journey Episode 19 (Y15M10)
- 8 Ways Client Projects Get Delayed and How to Avoid Them
- Agency Journey Episode 18 (Y15M9)
- These 25 Ad Headlines from 60+ Years Ago Work Just as Well Today
- Agency Journey Episode 17 (Y15M8)
- Lessons from The Joy of Selling by Steve Chandler
- Cost, Frequency, and Value in Discretionary Spend
- 2021: An Annual Review
- Agency Journey Episode 16 (Y15M7)
- Common Opportunities in Growing E-commerce Businesses Vol. 2
- Agency Journey Episode 15 (Y15M6)
- Networking: Tactics and Lessons for Connecting with Other People
- Agency Journey Episode 14 (Y15M5)
- Exploring Personal Dreams
- Agency Survival: Handling Challenging Times for the Business
- Agency Journey Episode 13 (Y15M4)
- The Five Omissions of Reward-Centered Leaders from “The Motive” by Patrick Lencioni
- Agency Journey Episode 12 (Y15M3)
- Operating Rules Vol. 3 (Diet Edition)
- Agency Journey Episode 11 (Y15M2)
- Five Types of People Success to Celebrate in Business
- Agency Journey Episode 10 (Y15M1)
- Minimizing Regrets With How I Spend My Time
- My Personal Finance Snapshot (June 2021)
- Agency Journey Episode 9 (Y14M12)
- Minding My Own History
- Agency Journey Episode 8 (Y14M11)
- Portfolio Spring Cleaning & New Investment Approach
- Recent Stock Buys #3: Redfin, Twitter, Dropbox, Teladoc, and More (March 2021)
- Finding Value in Quantity
- Agency Journey Episode 7 (Y14M10)
- Client Experience vs. Quality Work
- Dark Moments and Counters
- Desired Future State for Our Culture
- Recent Stock Buys #2: 10 Picks Including Adobe, Snowflake, Asana, and The Trade Desk (Jan. & Feb. 2021)
- Agency Journey Episode 6 (Y14M9)
- Agency Journey Episode 5 (Y14M8)
- Recent Stock Buys #1: 8 Picks Including Airbnb, IAC, and Stitch Fix (Dec. 2020 & Jan. 2021)
- 2020: Habits That Stuck
- Agency Journey, Episode 4 (Y14M7)
- The Fundamentals of Knowledge Workers Revisited
- A Matrix for Qualifying New Business Opportunities
- Agency Journey, Episode 3 (Y14M6)
- Reviewing My 2020 Stock Investing Activity
- Agency Journey, Episode 2 (Y14M5)
- Q3 2020 Habits & Goals Report Card
- My Personal Finance Stack 2020: 6 Months Later
- Agency Journey, Episode 1 (Y14M4)
- Operating Rules Vol.2
- The No Exit Approach to Agency Business
- Winning Factors: What Leads to Client Wins
- Undoing a Culture of Fear
- Set Up to Fail, Failed to Set Up
- Exploring Client Concentration in an Agency Business
- What If We Had Invested In the Software Companies We Use at Work?
- Highlights from Corporate Turnaround Artistry by Jeff Sands
- Crisis Management: Dealing with COVID-19 as an Agency
- Q1 2020 Habits & Goals Report Card
- My Personal Finance Stack 2020: Coronavirus Crisis Edition
- The Upside of Having Struggled
- Hindsight: Why 2015 Was A Bad Year for the Agency
- Calculating Project Profits at a Creative Services Agency
- Highlights from What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence by Stephen A. Schwarzman
- Lessons from Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen
- The Downstream Impact of New Business Decisions on an Agency Business
- My Single Stock Purchases of 2019
- 2019: Habits That Stuck
- Playing in the Capitalist Economy
- Small Agency Owner Compensation
- Lessons from Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday
- Lessons from Orphan X and His Ten Commandments
- Lessons from The E-Myth Chief Financial Officer
- Reflecting on The 11 Laws of The Fifth Discipline (from Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline)
- Operating Rules Vol.1
- My Personal Finance Stack 2019
- 2018: Habits That Stuck
- Lessons from Atomic Habits by James Clear
- Continually Evolving Thoughts on Talent and Hiring
- Common Opportunities in Growing E-commerce Businesses Vol. 1
- Exploring Daily Commitments
- Being Short and Embracing Setbacks from Astroball by Ben Reiter
- The Discipline of Joy & More Thoughts on Off the Clock by Laura Vanderkam
- Thoughts on Off the Clock by Laura Vanderkam and My Time Diary Experiment
- The Importance of Marketing to Existing Clients from Managing the Professional Service Firm
- Lummi Island and The Willows Inn in Washington
- Systems Archetypes from The Fifth Discipline and How They Apply to a Digital Agency
- Personal Mastery from The Fifth Discipline
- The Seven Learning Disabilities from The Fifth Discipline
- The Importance of Client Satisfaction
- Halfway Through My Thirties, How’s It Going?
