Okay. I’ll admit it. I’ve made my life more complicated than necessary. I manage a couple of limited liability companies and help with a startup corporation. My personal finances are not complicated. I usually buy a tax software program and prepare taxes myself.

I like Turbo Tax. It forces me to buy a program for business and another for personal. It used to cover both but switched its marketing. It is something I should agree with. I like the idea of not paying for what you don’t need. However, I also like the convenience of making one purchase and not having to look at every option to decide what I need.

Years ago, I used H&R Block. I had a problem and couldn’t get help. It was so frustrating that I said I would never use it again. Well hell must have frozen over. I asked Grok for the best option for doing taxes and H&R Block was at the top. I thought perhaps it had improved. Plus, it was cheaper. Wrong move.

Next year, I’ll go back to Turbo Tax. It just seems to work. If I ask for help with H&R Block, it takes me to the IRS instructions. Hell, if I could make sense of the instructions, I wouldn’t buy the program. As I remember, the explanations with Turbo Tax are better. Turbo Tax asks questions that I know the answer to. Then it fills out the forms.

I called the help line for H&R Block twice (so far) this year. I got a very pleasant woman the first time who told me that perhaps the problem I was experiencing would be fixed with the next update. When it wasn’t, I called back and got a very professional man who helped me figure out what I was doing wrong. He had helped someone else with the same issue, leading me to believe it was the instructions and not merely my stupidity.

When I was completing my personal taxes, it asked about a statement from my LLC. The statement hadn’t been printed by the business software. That will be my next call.

I have spent hours. I saved less than $200. My time doesn’t seem to be worth much these days, when I look at my income. But when I consider that I’d rather be writing or teaching, I will place a higher value on my time next year. I’ll pay more to work less.

Yes. I could just hire an accountant. However, I’ve done that in the past. I find it educational to do it myself. One year my accountant set up my corporation as a disregarded entity. I got the liability protection advantages of being a corporation. I did not get the reduced payroll tax advantage of being a corporation.

I was pleased to see the increase in standard deduction this year. Perhaps that will be the next article.

Thanks for reading. Remember to file your taxes AND value your time.

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I was chatting with my oldest son. Sam works for an insurance company and they are setting their goals for next year. So are his corporate partners.

This morning, I attended an online real estate huddle. The topic was setting goals for 2026. I realized that now is a great time to promote my course.

I created a course at Udemy that I call 20-20 Business Education for Healthcare Entrepreneurs. Spend 20 minutes per day for 20 days to achieve your income goals. I say it is better than an MBA. Much of what I learned in the MBA program was not helpful. Much of what I found helpful wasn’t in the MBA. I created a course to teach what I have found most helpful.

For example, nobody in the MBA program was teaching that we can control our thinking and that is the starting point of all personal achievement. I learned a method from Vernon Howard. I was amazed to discover how frequently I was allowing my mind to wander out of control. I practiced and became much better. Still, I sometimes found myself upset and I would catch my mind and think differently.

One morning while working early on my computer, my wife came out and opened the blinds. It was still dark outside and I became upset. I said something stupid but quickly stopped myself. About an hour later, I got on the bus to go to the office and realized that I was still upset. I caught my mind and wondered why I was upset. As I sat down, I had a memory of being about six years old and my mother taught me to close the blinds at night. I was taught to close them before turning on the lights so people couldn’t see in. I realized that I was upset because my wife wasn’t following my mother’s rules. How crazy is that? I was no longer upset. I began opening the blinds for my wife.

That is just one example. I believe it happens to most of us. If we can begin to get control of our minds and question our beliefs, we can be much happier. That is why mental mastery is part of my course. I also teach how to program your brain for success.

Five minutes of the 20 minutes per day is just practicing controlling your thinking. You can try the exercise for free as a preview. You can also watch a few videos in the bonus section that explain the philosophy and science behind mental mastery.

Once you sign up for the premium content, you’ll be given ideas that will change your thinking. You’ll become more business-like. You’ll learn to assess your life, what you’d like to change, and develop a plan for achieving it.

You can start anytime. The sooner you start, the quicker you’ll see results.

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Ready for a reality hit? Your life is all about controlling your brain. If you can control it, your life will depend on your decisions. If you can’t control it, your life will depend on your environment.

Marketing is all about controlling another person’s brain. Marketers learn how the brain works and then use what they learn to influence the brain while making us think we made a decision. Seeing an advertisement, reading an article, listening to radio, or watching a video are all examples of environmental influence.

One way to change brains is by using evidence. People believe they are making rational choices if they are given data. They seldom question the data.

A great example is looking at poverty programs. Let’s say we can all agree that we don’t want anybody in the U.S. to be hungry. We agree that the federal government should have a program to feed people who are hungry. Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere. How will we know if the program was effective?

We should start by determining the scope of the problem. How many people do not have enough food? If we really want to solve the problem, we will go further and determine why they don’t have enough food. Right now, we aren’t going there. We just determine a number, and our goal is to provide food.

Next, a law is passed to provide food for people who need it. People are hired to determine qualifications. More people are hired to screen people to determine if they are eligible. More people are hired to buy food. More people are hired to distribute food. We find we have spent a lot of money to feed people. Many people will feel really good about our efforts to feed hungry people. After all, look at how much money we spent.

The numbers that are used to determine the effectiveness of the program is the number of dollars spent. We were spending nothing and now we’re spending $X. I’ll let you fill in the $X. Those are the wrong numbers. What if you learned that after spending $X, nobody was fed?

That is a fallacy of using the wrong numbers. Now imagine cutting the bureaucracy and just giving people money to go buy food. What if we fed a million people but decreased spending? The people who focus on dollars spent will claim that the program has been cut and now more people are starving. How many more? They don’t know. They never tracked the right numbers.

