HUSBAND. FATHER. DISCIPLE OF JESUS CHRIST.
ENTREPRENEUR. MEDIOCRE GOLFER.

Every once in a while something happens that changes your perspective. It gives you insight into something unexpected and it changes your behavior moving forward. Covid was that way for me. 12 days of sick after years of not being sick. I missed the mountains....

Over the years I've used a lot of different ways to pay my OFS team. I started with Xoom.com. Then they freaked out and started telling people they couldn't use Xoom for business transactions.  I can't even tell you how many people I know got stranded because...

My favorite movie of all time is Home Alone. I know... I was in 7th grade and saw it in the theatre. I remember my stomach hurting from laughing so hard.  The pain was so bad I didn't know what to do, but I also couldn't stop laughing.   As an adult, it's...

I knew I had covid within an hour of the symptoms coming on.   No idea where I got it. But the immediate fever and chills were obvious. I don't get sick very often.  I haven't had a fever in years.I live a pretty healthy life. So of course I expected the...

Julia, my OFCS (Online Filipino Content Specialist): As I was checking John's emails for him, I see a lot of questions like: "How can you trust your VA with personal information?""How can you trust your VA with financial information?""How can you trust your VA with...

"How do I know if I can trust them?" <-- the #1 question I get asked "How do I trust them with sensitive information" <-- The #4 question I get asked Last week at the end of an email I asked how other people handle sensitive data.Everyone responded about...

The worst advice I ever heard? "Fake it till you make it." Why?   You'll never make it if you're faking it. If you're faking it, you're deceiving people.  The best business advice I ever got? Add value. Look at what you're doing and think: Am I honestly...

Some of you think I never work. You think I only ski and ride my bike and occasionally write an email. I do all of those things...I just do them in equal amounts to how much I work. Here's proof. It's just that when I work I'm ultra efficient.  I delegate...

My Content Specialist, Julia, sent this to me: The whole world has fallen in love with K-pop groups like BTS and BlackPink. But you know what other Korean cultural export that we Filipinos love and highly recommend to our bosses overseas? Korean TV shows. We have been...

Meeting my team in the Philippines was amazing.  It only happened once, in 2010.I took my family to the Philippines on vacation for a month with the intent of meeting my team while I was there.  If you get a chance to meet the people who work for you, do it....

This isn't the best content we've ever written, but it's beautifully written. My OFS Julia is amazing. In the almost 10 years I have worked for John, we've pretty much survived all the possible natural and man-made disasters outside of Chernobyl together. ✔ Typhoons✔...

My daughter just got braces Braces suck!!! They're painful, eating hurts, gums hurt, they look and feel awkward. Now, instead of every 6 months, you have to go to the dentist every month!What could be worse? Even worse, it's like everyone is staring at you all the...

People are always surprised to hear that I work 17 hours/week.  They're even more surprised to hear I've done it since about 2007.  It seems impossible.  I mean, everyone has read the 4HWW. But...nobody seems to know anyone actually living it. Do you?...

As we summited the peak for the 2nd time today I looked south and saw thick clouds rolling in. I turned to the north and a pit formed in my stomach.  Clouds converging from all sides. Slowly, but thick.  Visibility was about to become zero. Not a good thing...

My kids laughed at me. Are you serious? "$5???" Ok, fine, you're right.  No incentive for getting your chores done. You're a part of this house and we expect you to get them done. That's how our chore conversation went.  The incentive didn't work.  The...

I hate the word "benefits" when it comes to work related additions. In the US, most "benefits" serve to tie someone down to a job they don't like.   "I can't quit and start out on my own, what about benefits"? But, from an employers perspective??? Employee...

2 of my kids had their tonsils out a few weeks ago: It was a painful 9 days.   Lots of popsicles, crying, water, tylenol, ibuprofen, sleep... When the total bill came for the surgery, it was $500 each.  I was surprised at how affordable it was.  Of...

I'm all about systems.  It means I don't have to think about something. It means something happens without me.  I've found in my life that if I have to think about something over and over again it clutters my brain so I'm not efficient at solving bigger...

"Dad...when are we going to start paying taxes on this?" My son is super intense. He's been running businesses since he was 11. Some made money, some didn't.   But the one he has stuck with the longest did about $300k in sales this past year (he just turned...

Internet problems at my house entail conversions like"Ugh...what's wrong with the wifi?  It's so slow!""Dad, your wifi sucks!" <-- teenage kids"John, come fix my computer." <-- my amazing wife During COVID, it's especially crappy because these...

A lot of mornings I do this with my 3rd grade daughter while she's getting ready for school. "What's 4x8?""What's 7x8?""2x8?""9x8?" I'll just repeat over and over to help her memorize. Math is a lot about patterns.  The more you recognize the patterns, the easier...

On the drive up to ski in the backcountry the other day my son and I talked through our plans. What should we do if conditions are like "this"?What about if "this" happens"?Here's the research I did about the snowpack in this area.What do you think about this route?...

The term VA or Virtual Assistant has bugged me for a long time. You're not hiring an "assistant". They're not a nebulous "do anything but don't be particularly good at anything" person. Yes, I've hired a couple of those over the years. Actually, the first person...

With Valentines coming up, how about a little "love" knowledge. My VA wrote this piece about "The Bachelor", but what stuck out to me is that there's no divorce in the Philippines. Maybe this is why they're so darn loyal.  Why...if you treat them well, they'll...

We skied in Little Cottonwood Canyon the other day.  It was amazing.  15" of new snow, a storm, backcountry, being out with my son...all the ingredients for an adventure. The unexpected piece of the adventure was the traffic. Oh sure, traffic is super common...

