Quote I’m Pondering

My brother sent me this quote from the book “Doesn't Hurt to Ask: Using the Power of Questions to Communicate, Connect, and Persuade” by Trey Gowdy, which I submit to you for reflection in these tumultuous times: 

"The world will be a quieter, less hostile place if we replace the desire to shout with the desire to be heard, if we replace the desire to win the argument with the desire to move the person who wants to argue, and if we reserve for ourselves some of the toughest questions we can conjure up."

Ask questions and try to understand where people are coming from! You’ll have a better understanding of the world and a whole lot more empathy for your fellow humans. 

Rebel Entrepreneur Podcast: Season 2 Launch

Alan Donegan is back with Season 2 of the Rebel Entrepreneur Podcast! It is one of my favorite podcasts, so I’m incredibly excited. This week, along with his PopUp Business School co-founder Simon Paine and Katie Coombes, they dropped part 1 of the PopUp Foundational Principles they’ve developed over the past 12 years helping 10,000+ people start their own businesses. 

Alan is the leading voice in the FI Community for entrepreneurship, and I can’t recommend highly enough that you subscribe and listen! 

Limited Time Offers

We have a great LIMITED TIME OFFER that I think are worth your attention this week. You now can get a 1% APY on your checking account with M1 Finance. Here are the details: 

M1 Finance:

Jonathan and I had a great time talking with Brian Barnes, the CEO of M1 Finance in yesterday’s episode 292 of the podcast. I like his message of taking the complex and making it simple. He also mentioned that, for a limited time, you can get a free upgrade to M1 Plus for a year. This enhanced service comes with some great features, like a 1% APY on a checking account, 2% APR on loans to consolidate your debt, and Smart Transfer to optimize and automate your saving and investing. (this will all be clear if you listen to the episode) 

And new users will earn $30 if they fund their accounts with $1,000 or more in the same month. 

ChooseFI Community Taking Action This Week

• Lisa said, “My win of the week is opening a brokerage account. I've set an aggressive goal of saving $2-3K a month (on top of maxing all my retirement accounts and maintaining a debt-free lifestyle). My hope is to buy a mountain vacation rental for cash in 7 years. Don't let being an single mom who is self-employed limit you!” 
• Heather said, “Fully contributed to my 2021 Roth IRA, and I just love every January when I get that call from HR panicked that I'm contributing all my paycheck to my 401k and HSA and I get to tell them it's not a mistake. Additional win: 2.5 years ago, when I found the FI world we had negative net worth with car loan and student loans. Today we surpassed $400k in positive net worth!!” 
• Steve said, “The little win for the week was CamelCamelCamel notifying me today that H&R Block software for this year dropped to $22.50 on Amazon. That's a pretty decent deal.” 
• Pat said, “My 1% is actually my son's 1%....or more like 30%! Before he graduated college recently, I gave him a copy of The Simple Path to Wealth, in addition to giving him my fatherly advice. "Pay yourself first!" I told him, the same mantra my dad told me. Last weekend we got on the subject of investing and he told me that he's contributing 30% to his Roth 401k! Not only that but he's saving $250 a month for his next vehicle (he tells me it will be a used vehicle, just like I advised him) and has a suitable emergency fund. It feels wonderful to know he's starting out on the right foot and that FI can be his.” 
• Monique said, “My husband and my win of the week has been our handiness around the house. We had a plumber come out and fix some things around the house a few weeks ago. Then a couple of days ago I discovered a big leak under the kitchen sink. Instead of calling the plumber back out, we investigated the problem, troubleshooted the solution, and discovered a broken garbage disposal. Again, instead of calling out the plumber, we purchased a new garbage disposal from a local home improvement store and installed it ourselves! We felt so proud of ourselves for fixing it ourselves. It was very simple, took us about an hour to do, and we saved ourselves about $200!"

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