Jared Dees's Blog: The Latest from Jared Dees, page 32

Sugar and Sin

Eating sugar is not a sin, but it has many similarities to the experience of sin:

You have a desire for it. It feels great during and for a very short time afterwards. After awhile you feel worse than you did before. If you are not careful, you will become addicted to it. The more you resist it, the easier it is to resist the desire next time.

Another thought:

Resisting sugar builds up your self-control muscle and trains the will to resist real sin.

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Set Up the Ending with Hints Throughout the Story

We watched Wonder last night.

It was very moving, of course.

I teared up at times during the movie that I didn’t expect. As a parent, this happens a lot while watching movies.

I won’t give away the ending, but I felt that it didn’t land as poignantly as it could have. The ending scene makes sense and its a good way to wrap up the story, however, there is one thing the producers could have done to give it more oomph.

The scene seemed to come out of nowhere. If there had been hints or an expect...

A Book Idea Notebook

Stephen King advises authors not to keep a notebook of story ideas. He has said:

“I think keeping a notebook is the best way to immortalize bad ideas.”

The reason is that a good idea will stick with you. You won’t need to write it down to remember it.

In her Masterclass on writing Judy Blume says authors should keep a notebook of ideas.

The interesting thing is, though, that she never wrote a book with any of these ideas. The reason to keep an idea notebook from her perspective is to give you...

Happy Money Book Summary

Happy Money by Laura Buenostar is a book I’ve had on my Amazon wishlist for a number of years. It is a very short, $0.99 eBook with a compelling take-away: a 2-step formula for money.

The Happy Money Method is:

Step 1: Give

Give money anonymously to others.

Specifically, write a blessing on five one-dollar bills and leave them in public places.

Leave the money in a park, public restroom, church, school, restaurant, grocery store, etc.

Step 2: Receive

Receive money and abundance from others.

H...

Your website doesn’t have to be pretty to make an impact.

For the first time in a few years I started to research and read personal finance blogs again. I came across a group of blogs writing about the goal of “financial independence” and retiring early (affectionately called FIRE).

All of them point back to a blog by J. L. (Jim) Collins and his “Stock Series.”

I have been a big proponent of index fund investing for many years. I read a couple of books by John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, five or six years ago. Collins’s series of blog posts abou...

March 2018 Project Report

Welcome to my March 2018 Project Report. My goal with these monthly reports is to help other authors, entrepreneurs, leaders, or anyone else who wants to make an impact through their work. Each month I will share how I spent my time as an author and creative entrepreneur and the successes, failures, and lessons I learned along the way.

How I Spent My Time in March 2018

I track every minute of time I spend working on projects using an app called Toggl (here is why). Here is a list of the proje...

Writing to Learn

A number of authors have said that writing helps them think, learn, and form an opinion about something.

This may seem like an obvious truth, but until I started keeping this daily learning log I didn’t realize how true it was.

I find that the lessons and ideas I record in this blog are much more memorable than anything else I read, listen to, or watch alone.

When I think about books I’ve read this year, it is the ideas that I recorded here that stand out the most.

When I think about various...

Unhappiness and Expectations

Things don’t always go our way.

I don’t mean big things. It’s the little things that don’t match up with plans and expectations that we can let bother us throughout the day.

The more we can detach ourselves from what happens and the way we want or wish things to go, the happier we will be.

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The Best Way to Recover Failed Payments for a Membership Site

I have to say that Casey Graham’s interview on the Smart Passive Income Podcast was an eye-opener.

There are more than 1,000 members of The Religion Teacher and a lot of delinquent payments each month.

“Delinquent” makes them sound like bad people and they are absolutely not that. It’s not like I expect them to remember me among their many other companies to call with updated credit card information.

Samcart and Stripe, which I used to process payments, do a good job sending automated emails...

Facebook Live for Webinars: Pros and Cons

Yesterday I gave a webinar using Facebook Live for the first time. I’ve used GoToWebinar more than 100 times, but it’s pretty expensive for me to buy it for my personal business. I’ve used Google Hangout (now YouTube Live) as well, but setting up all the email reminders and landing pages is a lot of extra work.

For the last year I’ve been creating short whiteboard videos on Facebook Live and they have had a lot of traction. I’ve gotten a great response on each video and lots of compliments in...