There can be other arguments too. Some will argue that the numbers are wrong. Spending wasn’t decreased. That might be an argument worth having; however, we are still arguing about the wrong numbers.

The method I described applies to a lot more than food assistance. The process applies to nearly everything.

I have written about my physique goals. I have a goal of my chest being 10 inches bigger than my waist. I am also monitoring my weight. When I lost weight down to 147 pounds, my chest was about 6 inches bigger than my waist. When I weighed 160, my chest was about 6 inches bigger than my waist. In fact, at one point in my life I weighed 180 and my chest was still about 6 inches bigger than my waist. That is normal. I want to be better than normal.

My point is that if I just looked in the mirror, I looked normal even though my weight could have varied by 33 pounds!! I wouldn’t have been tracking the right numbers.

Now my chest is about 9 inches bigger than my waist. I think I look better. I feel a little better. I’m lifting weights to improve my measurements. I’m tracking numbers that mean something to me.

In business, we have similar challenges. What numbers should we track? Forty years ago, a restaurant owner told me that it was easy to increase gross profit. He would just reduce the price of a sandwich by a dollar. He said it was much harder to increase net profit. Net profit is what you have left after paying expenses. If he only focused on gross profit, things could look great, and he could be losing money.

If you want to be in control of your brain, think about the data you are being given. Are you getting meaningful numbers? Don’t argue about the wrong numbers.

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My son, Ben, has started a company to provide money transfer services. It uses crypto to transfer money almost instantly. He has built a lot of protections into his app. Unfortunately, the crypto business is full of scammers. He was invited to a podcast and found out it was a scam.

Similarly, I sold the last two copies of my book, Dupe ‘em and Dope ‘em. The doctor who bought them said his patients loved the book. My books are currently out of print. I used the Lightning Source International, the first print on demand printer in the industry. Now they are being slow to return my emails. I decided to look at my options. It has been over 20 years since I started publishing. Things have changed a lot.

So, today I looked online. I found a slick web site. I chatted online with someone. I almost paid an invoice but decided more research would be prudent. I went to Grok and found out it was a scam. Here’s the deal. It looked like Barnes and Noble. The name of the company is barnesandnobleselfpublish.com. Looks like there are several companies with barnes and noble in their names.

Carolyn Jackson had written The Spirit of Reiki and we were looking for a way to publish it. Several publishers turned us down.

I saw an ad for a machine that would create a paperback book from a pdf. I called about the machine. I was told they weren’t going to make it because they had won a lawsuit against Lightning Source. Then I saw an announcement in Barnes and Noble looking for authors. We submitted a different book, Moments of Wisdom, A Guide to Self-Counseling. It was mostly blank pages. The idea was to answer the questions to help yourself. It was printed. We didn’t do a good job of marketing it.

I called Lightning Source International and they told me that they only worked with publishers. I asked what is a publisher? I was told publishers had ISBN numbers. I found out Bowkers sold the numbers. I formed a publishing company and bought 10 numbers. That is how we got started.

So, now I’m looking at options. I’m giving LSI a little more time to respond.

The idea behind this post is: How do we know if we are being scammed?

When Ben tried to do the podcast, the “zoom” link wouldn’t work. He was asked if he wanted to allow the publish (supposedly zoom) to alter the computer. The name of the company was not zoom. The company name was on the request to alter the computer. I looked it up. It was a Russian company.

In my case, I signed into my X account and used Grok - the X Ai.

I tried just using Google and doing searches. However, it was impossible to tell. The company had some good references. I’m not taking a chance on a company that builds its business by fraudulently using a successful name.

It is so difficult to find truth these days. Do your research.

As for these posts, I try to do my research, so you don’t have to.

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I was chatting with my brother-in-law on his deck. It was a beautiful night. We are both retired. I told him my dad said, “No matter what you do, there will always be days when you don’t want to get out of bed and go to work. Find a job where you have the least number of those days.”

Joe said, “That’s good advice.”

I said, “I’ve been lucky. I’ve never had a day when I didn’t want to go to work.”

He said, “I haven’t either.”

Joe retired as a corporate attorney.

For a while I had a job at IBM. I enjoyed many aspects of it and didn’t enjoy others. I never had a day that I didn’t want to go to work.

Joe had a job as a young attorney doing research. He said that some couldn’t stand it. He didn’t mind. He enjoyed the library.

How do you decide what you enjoy? Watch your thoughts. Figure out how you can make money in the area that already draws your attention.

Maybe you enjoy your industry and just want to make more money. How can you be more productive? Can you use technology to help? Can you hire people to make you more productive. In my course, 20/20 Business Education for Healthcare Entrepreneurs, you learn that hiring the right person can help you make more money. It can also help you enjoy your work. It is wonderful to have an employee you enjoy being around. It is also wonderful to have someone else do the things you don’t enjoy doing.

You may find that a lot of what you like or don’t like is based on your frameworks. You have a set of beliefs that are controlling you. Challenge those beliefs and you open yourself to liking something you didn’t want to do.

Also remember, sometimes we do things we don’t want to do to get a result. You learned about that in the last post. I don’t like to exercise. I do enjoy the result.

I like to focus on the positive. When I find myself drifting into negative, I look for something to enjoy while doing my actions. I also enjoy the outcomes.

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Once in a while you’ll hear a successful business owner say, “My business is bigger than I ever dreamed it would be.” Look at that statement a little more closely.

Being successful is making a series of choices. The first choice was to go into business. At that point, you must dream of being able to make enough money to pay your bills, both for the business and personally.

If you fail at that point, it is because: 1) you don’t know what to do; or 2) you refuse to do what you know must be done.

Someone asked for advice in a chiropractic group. Several successful docs gave her suggestions. Her response was, “I can’t do that.” She refused to grow outside of her box and do what was necessary to succeed. She was a victim of both reasons. She didn’t know what to do. When told what to do, she refused to do it.

