Tough economic times and the value of hard cash. These are lessons you can either learn the hard way or be prepared. If you are cash rich today, the world is your oyster. But that does not mean that if you have cash people will have realistic asks. I read a pretty interesting negotiation tactic from Casey Mericle about real estate acquisitions and how even in a down market people price assets incorrectly, but if you have cash and you are a trusted buyer, the odds stack up in your favor.

It went like this:

You: My offer is $1,000,000

Seller: It’s worth $2,000,000

Y: Whew, idk about that. But you need cash today for something is that right?

S: Yes

Y: How about this I’ll buy it at $1MM & give you an option to buy it back for a year at $1.1 MM That way you can take that cash to go solve a problem & I can buy something

We’ll both agree that if you don’t come back it wasn’t really worth $2MM, because if it was you would’ve bought it again

But in the meantime you’ve got your fingers on my money & your property What do ya say?

This may not be realistic every time but it should give you food for thought on optionality. Always give people optionality. Demanding that someone change their behavior is like trying to accelerate your car out of quicksand. The more you push, the further they sink.

This is because all humans have an innate psychological need for autonomy. Autonomy is the desire to feel in control of our own behavior. Every day, we seek to demonstrate this autonomy through our own agency, or our capacity to act independently and make our own choices. When our agency is threatened, we lack the motivation to act.

So, when we want to influence others to change their behavior, we need to provide them with autonomy and the choice to choose. If we try to control their behavior, we will only backfire and make them more resistant to change.

If you are guilty of relying on control when attempting to change behavior, read the above again, instead give them optionality.

Life is not about things. It’s not how you define success. It is most certainly not about shortcuts to achieve any of the perceived worldly things that you think matter today. What ever your age, you need un learn what life is really about. I came across the fantastic post that makes you think about your outcomes in a profoundly different way.

In a 1992 interview, Marian Wright Edelman was asked what she would like to tell her own children about how to find meaning amidst a world where we are bombarded with materialistic views.

The list of values she shared over 31 years ago rings as true today as it did back then:

"My basic message to them first is that I just love them more than I can ever say. And there's nothing they can ever do or say that can ever take away that love."

"As they leave home, I go with them in my prayers and they are never alone."

"Despite the messages of this culture which say that life is about things, about acquiring, about fame, and about prestige that's not really what life is about. What's really important is caring for other people and trying to leave the earth better than you found it. It's about things inside that matter."

• "Despite what they say about success, what success really has to be, what my father and mother taught me is about serving. That serving is the rent that everybody pays for living. 

Those with extra intellectual and material gifts have an obligation and a responsibility and a privilege of reaching back and helping others."

The message couldn't be clearer, If you are a parent, extend unconditional love to your children. If you are a young adult, make sure you over index on caring because that alone will enhance your outcomes.

That the Pink Panther cartoon show was created due to the success of the character in the opening credits of the Pink Panther films. There is a great lesson in there, about un intended consequences and building and capitalizing on adjacent markets and businesses. When you build one thing, but it creates opportunity else where do not be married to the solution be married to the problem and use different solutions to solve for different problems.

Process e-books. What the…

One persons boring mundane process expertise or knowledge may be an other persons time saver, life saver, money saver. How you ask?

It is simple, imagine that you recently went through becoming an immigrant in a new country, you likely googled every thing there was from getting there, the local laws, customs, libraries, transportation, food and housing choices.

It was likely that by the time you were done with the process, it was not the same as others describing it on the internet. You perhaps got 70% of the way based on advice, but some things were likely not applicable to you or they missed details that you cared about. But now you know better. So will you monetize that?

Know this. There are 100s if not 1000s like you. If you get in to the habit of making process notes (they could range from immigration to making keto cauliflower pizza) and sharing your unique experiences with a fantastic summary that comes free before the purchase of the document, you could literally take the life you are living and monetize it for 1.99$ ebook per process for simple ones and maybe 5$ for more detailed ones.

Ask your self what would you pay to get authentic step by step guide for some thing that is important in your life? Then evaluate what areas you could write such process e-books about. Do the first one. Put it out there. You will be surprised. Marketmaking in a connected work is as easy as a FB post or a Craigs list, listing. Find your calling and build your one person process e-book library to enhance your outcomes today.

Finite & Infinite Games" by James Carse

Lessons:

• Everything in life is a game

• Finite games are played for the purpose of winning -Infinite games are played for the purpose of continued play/joy

An epic piece of writing from the book full of profound lessons..

“Infinite players cannot say when their game began, nor do they care. They do not care for the reason that their game in not bounded by time. Indeed, the only purpose of the game is to prevent it from coming to an end, to keep everyone in play." Sounds mysterious? It is. We play infinite games as long as we live, and the finite games we play are there not only to compensate (or to maintain under control the anxiety and) our ignorance of who wins at last in the infinite version, but also to be prepared against, and to be educated for the surprises and twists that life put in front of us:

To be prepared against surprise is to be 'trained.' To be prepared for surprise is to be 'educated.”

By learning to use reddit. Ive said this time and again, I have shared examples. Here is perhaps the most interesting and replicable thread Ive ever read on the subject. If you learn one new thing this weekend, let it be this:

Making money on the internet. Not just talking about it, but 10 real opportunities for content writers to try their hand at extra income. This fantastic list was shared on twitter, if you make use of it, be sure to let the person who tweeted this, know that their post had an impact on your outcomes.

Bonus! Thought of the week

In our effort to achieve perfection some times we over look the obvious(that every thing cant be perfect every time) to make mistakes to take detours, is to be human. Make sure you are not always over indexing on perfection and that you know that being sloppy also works, when you are aware…