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If You Order From DoorDash… 150 150 admin

If You Order From DoorDash…

Through Favor and DoorDash I’ve done almost 1200 deliveries combined…not to mention the extra deliveries family and friends request when they find out this is what you do.  If you order Door Dash or Uber Eats or Favor or any other P2P food delivery service follow these small tips to have a faster, smoother and cleaner delivery experience:

  • Be able to tell me how to get in your gate.
    • If you live in an apartment, please learn how to get in your own gate.  If you don’t know how to get in, then how can you expect me to?  If you don’t know how to get in your gate, please don’t order from any food delivery service until you can find out how or are willing to meet outside of the gate.  Yes, we can wait on other people to come or leave and go in behind them, but in most places that’s prohibited and we shouldn’t have to do it anyways.  It shows a total disrespect for our time.  I’m willing to bet that more often than not, you KNOW you don’t know how to get in your gate, you’re just hoping the driver can figure something out.  Please figure it out first.  Please.
    • I remember there was one time I pulled into an apartment (not realizing it was an apartment when the order first showed up).  I called the customer to ask how to get in the gate, and she didn’t know.  So I’m at the dial pad stuck…There are cars that are behind me honking at me, there’s no space to turn around or go in the exit gate, and I’m pretty upset at this point.  She then says she’s going to send someone out to pick up the food.  After a while I see someone walk towards me with a slow, smooth bop in his step (if you’ve ever watched Bruh Man from the show Martin walk, that was the walk).  WHAT ARE YOU DOING DUDE?!?!  HURRY YOUR ASS UP MAN.  THIS AINT THE TIME TO BE TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL.
    • If you live in a gated community, please let the person at the front know who I am and/or that you’re expecting a delivery.  Many times I feel like I’m crossing a border with all the identification I have to provide to them for delivering your smoothie from Sonic.  Name, license plate number, license, passport, social security, birth corticate, actual mom that birthed me, etc.
  • Give detailed directions 
    • I’m tired of driving around your horribly lit apartments at night looking for your building number.  Then I look to your directions for some semblance of guidance…it says “thanks!” or “I’m in the back”.  You only have to give the directions once.  Come on yo!
  • Put your animals away
    • Through many deliveries I’ve noticed quite a few things about the dynamic between you and your pets:
      • Your pets don’t listen to you.  As well as you think you have them trained, when you talk they pretty much ignore you…at least while I’m there.  “BACK! GET BACK! SIT!”  I see you squeeze through the door trying not to let the dog out.  The dog completely ignores this weak ass request, euro-steps you and starts sniffing me.  Then I hear you say something I don’t think any delivery driver wants to hear – “oh he don’t worry, he doesn’t bite!”.  How do you know this animal is going to do?  You can tell me what he probably will do.  You can tell me what he has or hasn’t done in the past.  You can’t tell what he’s going to do in the future.  I don’t want to hear it, and please stop saying it.  If he’s a dog with teeth, I’m going to assume he bites.
      • Some of you are way too damn intimate with your pets.  I don’t want the type of intimacy with your pets that you might have.  I don’t want your pets licking, sniffing, or biting me.  I just want to deliver the food and leave.
  • Give me the right address
    • I know.  Everyone makes mistakes, and granted this has only happened like 3 times to me, but this really is a bad one to make…the worst.  When you put the wrong address a driver either ends up looking for an address that doesn’t exist or delivering to a person that isn’t expecting an order.  I actually had a customer who didn’t speak must English at all and didn’t know her real address.  The address she gave me didn’t exist, and when I called her for directions, all she kept saying was that her place was “by the trees” *insert blank stare emoji here*.  There were literally trees everywhere.  Needless to say this food took forever to deliver, and of course I got the negative rating.  This could have all been avoided if she knew her own address BEFORE she requested someone deliver food to her.

Help me, and other delivery drivers help you.  Help us get you your food faster.

Lessons I’ve Learned From Investing In Crypto since 2017 150 150 admin

Lessons I’ve Learned From Investing In Crypto since 2017

Crypto has taught me a lot overall about investing – not only in coins, but in everything.  With this article I wanted to share some lessons from the mistakes I’ve made.  I’m doing well in it now, but there sure were some expensive mistakes I made to learn these lessons.  If you’re reading this, you don’t have to make these mistakes.

