Top 12 Suggested Professional Life Hacks

1. At every job you should either earn or learn. Either is fine. Both are best. But if it’s neither, quit.
2. Praise publicly. Criticize privately.
3. Talent and skill will put you on a path but it won’t get you to the destination. That is up to you.
4. Don’t call someone more than twice continuously. If they don’t pick up your call that means they have something more important to attend to.
5. Return money that you have borrowed even before the other person remembers lending it to you. It shows your integrity and character. Same goes with umbrellas, pens and lunch boxes.
6. Never order the expensive dish on the menu when someone is treating you for lunch/dinner. If possible ask them to order their choice of food for you.
7. Do free work for someone you very badly want to learn from. If you're good at what you do, that free work almost always leads to bigger and better opportunities.
8. Identify a problem, create a solution, monetize the solution.
9. Always open the door for the person coming behind you. Doesn’t matter if it is a guy or a girl. You don’t grow small by treating someone well in public.
10. Respect different political opinions.
11. Be kind to people, everyone loves to receive good treatment from others.
12. Dress well. Always. A lot depends on how you look!

11 Suggestions For Young Entrepreneurs

1.It’s Not Just about the Profits.

If the profits don’t come you’ll be greatly disappointed to the point of giving up.

Entrepreneurship should never be about profit. It should be centered on giving value. Profit comes after the value you're giving supersedes what customers are expecting.

2. Create the Job Opportunity For You

Opportunities for entrepreneurship far exceed existing job opportunities by a millennium, because new job opportunities are waiting for you to create them.

Most people change jobs for two reasons:

• The job isn’t as exciting as they thought. First it was the money, but when the money came, the job became boring.
• The money. Yes, who doesn’t need money? But money doesn’t satisfy the needs of the soul.

Create an opportunity you’ll enjoy to work in for the next 30 years.

3. Cut down on Your Spending

Cut down on your spending and invest time and money to take care of your business. The time will come when the business will take care of you.

If you decide to go into entrepreneurship then be prepared to cut down on all luxury spending because you'll need to save every penny for the many months you'll go without a steady income.

4. Wear A Different Mindset Hat

YES, becoming an entrepreneur is no easy feat, but the hard part to change is actually your mind. It took me 7 years to change mine. I know you may not believe this, but many times I wanted to change I found myself thinking and acting like an employee. Yours may take longer or shorter, depending on the environment you come from.

Entrepreneurship is different from a job. In a job, you get an intact fixed salary at the end of each month, so you can always predict your income. With entrepreneurship, you may earn many disparate amounts of income so scattered over the month that you may sometimes feel discouraged.

5. Change Your Plans at Short Notice

Circumstances change. Markets change. People change. Without notice.

So, be prepared and flexible, to change your plans at short notice. Remember, business is customer-driven, therefore go where your customers are.

In entrepreneurship you can always change your plans when one plan doesn't work or when a plan fails.

Don't worry when things don't go well or the way you expected. This is normal. Instead, worry when everyone is praising you and giving you accolades. This is the time to worry and think hard about what can possibly bring your business down.

6. Never Give Up

I’m you’ve heard this cliché many times. That’s probably because it’s true.

The greatest mistake you can make as an entrepreneur is give up. And the greatest disservice you can do for your business is to lose patience. There's a saying among entrepreneurs, that “the darkest part of the night is just before dawn". That's when the stars don't shine their light and the light of the sun is below the horizon.

7. No One Was Born An Entrepreneur

Don’t believe this? Have you seen any child born with a silver spoon? It doesn’t happen.

People who were born in entrepreneur homes, just found themselves there. They didn’t choose to be born there. So, it doesn’t matter where you were born or where you come from.

We’re all technically at par when we’re born. What matters is where you’re going and what you decide to do about it.

I know…Many skeptics won’t agree with me, but that’s Ok. Skeptics never won the game of life.

You don't have to be born an entrepreneur or in a family of entrepreneurs to become a successful entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship can be learned just like any other career.

8. Formal Education Doesn’t Teach Entrepreneurship

You heard that right. Most successful entrepreneurs are self-made. This is because entrepreneurship is never taught at school. They take it upon themselves to self-educate themselves and also learn from others.