People who were successful in business did what they needed to do. They often changed. They not only changed the business, but they also changed personally. As they grew, their vision for the business grew with them.

You limit yourself by your vision and what you are willing to do.

If you want to grow, change your vision. You probably have some concepts (brain programming) that are keeping you small. Think about it. Small thinking people pass along their programming to their children, students, peers, and congregation. They don’t know better. They are passing on their “truth.”

Don’t be upset with them. Don’t be upset with yourself. Realize that it is not their fault or yours. You didn’t know any better. Now you know. Will you be bold enough to find someone to help you correct your negative programming? It takes more than knowledge. You have to be willing to make fundamental changes. That can be scary.

The metamorphosis of a caterpillar to a butterfly is an apt analogy. If the caterpillar could choose not to change, it would never become a butterfly.

Do you want to change? It is always up to you.

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Every new business faces the same problem, how do we get customers. Traditionally, advertising has been the first thought. That is expensive and often ineffective. Multi-level marketing (MLM) is a process of spending marketing money on customers for spreading the word. You become a distributor (or partner). You get paid if people buy from you. Your customers can become distributors. You also get paid if customers buy from them. If you have ever been involved, you probably have a poor opinion of MLMs. What if the problems were conquered? Here is a look at a new company (SEDL) that is taking a different approach. Full disclosure: It is my son’s company, and I am part owner.

One problem with MLMs is the monthly purchase of products to maintain your standing and be compensated. If you manage to build a downline (distributors and customers under you), you must continue to buy product every month in order to be compensated. Some have reported filling their garages with product that they couldn’t consume fast enough. Problem solved! With SEDL there is no monthly purchase requirement.

Another problem with MLMs is finding the right product. The ideal product is one that people need to use on a regular basis. Ideally you use all the product during the month and are ready to make another purchase. However, if you haven’t used it enough, you wind up with the garage full as stated earlier. What if the product was a service? SEDL is a service. If you use it, you pay. If you don’t use it, you don’t pay. There is no product to inventory.

What about price? Often MLM products are sold for a little more than the competition. Members are willing to pay a little more with the hope of making money. Some do make money, many more do not. What if the service cost a little less than the competition? Buying the service would be a no-brainer. The goal of SEDL is to reduce your cost of using the service.

Quality is another issue. Great businesses are the ones that disrupt an industry. Imagine providing a service that is faster and better than the competition. The goal of SEDL is to take a service that sometimes takes days and make it nearly instantaneous. PLUS, we have a great way of insuring quality that so many competitors lack. It is all part of our system.

The ideal business would go viral. If a customer can only use the service when someone else is using it, that has viral potential.

Okay, what is the service? SEDL helps you transfer money around the world using blockchain technology. You are charged a small 1.2% fee. If you choose to be a partner (you don’t have to be a partner to use the service) you get a percentage of that small fee. The percentage goes down four levels (partners under you). The money is sent nearly instantaneously. Both sender and recipient get a receipt for recordkeeping.

SEDL has its own token. Partners are paid a referral fee in tokens. There are a limited number of tokens. As SEDL grows, it must buy tokens and the value of the tokens goes up. You must hold tokens to be an active partner, but it is a small one-time investment. In fact, you can earn your tokens without ever putting money into the system.

SEDL is now being tested. It will soon be available. Stay tuned!!

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There is one investment idea that wealthy people pass down through generations. Wealthy help their children get going. I was late getting started. Many never realize it. That investment is your personal residence.

There are many reasons why your personal residence is a great investment. One reason used to be that mortgage interest is an income deduction for taxes. Now the standard deduction is so high that many don’t deduct interest on their mortgage. It still might be something for you to consider.

Another reason is that there is no income tax on profit on sale of your personal residence up to $250,000 for an individual and $500,000 for a couple. Of course, there are some hoops to jump through. Generally speaking, you can only use the exclusion once every 5 years and you must have lived in the home for 2 of the five years prior to selling. There is a worksheet to determine if you meet the requirements.

I learned about the exclusion while watching the son of a friend of mine. He bought 20 acres and subdivided it into 5-acre parcels. He built a home and lived in it for 2 years. He paid his mortgage by building custom homes for others and building another home on a 5-acre parcel. He sold the second home and paid income tax. When he sold his personal residence, he netted less than $500,000 and paid no income tax. He seemed to be doing pretty well playing that game.

That is how I became interested in real estate. My friend and I became agents to help her son sell his property. One of my sons also became a general contractor and I continue to help him. Three of my four children are homeowners. One owns two homes and vacant land.

As for me, my education got in the way. One of my profs in the MBA program, told me that real estate was not a good investment. He thought real estate just went up due to inflation and when you sold you still had to buy another place to live. It was nearly 25 years before I learned how wrong he was. I still didn’t buy my first home as an investment.

We bought our first home because my wife wanted a home. We got lucky. We did everything right. We bought a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home with a 2-car garage. We had 4 children. We converted the garage to a laundry room, play area, and two bedrooms. We improved the landscape. Before selling we added a new roof, new carpet, and painted inside and out. About 10 years after we bought the home, we sold it and netted around $100,000.

I don’t know of any other investment where a bank will loan you 80 - 100% of the amount you want to invest. We bought the home and only put 3% down. There were some additional closing costs, but not a lot. Our mortgage was about the same as rent. If we had continued to rent, at the end of 10 years we would have had nothing. Because we purchased, we had $100,000 and could go back to renting. Compare that to what my MBA prof said.

You may know someone who lost money on a home. I do too. You either have to be lucky or savvy. When I took the coursework to become a real estate agent, I couldn’t believe how ignorant I was. I wanted to teach everyone what I learned. I wrote a book in 2004. You can still get the Kindle version here. If you would like a paperback version, let me know. They make a great graduation gift. ($20 includes shipping in U.S.) Of course, I’ve learned a lot more since then. I will be giving you ideas and may create a video podcast if there is enough interest.