Short story on how I got involved in crypto

In late 2016, I went to a conference on making passive income in a more heart-centered, courageous way.  I was working at a pretty shitty job, and I was getting frustrated with it, so I took some days off to go to this conference.

The conference wasn’t about crypto at all, but I met up with some people who were invested in crypto.  They not only showed me how to get into crypto, but why I should get into crypto, so I did.  I signed up with Coinbase, and I bought about $100 worth of Ethereum (ETH) when it was then trading at $448.64 on December 7th, 2017.  Within a month it had doubled and almost tripled.  Ethereum had skyrocketed and was selling at almost $1200 per coin.  I remember lookin at this like I had hit the jackpot.   Up until then, I had not made any other investment that had almost tripled my money, and so fast.

I. told. everyone.

Everyone who was in my world at the time knew I invested some money in crypto because I shouted it from the rooftops, and I had friends that jumped in too.

What I didn’t realize about the market, was that that was the peak.  Bitcoin and the rest of the market, including Ethereum, tanked and went down in value for the next two years.

This is when I learned my first lesson, and it continues to be the most important lesson to this day – Fomo will get you wrecked.

Lesson 1:  FOMO will get you wrecked.  

FOMO stands for Fear of Missing Out.  When a coin or stock is going up in value and everyone is talking about it or it gets heavy news or attention, people are like “damn…I don’t wanna miss out!  I gotta invest now!”.  Many times new people invest from this pressured, emotional place, and it might take you getting wrecked to learn not to FOMO into an investment.  The danger in investing when all the excitement is happening is that that coin or stock or other investment could easily dip or even crash in value right after you invested, because you may have invested at a peak.

When everyone is excited and talking about an investment – whether it be stocks, real estate, crypto – anything, it’s way better to be ahead of the herd.  Be in it before everyone starts talking about it.  There are always opportunities to be ahead of the herd – to get in before things go up in price and value and attention, but it means you have to take your focus AWAY from where everyone is right now (the news), and being able to predict where things are going.  You can even wait until things die down and buy the dip, but don’t FOMO in.

Buy low, sell high.  Accumulate in the bear market when nobody is talking about what you want to invest in, so you’ll be positioned to take profits when the bull market inevitably comes and every one is talking about it.

Right now, everyone is talking about Bitcoin,  but there are amazing opportunities in certain alt coins (every coin except Bitcoin) to make life-changing profits if you’re willing to learn and be patient.

One thing that we did in that conference mentioned above was made a list of trends that would be important in the future, so we could be ahead of the curve.  We listed things like online education, self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, robots, cyber security, cloud computing, e-books and audiobooks.  These are trends that are going to be important in the future.  These are places where you can be ahead of the herd.

Lesson 2:  Only invest what you’re willing to go to 0.  Don’t invest more than you’re willing to lose. Do not bet the farm!

I lumped all these together in one lesson.  I ignored them all starting off.  I said to myself, “if this investment is going to triple, why would I not put everything I own into it?”.   Here’s why.

Having a significant portion of money and cash flow outside of your crypto (or any other investment) will lesson your sense of neediness.  You won’t be constantly looking at it every day to see  whether it goes up or down or left or right.  You can leave it alone and not think about it so much because its not a huge part of your net worth.  You can have strong hands when you see your investment take a slight or heavy dip in value and you won’t panic sell.

ALL MY CALLS WERE RIGHT in 2020! but I put almost all my money in crypto.  This was the mistake.  When I needed cash, I had to sell my crypto – giving away all my early positions.  It wasn’t very fun to see the whole crypto market as a whole rise like crazy while I had almost nothing invested in it.

Lastly, if you haven’t bet the whole farm on crypto, you’ll have cash to invest in opportunities you see.  If all your money is in crypto and the crypto market dips, your overall money will dip as well.  If you have cash, you can take advantage of the dips and buy on those dips.

Lesson 3:  Start small, find good projects and be patient enough to let it grow

It doesn’t take much to start investing in crypto.  I put $200 in PAINT and it gave me a little over 100,000 coins.  If PAINT goes to being worth $1, in maybe 2-5 years then that’s $100,000 off a $200 investment.  If it goes to being worthless then I’m out $200.  PAINT is in the NFT space and NFT’s are on fire right now, so I think it’s a good bet, but I’m willing to be wrong.  (This is not financial advice and I’m not a financial advisor.  Also, PAINT has not sponsored me.  I just like the project).

