You are here: Home » Blog » Business » Entrepreneur

From the category archives:

Entrepreneur

2 Months Later – A Look at Non-Corporate Life

May 11, 2010

About 2 months have gone by since I left the corporate grind. Amazing. Time has flown by. So far, so good. My fears proved to be wrong, and I am surpassing my expectations for generating business. I have some really supportive clients and new referrals and have started a part time gig as well for an ecommerce firm in Denver. I actually have more work than I probably should for the true balance that I am looking for in my life. So the key for me now is making sure to take time for other important things. It’s not all roses, as I am really working hard, but its so much more rewarding and I am learning and growing every day.

I haven’t been updating this blog as much lately and that is for two main reasons:

  1. I’ve created a new blog that I intend to spend more professional writing time on for my re-branded business leadonlinemarketing.com
  2. I am stuck at the investing stage of finding financial freedom

Investing overwhelms me. It seems the more I learn, the more choices there are. There is always a lot of risk. Take my 401K rollover for instance. I was so proud of myself that I managed it so well and got some nice mutual funds at Vanguard. Without knowing what I was doing, I ended up ‘buying high’ and losing about 800 in value in 1 week with the dip in the market last week. Awesome. I am so disillusioned with the stock market. I already was, but time and time again I continue to be. I’m sure its great for the really well educated investor, but for me, who only has SO much time to devote to finances a week, its hard. I try to dedicate at least 1-2 hours a week since I began my journey towards improving on and/or working at our finances. There are so many directions that this goes.

Overall, the main barriers for me for my next step in this journey are being able to make truly WISE investment decisions, and learning when to pay off debt, when to take out debt and when to save. It seems to be a constant balancing act.

There are 3 TO DOs are on my list of financial matters in the coming months:

  1. Finalize a will / power of attorney / living will
  2. Get life insurance coverage for myself since I am self-employed
  3. Setup automatic transfers for new retirement vehicle (though I’m not sure I want it to be in a mutual fund!)

{ 1 comment }

How to Rollover a Complicated 401K

April 14, 2010

I have 2 types of accounts in my 401k from my previous employer – a tranditional 401k and a Roth 401K. After doing some research and weighing my options, I have decided to roll over my 401k into Vanguard due to the lower fees and a variety of investment choices. I still do not feel educated enough to trust my 401k funds to a fully self-managed account with individual stocks and bonds, so the fund option is still appealing to me at this stage in life. Hopefully, one day I will have the time and knowledge to invest more specifically and strategically. For now, I plan to put some research into the funds, diversify wisely and monitor my investments.

Read the full article →

Making a Choice Between Entrepreneur or Corporate Life

March 11, 2010

Well, its official. I have turned in my two week notice at my current position and I am pursuing other options. We have enough of a padding to last long enough for me to sort this out. (My fear is talking there)

I’m very happy about this first decision and I have lots of options. Nonetheless, I am very much struggling with this life decision.

Read the full article →

How to Choose? Pay Off Debt, Save, Invest or Build a Business

February 23, 2010

In my pursuit towards financial freedom, I have been able to narrow down my goals and realize key elements that I want to focus on for my career and life style.

I have now managed to categorize and budget my expenses, long term and short term savings accounts, and I have begun to understand tax rules and how they affect investment accounts and options.

Nonetheless, I still find it difficult to determine the order and priority to assign to saving, paying off debts, investing, and business start ups.

Read the full article →

Launch of my New Business, OnTimelines.com

February 17, 2010

Since I began this blog I have been interested in starting businesses that are product rather than service based. I have taken that leap with my new, still working out the kinks website; ontimelines.com.

Based on the wonderful feedback from this website, I have realized an area that I really want to focus on further and offer help to others: Planning and organizing.

Read the full article →

Confidence, Purpose and Marketing: Ingredients for Success

January 28, 2010

I had the privilege of listening to a thoughtful free webinar by “conscious” entrepreneur Max Simon in which he interviewed Vishen Lakhiani on the concepts of creating a wealthy mind. He also spoke about how to turn a business from performing so-so to really reaching a ‘turning point’.

Read the full article →

Why You Might Want to Start a Brick and Mortar Business

December 6, 2009

What if in the future “brick and mortar” is going to be a key area of opportunity for the RIGHT products because everyone else is so focused online for everything else?

Its obvious why you would want to start up a business online as your up front costs are much less, overhead and ongoing costs are significantly less, etc.

But I’m not actually interested in doing something easy or cheap. Of course those factors affect me, a lot. But what I’m more interested in is finding a path for my life that would involve doing something worthwhile. I want to live a life with out regrets. And for me that means finding and starting a business that is good for me and my values as well as something that will be wildly successful.

Read the full article →