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Some people think a business can just raise its prices to cover its costs. They believe that increasing the costs of doing business will not affect the bottom line - profit. Increasing minimum wage is an example. Increasing the costs of building supplies for housing is another example.

They seldom think about the buying patterns of people. Given two choices perceived as the same, most people will buy the cheaper alternative. In fact, in home sales, comparative sales will be used as a negotiation tactic. If a new house cost more to build than the similar house built a couple of years ago, few people will opt pay more for the new house.

Insulation is a great example. Building codes have changed dramatically over the years. Few home buyers appreciate the difference between an old home with 2 x 4 studs and a new home with 2 x 6 studs. The 2 x 6 studs will hold much more insulation. Yet, the older home will often sell for nearly the same price as the newer one.

Think about your buying habits or the habits of people you know. Aren’t you looking for deals? Don’t you tell others about the bargains you’ve gotten? If not, you’re an exception.

I’ve known people to go to a furniture store and sit on a couch. The salespeople tell them all about it. Then they buy the couch online to save money. Think about it. How can a business provide customer service when customers refuse to pay for it?

Everybody should be in business and face that reality. Imagine buying a business. A business appraiser once told me that the average business would sell for about 6 times annual profit. Imagine you paid $600,000 for a business making $100,000 per year. That would be over 16% return on your investment.

You want to be a great boss, so you raise everybody’s wages. Your costs go up. You pay more in social security. You pay more in Medicare. You may pay more in workers compensation and unemployment too. How much your costs to deliver your product increase will vary depending on the business. In service businesses, the costs may be a large part of the total price. Will your customers pay the higher price? Will they go elsewhere? Will they refuse to purchase? Will they purchase less?

Imagine that everyone tells you how happy they are that you are paying your employees more, but they actually purchase less. Imagine that your expenses go up and your sales go down. Imagine that after a year your business is only making a profit of $90,000 per year. Now you are getting a smaller return on your investment (15%). That’s still not bad you think. In addition, your business is worth $60,000 less.

My point is that being in business isn’t easy. It isn’t just the lucky who succeed. The business owner that can adapt is the one who succeeds. Politicians can make it impossible to adapt. Nobody knows it like the business owner who feels it in the personal wallet. That’s why everybody should be in business.

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Not long ago, I saw a post stating that employees were just as important as entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs need employees to do the work. Employees need the imagination of entrepreneurs to have work to do. It was an even trade. Obviously, the person was an employee.

Starting your own business will change your thinking and your life. You become more of a global thinker. You see the connections between your thoughts and your reality.

From 1978 to 1981, I worked for IBM. I wasn’t highly paid, but I was doing alright. I put in a lot of hours. I knew that I would have a paycheck and never worried about paying my personal expenses. I won awards. I had several managers during that time. I know about meetings, corporate politics and corporate expectations.

From 1985 to 2022, I was self-employed. I no longer had a paycheck. If I didn’t get paid, I had to borrow money to pay personal expenses. I had to think differently. I had to change myself.

Marketing: What do you want?

How will your business attract customers? If you are the business, you have to figure out marketing. It is much tougher than many believe. It is really all about what you want.

For example, a man opened a beer bar a few blocks from my home. He had been a successful employee at a software company. He had an idea of how he wanted to run his business. He did everything himself. He knew a lot about beer. He wanted to have a place where people could come sit and talk. He didn’t want to talk to people. There weren’t enough tables to make that profitable. He thought that he could just pay Google and the algorithm would bring him customers. The problem was that he really didn’t want to have a lot of customers. He was not willing to grow as a person. He wasn’t willing to adapt his model. He failed within two years.

Contrast that with an experience I had in practice. I was about to leave for lunch. I closed the exam room door, and the thought came to me, “where are my new patients?” Before I could get to the front door, a man walked in and said, “Is this a chiropractic office? I’m looking for a chiropractor.” He and his wife were my new patients.

Another example of our interconnectedness, my practice grew, and I was considering hiring another chiropractor. I wondered who? Instantly I got the image of a classmate. I wondered how I could find him. Two weeks later he walked into my office. He had driven from Florida to Washington State.

I have also had the opposite experience. Similar to the man running the bar, I too had paid Google to run ads. It didn’t work for me either. Many successful entrepreneurs have found the same thing - the universe responds to what we really want. If I had other things on my mind, advertising didn’t work.

My son was hired by an insurance company as a marketing statistician. They wanted to send out a mailer. Sam wanted to track the success. They said, “we’ve already done that. Sales went up 20%.” Sam told them they needed a control. “We did that too.” He compared the control area to the area that received the mailer. The control actually outperformed the mailer group. The company grew, maybe not for the reason they thought.

I found the same thing in practice. I could advertise and business would improve, but often new patients had not seen the ads. How does a thinking person make sense of that?

I personally believe in a God with a sense of humor. It sets up situations that ask, what do you really want? I could have made a lot more money, but I would have made more sacrifices in my family life. I’ll give another example.

Early in my practice, I worked Saturday mornings. My wife wanted me home by 2:00 pm to attend a party. I had four new patients call that morning. That was at a point where four new patients in a month might have been good. Did I want to take care of patients or go to a party? I was late. Other doctors have experienced similar situations.

A friend of mine has a store. He told me that when sales are down, he walks around the store and says, I love retail. I love retail. He believes that is part of his success.

Seeing the relationship between our thinking and our results is something that many successful entrepreneurs experience. Most employees just don’t have the same opportunity.

I believe athletes experience something similar. There may be other fields where you can experience your relationship to the universe. Starting a business, especially if your lively hood depends on it, is one of the best.