That same $200 isn’t going to get you very far if you just invested it in Bitcoin.  I would bet bigger if I was investing in Bitcoin or Ethereum because they’re the safest bets.

Good projects have a good team, solid roadmap, good use case.  It takes time to sift through and find the solid projects amongst the thousands of coins – that’s why they’re called gems.  The lower the market cap, the higher the risk of the investment.  I start with low to mid-size market caps and play the waiting game for them to rise in value.  Coin Gecko and CoinMarketCap tell you market cap information on coins and much more.  I use them all the time.

I start with YouTube.  It’s in a YouTuber’s interest to give you good, solid information that’s valuable.  It helps their channel grow.  That being said, I only use it as a starting point.  I do my research on specific coins AND the YouTuber that mentioned the coin and put it against my own knowledge and reasoning.  You are ultimately responsible for your profits and losses.

Lesson 4:  Take profits

You’re not going to want to do this.  When you see your investment rising in value, it will be hard to sell a portion and actually take some profits because you think it will continue to rise.  It might, but nothing goes straight up and continues to go straight up.  There are twists and turns and peaks and valleys – lots of them in a relatively new and emerging market like crypto/blockchain.  WHEN to take profits is a personal choice, but take them.  In 2018 many crypto investors, including myself, learned this lesson the hard way when the crypto market came crashing down and we rode those coins all the way to the ground.

Lesson 5:  Look at the world like a sea of opportunity

How you see the market and how you relate to the market will affect how you trade.

If you look at the world like a sea of opportunity, then you won’t panic sell or be stressing out when a coin doesn’t do what you want/expect it to right when you want it to.  You won’t be dejected and down in the dumps when another coin that you don’t have rises in price.  You’ll know there are opportunities that come along all the time, so there won’t be any need to stress about an opportunity you think you missed.   Jay Z said “There’s a million ways to get it…choose one”.  If you can see the ocean of opportunities that are always there, you won’t be as attached to the outcome of any one particular investment.  You won’t be hanging on its every move.

Imagine you’re a surfer and you’re trying to catch a good wave (your investment).  If one wave doesn’t go how you want it to, just wait.  There are plenty of good waves comin.

Lesson 6: Develop trust in yourself

Notice I said “develop”.  You’re not going to start off with trust in yourself, but it will come with time and more engagement with the market.  You’ll be able to see the places you can get in early.  More importantly, if you’ve developed a string of small wins (meaning you’ve done a lot of step #3 already), you can start to trust yourself to bet bigger, and thus bigger profits come.  Trust will come from learning what to look for and conditioning yourself to buy good projects low and early and sell high.

Lesson 7: The gold is in private communities.  Pay to be in them if you have to.

Private communities, private telegram groups, and private memberships are all ways to get exclusive information.  Many times people have done research in those communities for you and are trying to help everyone do well and/or find the hidden gems.

You’re going to need to learn the language.  Here’s a great article on some common phrases and what they mean.  I would also give Coinbase Learn an in-depth look.  They might seem boring now, but learn about them again when nobody else wants to learn.  If you don’t take away anything else from reading this, take this message away – be ahead of the curve.

That’s all I got for now!  Have some fun investing!

What is Your Relationship With Money? 150 150 admin

What is Your Relationship With Money?

In this article I will give you direction to find out what your relationship with money is – almost immediately if you want.  When I actually examined my own relationship with money and dived deeper into the rabbit hole, I started to see results and a severe improvement with my relationship with money.

If you want to examine your relationship with money – or any part of your life – write a litter to it.  Start it off like this:

Dear money,

*insert all the feelings and thoughts you have about money*

When I did this exercise it came out similar to this:

Dear money,

I think about you all the time.  You’re always on my mind.  You’ve been on my mind so much I’m tired of you – and you’re not even around!  I’m mentally exhausted of you, and I wish I didn’t have to think about you all the time.  Sigh.

Dude…talk about creepy!  I think about you all the time, but I’m mentally exhausted of you?  WTF?!?!? Come on Broderick, what the hell man.

