Running your own business can feel like it’s you against the world. Especially in the early days.
However, no one has to fly solo. Help is out there and it’s just a matter of knowing where to find it.
Cultivated properly and nurtured frequently, business mentors and friends can turn into some of the biggest assets you have, outside of your own staff. Their guidance, ideas and counsel can help your business grow and turn you into a better leader.
Here are some tips that have worked for me:
Verb conjugation became muddled. Which was correct? “I am a neurosurgeon,” “I was a neurosurgeon,” “I had been a neurosurgeon before and will be again”? Graham Greene felt life was lived in the first 20 years and the remainder was just reflection. What tense was I living in?
According to Healthcare.gov, self-insurance is a “type of plan … where the employer itself collects premiums from enrollees and takes on the responsibility of paying employees’ and dependents’ medical claims.” Insurance services such as enrollment, claims processing and provider networks can be handled in-house, but are more frequently managed by a third-party administrator (TPA) or an insurance company.
General Motors Wednesday introduced the Chevrolet Bolt, the first long-range, plug-in electric car that real people can afford to drive.
Priced around $30,000 (after government rebates), the five-passenger Bolt has an electric range of around 200 miles, more than enough for families to use as their daily driver without fear of running out of juice. Most people would never need to recharge anywhere but home. But if you do, you can refill the battery to 80 percent of capacity in about 30 minutes.
That’s the weird thing about getting older. There’s no magic eight ball. There’s no manual. There’s no great big cheat sheet. You don’t generally know that you’ve gotten it right until you’ve made it through to the other side. That’s especially true when it comes to money.
The whole thing got me thinking: wouldn’t it be great if there really was a cheat sheet for getting older? One targeted to finance? What if there was a list of what you absolutely needed to know about money written by folks who have already been forced to make those tough calls?
In 2008, Regent University law professor James Duane gave a lecture. The lecture gained traction online over the years (one version of the lecture video is up to five million YouTube views), but now it’s being rediscovered by fans of the hit Netflix show “Making A Murderer” on Reddit.
Much of Duane’s lecture feels particularly relevant given the relationship between the police and the suspects (innocent and otherwise) on the show.
Chris Inglis has worked in intelligence most of his adult life. He’s tall, imposing and speaks with precision.
Debates about encryption technology — like the ones that cropped up after last month’s terror attacks in Paris — are nothing new to him. Reports that ISIS is using apps with encryption tech to hide their conversations don’t surprise him. He was the deputy director of the NSA and saw dozens of times when encryption was an obstacle in pursuing a target.
He couldn’t get into specifics but explained broadly: The agency might identify an adversary through financial transactions, or by following the chain of possession for weapons. But if the target was using some form of encrypted messaging, the NSA would lose the last piece of the puzzle.
“The worst case scenario is that we fail to see a plot that essentially is on the fly … and that we only see it when it’s in execution,” Inglis said. “At that moment in time, you’re reacting to a disaster in the making as opposed to staving one off. That’s the threat, that’s the challenge.”
I want to focus on what Branson, a self-made billionaire, who is more often right than wrong, said about ride-sharing not being a “winner-takes-all” market. What Branson says is generally true for companies that sell analog products, such as packaged goods or soda, or analog services, such as air travel. Coke isn’t going to drive Pepsi out of business, and Toyota isn’t going to eliminate Honda.
Here’s the good news: Airfares are down. According to fare-prediction app Hopper, rates in September dropped a substantial 18 percent from the previous year. And all signs point to a bottoming-out this month, at an average domestic round-trip price of $204. Now, the bad: Airline consolidation and the continued softening of the European economy, among other concerns, have some analysts nervous about the future of flying. But don’t panic just yet. Although the following warning signs seem to indicate that things could get worse for fliers, there may be ways to ease at least some of the pain.
There are important differences between entrepreneurs and wantrepreneurs that explain why some business people succeed against all odds, while most fail. It isn’t always easy to predict who will come out on top in the competitive world of business. Lenders, investors and prospective business associates considering a relationship with an entrepreneur should carefully evaluate possible liaisons based on the list below. The question to answer is whether the business owner is a committed and focused entrepreneur or a wantrepreneur destined to fail.
Entrepreneurs are passionate about their business and are willing to make it the top priority in their life, in sharp contrast to wantrepreneurs who may talk about their dream but are unable to focus on the business and give it the necessary attention required to succeed.
Dispatches From The Front 