Ask someone who has been successful in business. See if you get a similar answer.

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The last post was on personal growth. I wrote about focusing on doing things that only you can do. I ended by writing about doing things others don’t want to do. That is where the difference between successful and unsuccessful people lies. It helps to believe in what you are doing.

My grandfather was a successful life insurance salesman. He won awards. He sold a policy a week. If he sold it on Monday, he took the rest of the week off. Sometimes it took all week. It is my understanding that at one time he held the record at the American Home Life Insurance Company for the most consecutive weeks of selling a policy.

When I worked for IBM, The American Home Life Insurance Company was in the building next to IBM. After my father died, I walked over to find out what I would have to do to redeem his policy. I introduced myself to the receptionist and she immediately said, “Just a minute. Someone will want to talk to you.” The vice president of the company came out and escorted me to his office. “Your grandpa trained me. If you ever want a job in insurance, just let me know.”

Grandpa was a door-to-door salesman. How many of us are willing to knock on doors and talk to people? It is something you can do that many will not.

Grandpa believed in life insurance. He gave each of his grandchildren a policy soon after we were born. Grandpa paid the first month premium. Dad said it didn’t cost Grandpa anything. He just lost the commission. I believe he did it because he thought it was important. I still have that policy.

The most financially successful people are often in sales. I find it difficult to market a product that I don’t believe in. I remember my cousins coming for a visit. They were selling candy as a fund raiser. I was probably ten years old. My cousin and I set out to sell candy. We lived near a couple of gas stations and grocery stores. We would just talk with people as they were leaving. I sold all of the chocolates. I like chocolates.

Right now, I’m sitting in a house my son remodeled. We’re holding an open house from 1 – 4 pm. It is a small cabin. I had some questions. There are hot and cold-water hookups upstairs. It has new cabinets, but appliances are not included. A spot for the dishwasher seems too small. I called him. It will fit an 18-inch dishwasher and clothes washer, and dryer can go upstairs. He also told me about different bed configurations. Now I’m ready. I often sell houses at open houses. One of the reasons is I believe in my son’s work.

One of my chiropractic colleagues has always struggled in practice. I started a few years before he did. One day we work working together at the county fair. The county chiropractic association used to have a booth at the fair and we would take turns checking posture and talking to people about chiropractic. I heard him talking with a man and recommending that the man see someone other than him. When the man left, I asked, “Why did you send him to someone else?” He said, “He lives closer to the other doc.” I said, “If you can’t find a reason why you are worth driving across town to see, you will never have a practice.”

The first question many now ask healthcare professionals is, “Do you take my insurance?” Although many patients ask that question, there are doctors who manage to build large practices that only take cash. The other reasons overcome the insurance objection.

For example, a Canadian was in town and called us to inquire about being adjusted. We talked for a bit and told her what we did and how we differed from the chiropractor she had been seeing. She decided to become a patient. She paid cash. She had to drive over two hours to see us. The entire family became patients. Sometimes competence beats everything.

If you are the business, why should people see you? It all begins with you. Are you closer, more convenient, cheaper, better, more diversified, more focused, faster? You must believe in your business. If you are an employee of a business, what do you do that is worth more than you are being paid? Few employees think about that. We’d all like to have our pay go up. Can you talk with your employer and make a case that you deserve to be paid more? You must believe in yourself. Even better is having data to prove your worth.

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We can’t count on money from tariffs if we don’t import any goods. We have all heard the statements: 1) Don’t kill the goose that lays golden eggs. 2) You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

We would do well to think about those statements as we look at tariffs. The rhetoric can be especially harmful. If trade diminishes with our trading partners, there will be less money coming in from tariffs. That said, let’s look at tariffs.

A creative person who had his product produced in China made the statement, “Trump could make the tariff 100%, I’d still buy from China. The price is that different.”

“Trump’s tariffs are going to drive up inflation,” someone else told me. I replied, “Interesting that the same people who think raising minimum wage has no effect on prices are convinced tariffs will.”

Most economists make a case against tariffs. I bought a course on economics last summer. The teacher started with jokes about economists. They are frequently wrong. However, I enjoyed the course, and the teacher made a case against tariffs. I think the argument goes that when we protect our workers with a tariff, we discourage innovation. Workers do not become more productive, and their wages do not increase as a result. That is a unilateral tariff. If the tariff is bilateral, it hurts both nations.

I’m more of a free-market thinker. I view tariffs as an intervention in the market. I see insurance as another intervention, but that is another story. However, as I’ve gotten older, I’m trying to see the benefits of intervention in the free market.

Think of tariffs as a tax. We would like taxes to be progressive. We want rich people to pay more tax as a percentage of income than poor people. That is why our income tax system is graduated. Rich people pay a higher percentage than poor people.

Think about sales tax. Sales tax is progressive even if the percentage is the same for all. Rich people buy more stuff. In fact, if we would not tax food, healthcare and rent, we would be giving the poor a break and the more affluent would be paying nearly all tax.

Did you know that Washington State has tariffs? We call it a cigarette tax. The tax is $30.25 per carton. The tax is due when the cigarettes enter Washington State. Sales tax still applies and that is over 8% depending on where they are bought. If you go to datapanda you find the cost is $11.21 per pack or $112.10 for a carton in 2024. The cigarette tax is about 27% of price.

Why tax cigarettes? We want people to stop smoking. So, we tax cigarettes to make them more expensive and encourage people to stop. We also reap a pretty significant financial reward. In 2021, the cigarette tax brought in $317,992,000.

Washington State does not have an individual income tax. We do have Business and Occupations Tax (B&O) that is based on gross revenue. I remember when I first started my business. My accountant called to remind me to pay my quarterly B&O tax. I told him, “I haven’t made any money.” He replied, “Did you take in a dollar?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Well the governor wants part of it.” I couldn’t believe it.