My family and I are pretty healthy.   We eat really well.We exercise a lot.We sleep 8+ hours/night.We have low stress. Generally, we're pretty darn healthy.  That doesn't mean we don't have our problems.  - 2 of my kids just had their tonsils out.-...

Yesterday I went sledding with my older kids.   No, not your normal sledding.  We call this "adult sledding".orSled racing. We hike up a canyon 1-2 miles, then we sled back down the single-track 1-2 miles. It's a 1-2 mile long luge where we race each...

The first time it happened I had no idea why. My Filipino worker didn't show up on a random Friday. Weird... Later I learned it was Chinese New Year. Still weird... The next year it happened again. hmmm...ok??? Turns out, Chinese New Year is kind of a big deal in the...

When eating out there are always 2 awkward moments for me:1. When the server asks "Will these be separate checks or together"?2. When they bring the bill and both of you reach for it. It's weird.   Money across relationships is weird. Filipinos feel the same....

We climbed up into a whiteout today.  It was too cold and windy to take a pic.  The day started out nice at the trailhead. I even recorded a 10 minute long video about how to effectively manage a team of workers in the Philippines (coming soon). 3.5...

The plan yesterday was for my wife and I to ski in the backcountry in the morning. Then my 18yr old son was going to bring all the kids up to Alta in the afternoon and we would ski in the resort until it closed. Plans went wrong. In the parking lot before heading...

Communication is critical in skiing in the backcountry. Talking through the current avalanche situation, talking about terrain, and slopes are a constant part of what we do.Each partner needs to know what's going on at all times both to avoid an avalanche and in...

Do you ever think about buying something but you're not sure what it costs so it makes you hesitate?  I don't like feeling embarrassed or ripped off, so the combination sometimes makes me not go into a store. If I don't trust them I don't know if I'm going to get...

Most people running a business want help with their website.   - Maybe you're running Shopify and you want help with it.- Maybe you're building wordpress sites for clients and need someone to manage plugins.- Maybe you're an insurance agent and want your site to...

Growing up I had 2 male role models: My dad and my uncle. We were poor. My dad worked hard, but we were poor. He always had a good stable job, and then at night either he went to law school or after graduating, he did legal work to try and make ends meet. I love...

First, let me start with what NOT to tell your friends. Don't tell them the name of your VA. People are lazy. Nobody wants to do the work of recruiting a VA.If you go raving about your VA to your friends and then you tell them the name of your VA, they're going to go...

I've only been to the Philippines once.  ONCE! It was in 2010. I took my family there on vacation. We sat on a beach on the island of Boracay for 5 weeks.  It was amazing.   (they're so little! They're 15, 18, and 13 now!) I'll tell more about the trip...

Look, this is basic management advice... ...but it's ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT in the Philippines. Your VAs want to be appreciated. They want to know that you're happy with their work.They want to make you happy.They want to feel useful. If they don't, they're not...

*WARNING* - I don't have a weak stomach...but what my VA wrote made me queezy.  Unaltered from my VA:-----------You're eating balut wrong (or the wrong balut) Nothing grosses out the rest of the world like the Filipino delicacy 'balut' or fertilized duck egg. The...

One of my college roommates and I saw things differently. Me: I think I can run my own business and make my own schedule and work a lot less. Him: "Don't you know small business owners work more than anyone else!" Haha...who's laughing now! This roommate grew up...

I got bit by the dreaded "red snake" yesterday. I took my family up skiing.  (good lookin' if I do say so myself) We were supposed to get like 1 inch of snow but we ended up getting 3!  It was amazing... ...until we drove home. There was a red snake of tail...

I've had it happen to me. You hire a new VA. They start out great. Great work.Fast turn-around times.High quality. Then something happens and everything slows down. Quality declines. You know you hired a good person...you went through the process...

The first thing most people want to do when they get a bunch of applicants to their job post is schedule Skype interviews. Don't do it. Here's my experience (and thousands of other people's experience). You have 10 applicants.You ask them to schedule a Skype call.5 of...

We treat Sundays different than any other day of the week.For us, it's a day of rest.  A day of worship. A day where we do different things than we do most days of the week.This Sunday we played a bunch of games together, had a Sunday School lesson, and had...

As I climbed the mountain with my kids on Wild Wednesday my mind went back to the podcast interview I did the day before. The host:"So John, my biggest question is what kind of VA should I hire first?  Like, who should I be looking for so I have the biggest...

As I did yoga this morning I was concentrating on my breathing.  In...Out...In...Out... Downward Dog In...Out...In...Out... I needed the breathing to get the "fake vacations" out of my head. Fake vacations? Yesterday someone replied to my newsletter and...

I have a neighbor who just bought a mountain bike.   He calls me and says "Hey, we need to go riding!  I got a bike!" I'm like, No...we can't ride right now, the trails are all snowed over or muddy. He bought it. But that's not the real reason why I...

The following was written by one of my VAs. She wrote it in first person as if it were me.  As if I had all this knowledge about why the Philippines has tons of holidays.   I don't. But there are 2 takeaways here:1. they have a lot of holidays....

It was "Wild Wednesday" for us (the day my kids are off school so we do something crazy outside). While climbing a mountain in the backcountry skiing with my older kids, I was filming a video about "What type of VA you should hire first". Then the notifications...

It's Monday afternoon as I write this and I'm sure gyms across the world were packed this morning with people who've decided to get in shape as their "New Years Resolution". I spent the day in the mountains backcountry skiing with my wife. It's not part of any...