After seeing this in front of my face, I realized I had to put myself in a position where I’m not thinking about money nearly as much.  I needed some mental space from it.  I don’t think I ever would have seen that had I not written the letter.

I had a stressful job only because of the money, so I quit.  Again, the main focus was to get myself in a position where I’m not thinking about money.  It was great being free, and so I started to work on my creative output and made a course and hella articles.  I started independent contract work through Door Dash and moved in with parents to lower my expenses.  Gifts and opportunities just started coming, and I had the space to wait for them to come and to wait for the right places.  I realized that keeping money around was more important than how much I made.  Today the letter to money would be very different.  It would go something like this.

Dear money,

Hey.  HEY.  2020 was pretty badass right?  We gotta do that shit again! 

🙂

Listen, I know what you’re thinking – “Broderick is a genius”.  This letter-to-money thing wasn’t my idea though.  It actually came from a book called You are a Badass at Making Money.  Pretty badass book yo.

 

Starting Conversations for Introverts 150 150 admin

Starting Conversations for Introverts

So, when I (an introvert) was rooming with my friend (an extrovert), I was able to see things he did that I didn’t do. I had the luxury of learning a lot just by sitting back and watching what he would say and how he would say it and how others would respond.

One huge thing I noticed was he always made the first move in everything…like he was thinking one step ahead all the time.  I, at the time, was always reactive.

With people, this meant he would call past friends out of the blue to reconnect (He called me which is how we reconnected).  He would be the first to suggest something for the group to do.  He would initiate conversations with strangers.  When people can sense that you’re coming from a genuine place, they’re more apt to let their guard down.  And since most of his approaches were genuine, I saw the majority of these conversations flow smoothly.

You can look at this from a “technique” point of view.  If you search you’ll probably find good “openers” or some introductory phrases to use.  What this will do is send you right back to your head when you’re actually starting conversations with people.  That’s the last place you want to come from.

Remember I said I had the luxury of watching my friend do all these approaches?  From the outside looking in, it was like watching someone create their own world.  I started to realize it’s a creative thing.  You get to decide how you want to approach people.  There is no right or wrong way – just approach and be genuine.  More important than what you say is the energy behind it.  Also, more important than what you say, is the fact that you have the courage to say something at all.  To get better at starting conversations, start more conversations and be willing to fail.

You can take this simple skill as far as you want to go.  Trust and believe it can take you far.  What if you learned different languages?  How many more conversations could you start?  How many more options do you have in a world of over 7 billion people if you get good at starting conversations?

What If I’m Scared of Social Situations? 150 150 admin

What If I’m Scared of Social Situations?

If you’re scared of social situations – good.  Oh Hell Yeah!  That could be an invitation to a great place to grow.

You grow by training.  Deliberately feel the fear and keep inviting different social situations to go through.  The fear is at its highest when you feel like you’re jumping into unknown social situations.  When you keep inviting that fear and facing it and welcoming it by going through it over and over, then you’ll get used to jumping in unknown social situations.  It will start to be fun.

The fear is just going to get bigger in your mind if you run from it.  Being social is here to stay, and it’s safe to say that your social life is going to be a huge part of the quality of your life.  You’ll see this approach a lot in self development.  It’s a “feel-the-fear-and-do-it-anyway” style approach.

Address the Fear

Another side of the coin is to look to address the fear and not try to plow through it.  Give the fear a voice and address it.

There was a period where I was doing cold-approach sales for DirectTV while in different retail stores like Best Buy and Sam’s Club.  There would roughly be about 10% of people interested in our DirectTV pitch, and everyone in that 10% would have some objection to actually pulling the trigger and buying.  It was our responsibility to handle their objections and make the sales process as easy and simple for them as possible – what we called objection handling.  If they told us they needed to check with their spouse first before buying, then we gave them a phone to call that spouse.  If the price of DirectTV was too high for them, we had deals we could offer to them.  If there was a question about DirectTV service we were expected to know EVERYTHING about it so we could explain it to them.

There might just be a good reason you’re scared of a particular social situation.  During this Covid-19 era there have been plenty of legit fears related to social situations.  Many people have ignored that legit fear and attempted to plow through.  Some have avoided any consequences whatsoever.  Other’s weren’t so fortunate.  Those other’s may have gotten sick, died, and/or infected someone else.  We’ve seen the rise of live streaming and Zoom calls as a work around to address these fears and handle those objections as best we can.

