Jason's Business By Bootstraps

  • The post-game systems ritual

    I’ve been thinking a lot about systems lately, and how I can create them in a way that takes the “me” out of the equation in my business. Part of this is because I’ve been meaning to re-read The E-Myth, and the other part is an increasing awareness that I have so few hours in […]

  • How to build immunity to criticism

    “Is it possible we are defined by our enemies and out willingness and ability to create and annoy them?” That’s a quote by Dan Kennedy from his latest newsletter, which came at a great time, that time being the day I was going to write this post.  It (and the article it’s from) perfectly complements […]

  • Failure by goal achievement

    I think I’ve tapped into another one of those obvious things that need to be spoken aloud before they become obvious. In business, and in life, we know what to do, on at least a basic level, to get the results we’re looking for.  I’m going to use diet for my example on this one […]

  • A Data Hoarder vaccination against TED Talks

    TED Talks have been around a while.  The current intro video says there’s something like 900 available online.  I can’t say for certain which one I watched first, but I was an early adopter, subscribing to the podcast feed, and so on.  In recent years, I fell away from them, mostly because (and I realize […]

  • Why I love copywriting

    I spent half the day today writing proposals to program computers instead of actually programming computers, and damn, I felt good. I grew up loving books, but the way things were presented to me, the only way to get a job writing was to either be an author or write for a newspaper.  Yep, that […]

  • Defining entrepreneurship

    Here’s one thing I’ve learned: it’s hard to define an entrepreneur objectively and meaningfully. Want to be 100% objective?  Use the dictionary and give the words no further thought.  “A person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.” Wow, that was useful. Want to be 100% meaningful?  Usually […]

  • Copying what works

    There’s an old adage in business that if you see something being done long enough, it’s probably because it’s profitable, even if you can’t understand it right away. And that’s probably true, in a lot of markets.  Infomercials, for example, contain dozens (if not hundreds) of tactics that have been individually tested, so even if […]

  • On the sustainability of personal effort

    Newsflash: nothing you do yourself is sustainable. At least not forever.  Even allowing for some pretty cool medical breakthroughs, whatever you’re doing now isn’t going to be possible for you to do in 150 years.  For other efforts, a time scale is a big help. Because just about everything is sustainable, at least for a […]

  • Objections become validation (vaccination update)

    OK, a fun story since I wrote about the need to vaccinate yourself as an entrepreneur: it’s not a complete study, but from one man’s experience, simply knowing that certain events may happen on the path to success is enough to turn them from potentially crippling events to solid goalposts of validation. Let me explain: […]

  • The power of practice versus the new practice penalty

    Regular practice is a powerful thing. Whether it’s daily exercise, meditation, journaling or blogging, or whatever else you might do on a recurring basis, these habits provide framing for the rest of your day and allow you to exercise discipline in small doses.  They are transformational. And they hurt like hell to implement. I’m talking […]