Point is that Trump seems to want to take the Federal government in the same direction as Washington State. He wants to do away with income tax and make up for it with tariffs. He also wants the tariffs to discourage importing foreign goods. It is similar to wanting to make money off of cigarettes while wanting people to stop smoking. It can’t do both.

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The Federal Reserve (Fed) puts brakes on the economy by increasing interest rates and reducing the amount of money in the system. It does the opposite to stimulate the economy.

The president creates budgets which are approved or amended by congress. Spending more money on programs stimulates the economy. Spending less contracts the economy.

When I was young full employment was considered to be 5% unemployment. If about 5% of people who wanted a job were looking, that was considered good.

Inflation is caused by too much money going after too few goods. When my oldest son was in middle school, I asked him if he knew what caused inflation. “Isn’t that when everyone wants a watermelon on a hot day, so the price goes up?” Not bad.

As people spend more money the economy heats up. Inflation, the cost of goods and services, goes up. The Fed intercedes by lowering the money supply and interest rates go up. During the Biden administration, we had the government throwing money at an economy with low unemployment. Inflation was the result. The Fed interceded and we have low unemployment and high interest rates.

I’ve been asked when interest rates will come down. Some people want to buy a home or refinance their current home. My response has been, “Be careful what you wish for. Interest rates will not go down until the Biden administration stops spending money. When that happens, you may not have a job.”

Well, it is happening. Trump is cutting back on nearly every aspect of the federal government. Plus, he is stopping payment of some government contracts. If large numbers of federal employees are laid off, we may begin to see a downturn in the economy. Unemployed people will increase the supply of labor, and we may see a downturn in wages and salaries. The good news is that we have low unemployment now. We might be able to absorb all the skilled federal workers.

I predicted inflation and a downturn under Biden. The combination of Biden’s foot on the accelerator and the Fed’s foot on the brakes has worked out much better than I thought.

We now pay around a trillion dollars per year in interest. That interest money is going to people who can afford to buy government debt as an investment. Imagine spending a trillion dollars for people who need it.

Can the process be reversed? Can Trump put his foot on the brakes and the Fed put its foot on the accelerator? That might really be what tariffs are all about. Can we stimulate private employment to absorb the federal workers? We’ll see.

I think we’re likely to see a reduction in interest rates soon.

Think about your business. How will you respond? Do you deliver a necessity, or will people decide they can do without you? We may have to be creative.

Be careful what you wish for.

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I saw a post on Linkedin. The author was whining about an employer asking for a cover letter. The person had sent a resume to apply for a position and admitted (with a sigh) that a cover letter was not provided.

Several people commented. One said that employers just want you to suck up to them and tell them how great the company is and why you want to work for them. One said that sending a cover letter shouldn’t be needed. It continued…Bla Bla Bla.

I commented. Many people send the identical cover letter for every job they seek. Your cover letter is your chance to show that you have thought about the position. You link what the position requires and connect the dots between the requirements and your experience on your resume. Don’t expect an employer to go through hundreds of resumes to figure out that you are the best. Sell yourself. Your cover letter should say this is why you should hire me. If you can’t do that, stop wasting everyone’s time.

Finding a job can be tough. I know. It is not going to get easier. You may soon be up against a lot of former federal employees. You can send in a lot of electronic resumes, and they are often being read by bots looking for certain keywords. You might not even have a chance to provide a cover letter. If you do, do it right. This is your chance to sell yourself.

Consider Doing Something Different

If you’ve been unemployed for a long time, is it time to rethink? What can you do differently? What are your interests? What are your strengths? What can you do for someone that would give them time to do something else? Could you get some new training? There are many courses available online.

Many people do things that they don’t like to do. If you can show someone that you can do those things and free them up to do something else, you have the basics of creating a job.

Do a life review. Look at your resume. What do you enjoy that isn’t even on the resume? Do you have an expertise that you could either use or train someone else? Could you be a consultant? Could you work for someone else as a consultant instead of an employee? There is a tax advantage. As a consultant, you pay your own employee taxes. As a consultant, you do not get unemployment. Your contract is simply not renewed.

Those are a few tips. It is difficult to stay positive when you are constantly faced with rejection. You might find it helpful to help someone else. It can be amazing how helping someone else can lead to inspiration or a new opportunity.

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My reporting requirements are pretty low these days. I do still have one company that has employees. Tomorrow I will mail in our 941 for the fourth quarter of 2024 and a check for taxes. For those of you who don’t know, that is the form that tells the IRS how much money was withheld from your pay and your employer doubles the FICA and Medicare amounts.

I will also file W2 and W3 online. If you have been an employee, you know what a W2 is. The W3 accompanies the W2s and summarizes everything for the IRS.

You really don’t know what it is like to be an employer until your payment to the IRS for your employee obligations (withholding, FICA and Medicare) is more than the amount you take home to pay your rent and feed your family. Even though the withholding came from the employee and half the FICA and Medicare came from the employee, it feels like it comes out of your pocket when you make the payment. I remember that day well. It made me wonder, what the hell am I doing?

A successful employer must get over it. I know one man who said his payroll was $250,000 every two weeks. The employer portion of FICA and Medicare combined are 7.65%. He was paying $19,125 every two weeks for his employees to have social security and Medicare in their retirement. When I met him, he had sold his business and lost his money on another business.

That gives you a glimpse of what goes through my mind when people complain about billionaires not doing enough to help people with their money. They are paying half of their employees’ retirement and medical expenses. How much is enough?

I hope we can get a private economy growing so that there is a shortage of workers. That puts pressure to pay more which results in more growth. Yes, it is inflationary. Perhaps, supply can keep up.

