Beginning Balance

In today's episode, Mark takes inspiration from George Constanza, the perpetually underachieving and romantically inept character from Seinfeld, to confront his negative business habits. In the episode "The Opposite," George realizes that he's always followed his intuiton, but every decision he's made has turned out to be wrong -- he's dissapointed in where his life has ended up, and in his failures with women. So, he decides to do the opposite, that is, everything his intuition tells him to do, he does the opposite. The result is predictably hilarious, and leads to George talking to women previously out of his league, and eventually landing his dream job managing the New York Yankees.   Mark has started employing the "Constanza Protocol," as he calls it, in business, as a way to break negative habit loops. As he has stated on multiple episodes, Mark struggles with the idea of having and managing employees (even good ones!) and his urge is to retreat to work he can do on his own -- like automating tasks or building new software tools. Under the Constanza Protocol, however, he has to do the opposite and instead run toward the manager/employee relationship, schedule calls and check ins, talk about hours and whether his employees are feeling happy about their workflow.   Maybe he won't be as successful as George, but it is a useful way to recognize your negative patterns and break out of them.   Mark Butler The Money School: https://moneyschool.works [https://moneyschool.works] https://markbutler.com [https://markbutler.com] https://letsdothebooks.com [https://letsdothebooks.com]   Jesse Mecham YNAB https://www.youneedabudget.com [https://www.youneedabudget.com]

Jesse shares his experience working on the YNAB books for the first time in many years, while YNAB's head accountant is out of maternity leave. Working through monthly and quarterly close  got him thinking about how software automation could free up the accounting departments time wrangling spreadsheets to do more impactful work for the business. To that end, he engaged Mark to consult on how YNAB can improve their accounting processes. Mark and Jesse continue with a discussion about the inevitability of change, and how employees and companies can position themselves to handle the disruptions that technological innovation create.   Jesse references one his oldest son's college courses, where entrepreneurs visit the class and deliver presentations on their careers and the future of business. On two separate weeks, two very successful entrepreneurs shared their thoughts on AI and how it is disrupting entire industries -- one had a very positive, excited outlook, the other a bleak, pessimistic outlook. The change is inevitable, however, so Jesse asks: which side do you want to be on?   You do have a choice.   Mark Butler The Money School: https://moneyschool.works [https://moneyschool.works] https://markbutler.com [https://markbutler.com] https://letsdothebooks.com [https://letsdothebooks.com]   Jesse Mecham YNAB https://www.youneedabudget.com [https://www.youneedabudget.com]

Recently YNAB announced a major shake up in the way it talks about money. Jesse explains how the realization that each of YNAB's Four Rules was really just a variation of Rule One ("give every dollar a job") led to a deeper conversation about YNAB's core identity. Every year when the executive team met to reasses the company's purpose and direction, the team would change the stated purpose of the company. It became clear that YNAB wasn't a budgeting app, and it wasn't a set of rules for managing money -- there was some self-actualization happening in users that wasn't being captured by the way YNAB presented its method. Eventually the team landed on the word "spendfulness," to describe a state of spending money with purpose and intention.   Jesse discusses how the company has evolved to this point, and where it plans to go now that it has redefined its purpose and even changed it's methods (YNAB dropped the Four Rules for the Five Questions).   Mark wraps up the conversation musing on the pursuit of leisure, and why he has such a hard time indulging in leisure pursuits.   Mark Butler The Money School: https://moneyschool.works [https://moneyschool.works] https://markbutler.com [https://markbutler.com] https://letsdothebooks.com [https://letsdothebooks.com]   Jesse Mecham YNAB https://www.youneedabudget.com [https://www.youneedabudget.com]

Mark and Jesse discuss the pervasive distractions that cell phones and computers cause, and how to fight back against them. Jesse champions the Freedom [https://freedom.to] app blocker, which locks your phone or other device from distracting websites like social media, YouTube, blogs, etc. Since implementing Freedom, he boasts a phone usage time of only 20min per day (!), working toward his stated goal of "making the phone in my pocket feel weird."   Mark questions his propensity to continually start new ventures as part of an anxious reaction to having free time. He realizes that creating leverage in your business ought to lead to free time, which can be dedicated to hobbies and leisure. Without careful attention to cultivating hobbies and other interests, however, free time can become an empty vessel to be filled with more anxious activity.     Mark Butler The Money School: https://moneyschool.works [https://moneyschool.works] https://markbutler.com [https://markbutler.com] https://letsdothebooks.com [https://letsdothebooks.com]   Jesse Mecham YNAB https://www.youneedabudget.com [https://www.youneedabudget.com]

Mark and Jesse kick off the New Year with a deep discussion on inflation and how it creates confusion about the most important price of all -- the price of money.   Mark Butler The Money School: https://moneyschool.works [https://moneyschool.works] https://markbutler.com [https://markbutler.com] https://letsdothebooks.com [https://letsdothebooks.com]   Jesse Mecham YNAB https://www.youneedabudget.com [https://www.youneedabudget.com]