Afford Anything

Tag: business lessons

By Erin @ Team Afford Anything

#289: Business Principles that Improve Your Life, with Josh Kaufman

Wish you could get a crash course in business administration, without the expensive price tag?

Want to know how you can provide more value in your current job to increase your chances of a promotion or raise?

Are you exploring the possibility of turning your side hustle into a full-time business, but have no idea where to start?

Today, Josh Kaufman, bestselling author of The Personal MBA, joins us on the show to discuss all three of these situations and much more.

In Josh’s words, “I think in general, business as a domain of knowledge is one of those things that once you learn it…it can help you in all sorts of different areas, even outside of business.” Regardless of whether you’re a teacher, graphic designer, entrepreneur, junior level employee, or manager, becoming familiar with business basics can change your perspective on work and the part you can play in your role.

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Written By Julia Kelly

How to Manage Two Successful Businesses (and Why One Wasn’t Enough)

In 2015, we ran a story about Julia Kelly, an entrepreneur who makes a six-figure income as a caricature artist.

Where is she now?

We decided to follow up her story. How sustainable is her business? How passive is her income?

Here’s Julia, with a follow-up in her own words. Take it away, Julia!

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The following is written by guest contributor Julia Kelly

When we left off, I was running JK Expressions and I was a couple of months away from finishing my degree. I was beyond excited to be done with my degree and focus on the business full time – I was pretty sure I would be living the dream!

I was in for a disappointment. About eight months after graduating and focusing on nothing but the business, it was hitting record revenues but I was dissatisfied, bored, unmotivated and thinking seriously about getting a “real” job.

I was confused. Everything looked great from the outside: I was my own boss, had a super flexible schedule, tons of time for hobbies, and good money.

What was the problem?

It probably would have worked for a lot of people — there’s tons of advantages to running a business like that:

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Written By Paula Pant

The Importance of Using the Toilet Correctly (and Other Things I Learned Last Month)

When I was 18, I got a full scholarship for a one-month study abroad trip to Japan.

At the time, I didn’t have much interest in international travel. But free is free, so I spent a month in Japan during the summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college.

That trip changed everything.

That trip ignited the travel bug.

I came back so enthusiastic about exploring the globe that I’ve based every major decision in my adult life around the goal of traveling more.

Every major life choice, from my initial career in journalism, to my decision to quit my newspaper job to backpack around Southeast Asia, to my pivot to becoming a location independent, self-employed freelancer …

Every choice I’ve made has been based around whether or not this opportunity would allow me to travel. It’s the benchmark against which all my decisions are made. It set me on a meandering path that led to financial independence.

And it all started with that trip to Japan.

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Written By Paula Pant

28 Important Lessons from 2018

Here are a handful of lessons from 2018 (although many of these ideas originated during a lifetime preceding that). I’ve shared most, but not all, of these lessons on Instagram in the past year.

1: Your net worth is not your self worth. That’s true regardless of whether your net worth is low or […]

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Written By Paula Pant

“What I’ve Learned from Building an Eight-Figure Business” — an interview with Rand Fishkin

I’ve been following Rand Fishkin’s career for years. He has one of the best rags-to-not-quite-riches-yet stories I’ve heard.

Rand is a college dropout who spent his early 20s spiraling into a deep debt hole. His problems began when he tried to grow a marketing company but funded it in the worst way possible. He leased office space, rented booths at conferences, hired expensive contractors — and paid for everything with a personal credit card. Yikes.

His credit card debt ballooned to $150,000. He couldn’t make the minimum payments, so he defaulted. The late fees and penalty interest rates caused his debt to swell to more than $500,000.

Anyone else might have declared bankruptcy, but Rand stayed the course. He doubled down at work. He decided to specialize in a marketing niche, search engine optimization, which set him apart from the pack.

He brought new clients into his business. He developed internal tools to use for his clients, then started selling subscription-based access to this software.

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