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When a politician makes a promise, it is often publicized. If it was made by a Republican, some reporter will point out the promise will be difficult to nearly impossible to keep. If it is made by a Democrat, social media will perform the work of the reporter. However, politicians aren’t the only ones who make promises that can’t be kept.

During my brief stay at IBM, I saw an example. I was promoted to systems engineer and my mentor was promoted to a position outside the Topeka Branch. Nearly on his way out the door, he looked in some manuals and told me I might have a problem. Some new equipment that was due to be delivered might not be supported by the customer’s current operating system. Sure enough, we had the problem.

IBM sent multiple people to solve the problem. The customer was justifiably upset. After talking with the data processing manager for over and hour, which felt like verbal arm wrestling, he finally agreed to install the new operating system so we could fix the problem. I left relieved.

The next morning, John, my manager, went to talk to the data processing manager. When John returned, he called me into his office. I asked how it went. He said, “It went fine. I told him we would fix the problem.” I couldn’t believe it. We had already spent a week with the best people we had working on the problem. I looked him in the eyes. “John, we can’t fix it.” “Why not?” I explained that the old operating system was not supported and did not recognize the new equipment. His countenance fell. He made a promise he couldn’t keep.

You can avoid making promises you can’t keep by only making promises that you can personally keep. I will look into it. I will do my best. I will get back to you. Then keep your promise. Talk with your staff. Discover what the problem is. Get back to the customer.

It is a good idea to talk with your staff before going to the customer. Get your staff’s perspective before you go. In John’s case, a quick talk with me before he went would have been helpful. The timing was unfortunate.

It is easier for us to fall into making promises we can’t keep when we manage an area that we don’t know. John was a marketing manager. I was the only systems engineer under him. He did not have a deep technical background. In cases like that, it is even more important to talk to those who know before making promises.

Nobody wants to make promises that can’t be kept. Now you have a few ideas of avoiding the problem.

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Delaying buying a home was my biggest financial mistake. We bought our first home in 1994. We didn’t do it to make money. We did it because my wife wanted to buy a home.

One of my MBA profs said home ownership was not a good investment. Homes just went up with inflation. When you sold you just had to buy another, and you weren’t ahead. So, I wasn’t interested. Besides, what did my wife know about investing, I was the one with the MBA.

Our payments were about the same as rent. So, we weren’t out more cash every month. We got a 3% down loan. I had a patient who was a home designer. He designed the garage to be two bedrooms, a laundry room and a computer area. Another patient was a carpenter. In a weekend he had the garage framed. Soon our three-bed, two-bath home became a five-bed, two-bath home.

Ten years later we sold the house and netted about $100,000. Now think about that. We weren’t out hardly any more money every month. We only put about $6000 down and ten years later we netted $100,000. That’s quite an investment.

Yes, houses do go up with inflation. Inflation isn’t the only reason. We all know people who bought homes and wound up selling them for less than they paid. Why do some people make money and others lose?

What happened? I took the coursework to become a real estate agent. I then realized why homes go up in value. It isn’t just inflation. Homeowners add value.

Some people just get lucky. I was lucky. I did things that increased the value because I needed them. Then right before selling, I did even more. The key is doing the right things and not doing the wrong things. You must be a savvy investor.

You don’t have to be a flipper to increase your net worth. I’ve only owned three homes. We downsized in 2016 and paid $250,000 for our home. We put about $80,000 into it. We could probably sell it tomorrow for about $650,00.

However, in ten years it will probably double in value. In ten years, we will have the mortgage paid off. In ten years, we’ll be 80 years old. We might be ready for a change, and we’ll have over a million dollars to help out.

That is what I meant when I subtitled my book, Becoming a Real Estate Millionaire. You don’t have to do a lot of work. You don’t have to flip houses. Just be a savvy investor when you buy a personal residence.

You may have already figured it out. Have you systematized your knowledge? Have you passed it on to your children? I wrote a book to help systematize the process and pass along what I learned. Future posts will include more insights.

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My senior year of college, I managed the desk assistants for my dorm. Timecards were filled out by hand. They had to be accurate and were paid down to the quarter hour. I was told the problem was that someone would arrive late and write down a time a few minutes after the hour and the previous guy would put down the something different. Bookkeeping was a mess. It would be my job to keep track of those minutes.

I came up with a solution. If you were one minute late for your shift, you lost your first 15 minutes to the person before you. If you were 16 minutes late you lost the first half hour. Remember the cards were filled out by hand. The assistants would cover for each other. I didn’t care. I just wanted my records to be clean. It worked great.

During summer break, I was offered the job of interim director at the same dorm. The dorm was the only one open during the two-week break between sessions. I was told by the previous director that the job would be a mess. The Dean’s office would call and assign someone a room. They would not know whether the room was smoking or not, male or female, already occupied or not. It would be two weeks of confusion.

In 1977, there were no such things as computer spread sheets. I spent about 36 hours straight creating spread sheets by hand. When the Dean’s office called to assign a room, I knew immediately what the situation was. I could tell them if the room was already full, non-smoking, male or female. I could also suggest a different room. Soon the Dean’s office was just calling me before assigning the room.

A friend is writing an autobiography. I asked him who his publisher was. He wasn’t that far. I told him my story. I wrote a book and couldn’t find a publisher. I saw an advertisement for a machine that would create a paperback book. You just downloaded your pdf into the machine and a book would come out. I called the company. A man answered and said they had won a $20 million lawsuit against Lightning Source and were not going to make the machines.

I called Lightning Source. They weren’t making the machines. They just did the printing. It was on-demand. I could get as many copies as I wanted. I asked how I could get my book printed. I was told they only work with publishers. So, I asked what I had to do be a publisher. I was told I needed ISBN numbers. What is an ISBN and how do I get one? I was told to call Bowkers.

I created a company. I called Bowkers and got ISBN numbers and became a publisher. Then, I returned to Lightning Source and got my books printed. Now they are available through Amazon. My friend was wide-eyed as he said, “You’re awesome.”