- Lessons from Pricing Creativity by Blair Enns
- What are My Deliberate Practice Opportunities?
- Themes from Our Partner Retreat
- The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of Excellence Josh Waitzkin (Quotes & Thoughts)
- 2017: Habits That Stuck
- Favorite Books of 2017
- Netflix Culture Deck: 7 Slides to Remember
- The Spiritual Journey
- Favorite Quotes from The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
- The Importance of Training in an Organization
- Level, Listen, and Leave Yourself Out
- How (and Why) I Built an E-commerce Store in Under 8 Hours
- My Personal Finance Stack 2017
- Tower Defense and Business Management
- Thoughts on “Exactly What to Say: The Magic Words for Influence and Impact” by Phil M. Jones
- Personal Accountability and the Pursuit of a Boring Culture
- The Fundamentals of Knowledge Workers
- Lessons from The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker: Know Thy Time
- Process is Habits for Business
- Revisiting Good to Great and the Stop Doing List
- Avoiding the Effort Heuristic in Client Work
- 11 Years of Barrel, Some Lessons
- Pointing the Finger Inward
- Basic Decision Patterns
- Examining the State of Distraction
- Trying to Get Smarter with Mental Models
- Breathing to Ten
- Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now by Gordon Livingston (Quotes & Thoughts)
- Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown (Quotes & Thoughts)
- 2016: Habits that Stuck
- Learning to Run Pain-Free
- Memorable Fiction: Books I Haven’t Forgotten
- Am I Getting Enough Protein Without Meat?
- Organizing Clothes
- Lessons from Toughness by Jay Bilas
- The Foundation of Growth Concept
- Escaping Bad Habits at Work
- Inventorying Some Small Pleasures
- Looking Back on an Eventful Month
- Thoughts on Running the Brooklyn Half Marathon
- A Progress Report of Sorts
- Was It Sleep?
- 10 Miles on a Cold Day
- Grove Ave, a New Business Venture with Friends
- Visualizing Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People
- What I Ate and Drank Today
- Lessons to Remember from 2015
- 2015: Habits that Stuck
- What I Learned from Watching HBO’s Hard Knocks
- Reading Notes July 2015
- Reading Notes May/June 2015
- 9 Years of Barrel, Advice for Myself
- Investing Fundamentals
- Lots of Writing Elsewhere
- Personal Finance Stack 2015: Making Up for Lost Time in My Thirties
- Lessons from The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker: Making Meetings Productive
- Slow, Incremental Training for a Sprint Distance Triathlon
- Designing for Clients: Thinking Beyond How It Looks
- What Creates Brand Loyalty?
- Fending Off My Passive-Aggressive Ways at Work
- StrengthsFinder Redux
- Identifying Team Strengths
- War Room Sessions
- Lessons Learned from a Year of Writing
- Off-site Planning Retreat
- Four Books I Remember from 2014
- My Battle Against Email is a Battle Against Myself
- Playing Dominion
- The Impact of Small Self-Imposed Rules
- Thoughts on Negative Glassdoor Feedback
- Remove Those Silly Bars on Resumes
- What I Look for in Young Candidates
- A Few Ideas for Enhancing Our On-boarding Experience
- Themes on My Mind
- Building Capacity Before Going for the New Hire
- Why I’m Against Quantifying Productivity
- The Meeting as Experience Design
- What Can I Do? Thoughts on Nurturing a Culture of Self-Initiative
- Imminent Behavior Adjustments: Asking for Input and Being Open to Feedback
- Proactive Communication Relieves Employee Anxieties
- Five Podcasts I’ve Been Listening to Lately
- Sports Analogy: The Program
- Time Remaining
- Three Things to Consider for My Thirties
- E-commerce for First-time Sellers: Start Small, Focus on Sales
- Loving Brunch at Home
- Idea: Access to Company Materials
- New Website
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