Questions to Ask

When you’re jumping into an unknown social situation and feel the fear, ask yourself “Is this a legit fear”?  Do you predict that the outcome will go well?  Is there any way you can prepare to have the best possible outcome?  Is it just a mind-made fear?  Did you weigh the upsides with the downsides?

Your ability to discern whether your fears of social situations are legit is a benefit from training.  The more you train, the more confidence you’ll gain in your ability to approach fears with intelligence.

Why History Matters 150 150 admin

Why History Matters

I used to sit in classrooms bored to tears in history class.  Before three weeks ago, if I had to rank all the subjects by how much I was interested in them, I would have ranked history dead last.  I felt disconnected from it.  It was just a bunch of facts I had to memorize for tests – at least that’s what it was like in school.  Contrast this with the subject of math.  You can see math super early and see how it’s going to be useful for life.  I have to credit Genealogy for igniting my interest in history.  Genealogy connects the historical facts and events with you and I.

I was on my local library’s website just clunking around and saw that they added hella online resources due to Covid-19.  One of those resources was Ancestry.com.  It was now online for free through my library.  I searched for my name on Ancestry.com, and I was there.  I searched for other people’s names, and most were there too.

Eventually, I stumble on my great great uncle’s death certificate. The moment I read it was from the Houston Negro Hospital, that’s when shit got real.  Segregation got real.  Seeing that sparked all types of questions.  What was the Houston Negro Hospital like?  What else could I find on here?  Can anyone confirm this?  Who, in my family, knows this and who doesn’t know this?  Who was his father?  How did he interact with his brother (my great great grandfather)?

These questions eventually lead me to historical context questions.  What was it like during that time?  How did he end up in Texas?  Why did he move?  How did he move?

After finding that certificate, I went on to find A LOT more information, all courtesy of Ancestry.com.

Turns out there’s a running show that does this work with people called Finding Your Roots on PBS.  Who knew?!!!  I’ve seen several episodes, and I like the historical context they give when they dive deep into someone’s history.  I also like how they corroborate their record-based information with living people and DNA.

Ultimately today, it all brings me to a bigger question – How is history showing up today?

When you ask someone why they do the things they do,  they might tell you some version of “that’s how I was raised”.  Sometimes it’s a coping mechanism to deal with “how they were raised”.  I’ve lived life enough to see how cultures, attitudes, ways of thinking, behaviors, and traumas can get passed down from generation to generation.  What got passed down from history and again, how is it showing up today?

Asking Busy People for Help 150 150 admin

Asking Busy People for Help

Have you ever felt like you need help from a person who is already inundated with requests? You know this person has a full inbox, but you still need help and you know this particular person has the specific help you need.

Avoid Taking without Giving

When I first started reaching out to people who I knew received many messages, I would get back messages with template responses.  Something along the lines of “Hello Broderick! We’ve received your message, and someone will get back with you shortly!”.  They rarely did, and it had to do with my energy.  I wanted to take, take, take and not give.

What consistently helps me get answers to my questions a lot faster now is helping the person on the other side somehow…some way.  Thinking win-win.

Another way to put it is Law 13 from Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power.

Law 13:  When asking for help, appeal to people’s self interest, never to their mercy or gratitude.

Give and Take by Adam Grant is another good book that addresses this.

Put yourself in the other person’s position and think about things from their point of view.  What would be valuable to them?   What do they want or need that you could provide?  Money could be one thing, but you can also look for things that aren’t monetary.

Maybe they have a course or a book and they need feedback.  Maybe they’re already inundated with feedback and they need a way to manage the feedback.  Maybe they need a way to have more free time.  Maybe they need new shoes.  Maybe they need a Covid19-free hug.  How can you be of service to them?  How can you create value for them?  If they have a website, they might mention what they need or want.  Coming from a space of service when I need help has been a much more effective strategy to get the help I need.

Show some commitment if you want mentorship

If your question is a how-to/mentor kind of question, show some type of indicator that you’re committed to actually implementing the advice they’re going to give you.  If they have a bestselling book (or multiple best-selling books), its likely they’re receiving many messages.  Each message answered is a time investment.  Again, put yourself in their shoes and imagine someone comes to you for genuine advice.  How would you feel about giving advice to that person knowing it’s falling on deaf ears and that they will just ignore it?  If you want to increase the likelihood that they’ll invest their time in answering your question, show that you’ve already got the ball rolling in some form or fashion.