Not that formal education is bad. It’s just that it wasn’t designed for entrepreneurship. You’ll not find many entrepreneurship books in the school library.

But you’ll certainly find a ton of entrepreneurship books in the public library and in the street. I call it street education. It’s looked down upon by university professors, because it doesn’t comply will the school curriculum. It’s brushed aside by scholars who want to preserve their dignity. It’s dismissed by the working class because it doesn’t appear prestigious.

It’s embraced and celebrated by entrepreneurs because it’s written by entrepreneurs.

9. You’re Not the King, Customer Is King — Remember That!

The most important part of entrepreneurship is a customer. Customer is king. If you don’t treat the customer as King, they’ll just walk away to where they’re treated as such.

The sweetest music you can hear is a happy customer. Every entrepreneur knows when the customer is happy they’ll ungrudgingly give you the money and even refer their friends.

10. Prepare for Failure.

Failure is inevitable. Mistakes are inevitable. For this reason expect failure to happen any time, especially when things seem to go well, because there are so many things that can go wrong.

A business is tested, just like a person is tested. However, businesses have no voice. You are it's voice. It's your responsibility to defend the business to death.

11. One Loyal Customer Is Better Than a Thousand Lukewarm Ones

80% of your income will always come from 20% of your customers. Remember this rule. It’s time tested.

One loyal customer is better than a thousand irregular customers or one time customers who never come back, so, be wise and identify who these customers are and reward them sometimes. Customers cost money.

Top 10 Habits That Can Lead You To Financial Freedom

 Believe me, I've seen both sides.

1. I stopped trying to get get rich quick. Wasted a lot of time. And money. Decided getting rich slow was fine. As long as I made it. And realized the only one getting rich quick was the guy selling the books and courses. Not exactly my goal.
2. Learned before I leaped. My first voyage into investing cost me several thousand dollars. Not exactly the return on investment I was looking for. So before I jumped in again I educated myself. Still made mistakes. Just kept them manageable. Although, way less exciting.
3. Controlled my emotions. When the markets are going to hell it takes everything you have to not bail out. Except the ride is going to be a lot rougher outside the plane. Particularly the landing without a parachute. Caging my emotions helped me make better decisions. And whole lot less dumb ass ones.
4. Became bold when everyone was freaking. And cautious when everyone is toasting each other. The best investments I've made were in the darkest days. And the worst in the brightest. Going opposite everyone else is financially rewarding. However, a little lonely at cocktail parties.
5. Chilled out. Frenzied activity in investing is almost always rewarded with subpar results. And that's on a good day. I learned to find good investments. Invest slowly over time. Monitor them. And for the most part leave them alone to mature. And surprise they did. And my blood pressure reduced. Seems like a win win.
6. Used credit cards for convenience not financing. The interest rate, when calculated, is enormous. And frankly if we couldn't pay off the charge in a month then we didn't really need what we thought we did. And in many cases a month later couldn't remember why it was so damn important.
7. Bought depreciating assets for cash. Appreciating assets we financed. Sometimes reversed number two but never number one. To buy anything and on top of depreciation pay interest costs maybe isn't the classice definition of insanity but it could be listed. And almost guaranteed to keep you from financial freedom.
8. We turned off the TV. Literally, we stopped watching it. Why does that build financial freedom? Look at the above list. Every item is helped by turning off the TV. Including number 7. Because you won't realize all the cool expensive new things you just can't live happily without. Ignorance really is bliss.
9. I learned to enjoy journey. By nature I'm a saver. Well actually kinda cheap. My wife is a spender. So we help each other. I help her save and be careful. And she helps me enjoy some of it along the way. I came to a place I realized she was going to spend some of it as we went so I might as well join her. No regrets. We've had fun.
10. And most important I'm blessed to have someone to enjoy the journey with. My wife fills in my weaknesses. And I fill in hers. I think I got the better deal. But I'm not telling her. We make a great team. And life is so much more fun. Financial freedom is great. But only if you can share it with those you love.

Some of the top keys I've learned that have given us financial freedom.

Freedom to enjoy life with those we love.

Freedom to build meaning into life.

Freedom from the stress of worry about finances.

Freedom to enjoy the little things that bring richness.

And freedom from the freaking TV. That right there makes all the difference.

You can find financial freedom. It will usually show up where you least expect it.