5 Movers and Shakers You Should Know About

I’d like to introduce you to some of my influential friends. You probably know some of them, but I thought it could be beneficial to hear how each of these guys has influenced the way I work and live.

All five of these guys have spoken something new into my life and changed it for the better.

Dave Ramsey

My wife and I started following the Dave Ramsey financial plan a few months after we got married. The result, for us, of following the Baby Steps, was reducing monthly spending by over $600 dollars and putting that money towards my wife's student loans. And in six months, with some other sacrifices, we were able to pay off all of her $11,000 in loans. We are saving for retirement, saving for a house, and saving for travel. We now live off last months pay checks. Life before budgeting was chaotic. We had arguments about money more than I'd like to admit. Don't get me wrong, we still have difficult conversations about what we should do with our money, but it's WAY easier to have the discussion before spending it than after it’s gone. For anyone who feels lost when it comes to personal finances, I literally couldn't recommend Dave Ramsey more. For a while, I'm pretty sure my wife thought I was a Dave Ramsey sales person ;) I’ve bought Total Money Makeover for multiple people and talked about how much it changed our lives for hundreds of hours.

Takeaways

• Spend less than you make and give every dollar a job.
• Make reasonable sacrifices now so you can have money to retire with and give like crazy later.
• We aren’t born knowing how to manage money. Dave Ramsey was the first voice I heard that spoke with so much clarity to me.

Tim Ferriss

The first time I heard of Audible was in the summer of 2008. I had just graduated college and started my first career job. They were running the same promo they run today. "Join Audible and get your first audio book FREE!" I had never listened to an audio book, so I just went to the featured section and Four Hour Workweek stood out to me. It's free and it's featured. What do I have to lose? Nine years later, I've listened to the book 4 times and read the book 3 times. It's got so many gems in there.

Takeaways

• 80/20 Principle - 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. Multiply your effectiveness by using this principle to just do the “20%” tasks more and stop doing the tasks that don’t bring you value.
• Experiences are more valuable than owning things. Having a million dollars in the bank isn’t the goal… being able to do what millionaires do is more exciting.
• The general understanding that life is what you make of it and you don't have to play by the rules that others have made. You can make your own rules. Anything is possible.
• Go on a media diet. You don’t have to watch the news and read newspapers and scour the Internet for hours a day. You control how you spend your time.

Jon Acuff

Start, Quitter and now Do Over are some of my favorite career books. He really gets it. He gets at the core of so many real problems that people face in the business world and approaches them with humor and gives a lot of wise advice. He seriously makes me laugh out loud.

Takeaways:

• Fear needs a good punch in the face. The best way to do this is start now.
• Want to quit your job/get a new job or start your own thing? Step one, don't quit your day job. Let your day job cover your bills. Hustle on evenings and weekends.
• Be honest about what you expect from your employer. We all have secret expectations that aren't met. These aren't fair and make us resent our employers.

Sean McCabe of seanwes

So much value. I honestly don’t know where to start. His mission is to help you make a living with your passion. Since Sean is a hand letterer, the seanwes podcast is somewhat geared toward making a living with a design related career. It’s really a must subscribe podcast.

Takeaways:

• In order to build an audience, curate what you share.
• Wake up early. You have no commitments at 5am. I’ve been waking up early for the past few months and I’ve seen great results (the fact that I’m doing a weekly newsletter/blog is one of those results).
• Community is important. I’ve gotten so much value out of the seanwes Community. It’s a paid community for like-minded-hustlers. There’s a great chat system that I hop into multiple times a day and get business advice or just hang out for a bit. It’s a great place to be!

Gary Vaynerchuk

My first introduction to Gary Vee was through the Dave Ramsey EntreLeadership podcast. I got his book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. I’ve since watched every video I can find of him. He does lots of talks and his story is pretty incredible. He’s the biggest hustler I’ve ever heard of. Do yourself a favor and subscribe to his Ask Gary Vee Show. It’s a quick show where Gary answers questions from his audience.

Takeaways:

• Working smart isn’t enough. Work smart AND hard. Hustle.
• Don’t mass export social media posts to all social networks. Each social media network has it’s own culture. To be effective you have to know the language and culture of each one you use. Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook will give you the best look at what you should be doing on social. The Ask Gary Vee Show will fill in the gaps and updates since social media platforms are constantly changing.
• Know yourself and focus all of your energy through your strengths.