When I was into self-publishing and I wanted some advice from bestsellers in my genre on how they gained such visibility in the Amazon Kindle Store.  I emailed 4 authors with best-selling books.  Two didn’t respond.  One had an email assistant respond, and the last author directly responded with the exact answer I needed.  An important part of this story is that I had already published books that just needed more visibility, and I led with that in my message to these authors.  I wanted to show that I’m not some person thinking about doing self-publishing, but that I’ve already got works published.  I’m in field.

Whatever you want, give it

If you’re having a tough time getting help from the specific source you’re looking for, consider releasing your attachment to finding your answer in that direction and consider giving help to someone else.  You want advice or help?  Give advice or help.  That sounds crazy right?  Like one of these crazy counter-intuitive solutions I keep rambling about.

Counterintuitive Solutions 150 150 admin

Counterintuitive Solutions

Over the years I’ve come across many counterintuitive solutions.  These solutions when I seek help from other people who have overcome the same problem and get out of my own thinking or I let go of finding the answer completely and move on to something else and then the answer just shows up.  When I find these answers they hit me like a ton of bricks and leave me stunned…like this ?

Here are the solutions I’ve found.

Weight Loss

I remember wanting to learn how to lose weight and just failing by focusing on weight loss.  Eventually, I just let go of the whole idea of trying to lose weight and I started focusing on health.  That’s when I found out about my food group and cut out sugar and flour and they actually taught me how to eat in a way where I could eat normal foods, was way happier, and kept losing weight in a way that felt effortless.

Intuitively I was overweight, so it made sense to focus on weight loss…that led me astray.  Focusing on health was way more effective and ironically resulted in me losing the most weight I’ve ever lost.

Money and Work

I remember wanting to learn how to earn a lot of money.  I wanted it sooo bad I was willing to take shitty jobs sacrifice everything else, work long hours of overtime.  It didn’t help.  My expenses rose to the level of my earnings and I was living paycheck to paycheck.  Eventually, I decided I would stop chasing money and accept the freedom I had.  It brought me face to face with the question – what would I do if I had all the money in the world.  I would write and work on music, so I really put tons of hours into writing and working on music, and my bank account is as big as it’s ever been.

When I was broke, it made sense to focus on getting a job and earning money.  Writing and sharing with people was my way of volunteering.  It brought about more flow socially and connected me with more people and it was pretty damn rewarding.  More rewarding than any check I ever got from a shitty job, and I think it was all because I didn’t chase money.

Social Circle

In the back of my mind, I would always see people who had big social circle and wonder how it happened for them.  AND…how were people so interested in them.

Eventually, I realized that one great way to attract others is not need others – to be content with yourself.  Do the things you want to do and find interesting.  Follow your own curiosities.  Accomplish the things you want to accomplish.  Have fun.  Stop beating yourself up over the past and learn to be happy with yourself.  Forgive yourself for bad time and money investments.  Practice self care and treat yourself well.  Respect and enforce your boundaries and strive to meet your needs.  That way you relate to others without neediness.  You won’t need anything from others.  People can feel that, and it’s attractive.

Intuitively, when I wanted a bigger social circle I thought that there was something I needed to do “out there”.  I needed to meet more people.  I needed to get out of the house more.  Those things are great, but if you do those things you will have far greater rewards and results if you can learn to be content and happy with yourself first.

The Big Three

It’s been said that these are the big three in personal development.  If you can get health, wealth, and relationships all working in-sync, then you’ll feel that flow of life and things will lean towards spiraling upwards.

Accomplishing Big Things

When I read Atomic Habits, it made me appreciate the small things.  Small habits over time can lead to big accomplishments or big bombs that you have to deal with later.

I think it’s human nature to want to go to big accomplishments quickly.  We want to be able to play and sing the beautiful song we hear right after we hear it.  We want to have the great bodies we see others have instantly.  We want to have success in our careers overnight.

Intuitively I want to jump right into having and accomplishing big things, but ironically they come from the small recurring habits over time.

Are there any counterintuitive solutions that have blown your mind?