Those are examples of problem solving in business. That’s what we entrepreneurs do. Most people would be stopped before they got started. Most people would not know how to create order out of chaos. Many think they could be entrepreneurs. They think it is easy to be in business.

Why aren’t more people in business? Why don’t more people start businesses? Why aren’t more people wealthy?

The answer is most people don’t have what it takes to be problem solvers. Most people are followers not leaders. A relatively small percentage of entrepreneurs make big bucks. It is because they can do what many of us cannot. I’m not one of them, even though I am an entrepreneur.

I had an employee say, “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Don’t ask me to be creative.” Creativity is where the big money is. We should honor the creative geniuses and be thankful for their contributions.

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I was about 15 and my father was about 41 when we decided to go see what was happening at the high school near my grandparents’ house. As we walked home across the practice field, Dad noticed the hurdles were set up on the track. He said, “Come here. I want to teach you how to run the hurdles.”

Dad was six feet tall. I was probably about five feet eight inches. The hurdles were about to my waist. I was too scared to try them and wondered what Dad had in mind.

We walked over to the track. Dad didn’t say anything. He just started running. I couldn't believe it. My 41-year-old father was running hurdles in street clothes. Then something even more amazing happened. After he cleared the third hurdle, I cleared the first one. Then I realized I was going too fast to stop. I had to clear them all or get tangled up in one. Fear propelled me over all of them.

That is an example of a great teacher. We need teachers that can take something we are afraid to do and help us do it. It is great if they can show us by example.

I enjoy teaching. When I learn something, first thing I want to do is tell everyone what I learned. That is why I wrote From Paint Rags to Riches – Becoming a Real Estate Millionaire. I had believed that real estate was a poor investment. I took the coursework to get a license to sell real estate. Then I understood. I applied the principles of business, standardized the process and wrote the book.

Many doctors could use some help in their businesses. Even though I had an MBA, I benefited from a business coach. There are three ways to make money helping businesses. 1. Teach people how to do something that they don’t know how to do. This is the least expensive. Students can take a course or read a book. 2. Help students do something. This is more expensive. It requires time from the coach/consultant. This is helpful for people who know how to do something but are having trouble implementing what they know. 3. This is most expensive. Just do it for them. This way they never learn the lessons. It creates customers for life.

I decided to teach what I learned about being in business. As my readers know, the world changes based on our beliefs. I created a course to help students get control of their thinking – Mental Mastery. Then I created a Marketing course, a Negotiation course, a Business Basics course, and a Business Valuation course. The last course is Goal Setting. I show how to set a goal for income and demonstrate with a plan to add $20,000 in additional take home pay after taxes.

I made it look so easy; I was tempted to give up retirement. Udemy hosts the course. They offer a money back guarantee. You can ask questions through the system. I titled the course, 20/20 Business Education for Healthcare Entrepreneurs. The idea was to spend 20 minutes per day for 20 days to earn an additional $20,000 after tax.

Most of us spend our time and money learning to be better doctors – rightly so. Many of us need to learn to be better at business. Tired of working for someone else? Working for yourself and not quite getting the financial rewards you deserve? How about spending 20 minutes per day for the next 20 days and make 2025 your best year ever?

The difference between price and cost is lost on nearly everyone. If the cost of oil goes down, the price of gasoline may not. If the Fed lowers interest rates to banks, that lowered cost of money may not translate into lower mortgage interest and lower price of money to home buyers.

Price and cost are not related the way many seem to believe. If a business can make a chair for $100, that does not mean it will sell for $110. The cost to the business is $100. The value to the buyer may be more or less. If buyers are willing to pay $1000 for a chair that costs the company $100, the company has an incentive to make more. Others have an incentive to compete. Some competitors may be willing to accept $500. If the quality is the same, we expect buyers to buy the $500 chair. Competitors may continue to enter the market until supply exceeds demand. At that point no buyers exist for chairs at any price. Sellers are stuck with an inventory of chairs. They will have to pay to warehouse the chairs. At some point, they will sell the chairs at a steep discount or give them away because it saves them warehouse costs. What did we just learn?

Suppliers do not determine price. Buyers determine price. If price is higher than the buyer values the product, the buyer does not buy. If the price is equal to or lower than the buyer values, the buyer will buy.

The price determines the supply. If the price is much higher than cost to make it, competitors will step into the market and supply increases. As demand is filled, fewer buyers are willing to pay and price falls to liquidate the excess supply.

What if costs increase? Do companies just pass along the cost increase as higher prices? They can try. However, in a free market, the buyer can decide that the price is too high. If companies cannot cover their costs, they will stop making the product and supply will drop.

Buyers set price. Suppliers create product as long as price is enough higher than cost to make the profit worth it.

Think of your labor as a product. You must eat. You must have a place to live. You must have transportation. All of the things that you need to have a happy life are your costs. Imagine that your costs are $100,000 per year. You are willing to work a maximum of 40 hours per week for 50 weeks per year. That is 2000 hours per year. Your cost is $50/hour.

Employer A offers you $100/hour. Work as much as you want. Will you only work 1000 hours and just cover your costs? Or will you increase your supply and make more money?

Employer B offers you $40/hour. Work as much as you want. That is $80,000 per year. If you take the job, you will lose $20,000 per year. You cannot afford to take the job.

I had an employee who said she was worth more than I was paying her. I agreed. I told her to go find someone who was willing to pay her what she was worth. I was the buyer. I set the price. For what I wanted her to do, the value to me was not high.

If you want the price of your labor to go up, make yourself more valuable to employers. What can you do that employers value? Which employers would value your labor more than your current employer? That is how you treat yourself like a business.

Next time we will look at the difference between raising costs through tariffs and minimum wage.