On January 26th 2024, I was 111kg (244lbs) and made a decision to not only sort out my weight, but a few important things in my life. Today, less than 6 months later, I am 90kg (198lbs) on the scale. Losing 21kg (46lbs) turned out to be really simple and easy once I made the decision. I was dedicated and motivated. There was no grand p...

I'm an easy going, go with the flow sort of guy so planning generally isn't my first thought. Something I've realised in life as I get older is how important it is to have purpose in various areas of my life. Whether it be where I work, what food I put in my body, whether or not I exercise and how much, the friendships I foster, the ch...

It’s definitely a home food. 🌽 -Ben

“"Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you." - James 4:8” I was talking to my wife today about a time when she was sharing some hard moments with a friend from church. The friend encouraged her to "run to God" in those hard times. That's nice and makes sense but at the same time, what does that even look like? I've been a Christi...

I feel like this is said in a lot of places but as I get older and start to gain weight this starts to resonate with me. What’s the point on having everything in the world if you’re stuck on a bed or worse, dead from dying early. It’s worth the pain to be healthy. -Ben

I recently joined an investment group and they have a forum for their members. Being apart of the community has really opened my eyes to how markets work. People are so fickle and act on emotions, sometimes based on someone’s opinion rather than on a plan or data. We are emotional beings so it makes sense that we act this way. However,...

I want my own space. I want to spend time with them. I love them. I dislike them. They’re growing up so fast. I’m so impatient. I’m so tired. Time is flying by. I don’t want to miss the moments. Am I good enough? Am I present? Am I showing love? What does it mean to be a good parent? Will they like me when they’re older? Will they want...

I am the type of person that needs to be stimulated. I need to be listening or watching or reading something. Doing nothing bores me. It is a sad truth for a lot of society in 2023. I was asking my pastor today how I can do life in God’s strength and no my own. This is something I’ve battled with my whole life. He challenged to stop an...

I wrote this article for the Tithely Engineering blog back in 2021. When an individual or team of engineers have clear instructions and a laser focus on the project at hand, they can move swiftly and efficiently. In contrast, when there is a lack of clarity, especially in a remote working environment, anxiety creeps in. We find ourselv...

My wife and I sponsor 3 children through Compassion. It's a joy to give and help our communities around the world. I've been writing letters to them ever since I took on their sponsorship. It's been difficult because how they write back feels like they haven't read my letters or acknowledged any questions I asked them. Granted, they we...

It's been fun hearing DHH from 37signals talk about their cloud exit. In summary, they are moving from AWS back to their own data center and hardware. I think it's a cool idea, and love that they are willing to give it a shot. It's interesting, though, for them to go back like this, as most tech companies, I'm sure, moved to platforms ...

I've been working remotely for almost 5 years now, and it has been fascinating learning how to be an effective communicator remotely and fostering good communication between colleagues. Great leaders can create an environment of efficient communication in a remote workplace. Whether you're the CEO, a manager, or a team lead, you have t...

Handling an overwhelming amount of tasks, especially those that are long-running, is a skill that needs to be learned and often only requires a small amount of structure and process to manage. I've experienced frustration working with colleagues who simply do not have the structure and process in place to handle the pace of tasks in re...

I was playing with ChatGPT last night, and it was incredible what I could ask it to do, specifically around writing code. I asked it to write code in a certain way, and it did. I then asked it to change certain aspects of the code, and it did that also. The experience was literally like me writing to an engineer and asking them to buil...

Cryptocurrency. People either love it or hate it. They either understand it or remain ignorant. I'm a big fan but have invested time in understanding it. Similarly, there is a tonne of publicly traded companies that make big promises of high growth and big gains for investors. Although all so alluring, there is a good reason to totally...

In 2021, I got heavily into cryptocurrency. Although I only sunk a small portion of my net worth into it, it felt a little crazy, especially when sharing the news with our financial planner and accountant. So many respected financial people really were and still are against it, and for a good reason! A lot of people lose a lot of money...

I really like how Robert Kiyosaki defined an asset and a liability in his "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" series of books. He says that assets are something that put money in your pocket, whereas liabilities take money out of your pocket. Robert was scrutinized when he said that a person's own house is not an asset because it costs money to keep ...

I'll be upfront and say that I have a very biased view toward giving and generosity for two reasons. One is because I am a Christian, and I am taught to give generously of my time, talent, and treasure (money). The second is because I have followed that teaching and have seen how giving has come back to benefit me in multiple ways. I d...

Thinking about retirement when you’re young oftentimes feels pointless as it’s so far away. I felt this way for many years. But as soon as I had kids and saw how quickly they were growing up and how fast the years were starting to go, I realised that retirement will hit sooner than I thought. I think it's pretty safe to say that your c...

There are different structures available to not only protect the assets within them but can also lead to tax savings. My experience being an Australian is around the structures that exist in Australia. However, there should be similar equivalents in most western countries. The goal here is to give you an overview of the different struc...

Investing in stocks is a great way to get started with very little money down. It depends on the broker you use and their minimums. When considering stocks, you'll come across a bunch of different terms such as index funds, exchange traded funds (ETFs), mutual funds, individual stocks, actively managed, growth stocks, and value stocks....

Today I needed to buy some organic ghee. For those intrigued by what the heck ghee is, it’s clarified butter for cooking and has a high smoke point making it more healthy. Google it. Anyway…. I was at the mall and the health food store didn’t stock the type I wanted. So I decided I’d just order online. I Googled the brand I wanted, wen...

Renting out a property and receiving income from it can be a very rewarding thing. A lot of people shy away from the idea of a rental property because they have to deal with humans, also known as tenants. But in my experience, get a good property manager in place and you're more likely to get good tenants and you'll also be shielded fr...

Last time I posted about side hustles. A side hustle can turn into a business and that's where a lot of businesses start. Creating a business can be one of the best ways to increase your cashflow. It can be as simple as finding a need that people have and creating a solution. Sell that solution to people and you’re on your way to start...

This is the first post of a series I'm writing on increasing cashflow. The first topic I wish to cover are side hustles. A side hustle can be anything (legal of course) that gets you paid on top of whatever other job or income you have paying you. Side hustles can often turn into a business one day so it can be a great place to start i...

Creating a business can sound scary and hard to an individual who has never done it before. As someone who has done it a few times now, I’d love to help expand your thinking. I like to think of a business as creating a solution to a problem. A business can be as simple as one person solving a group of people's problems. Think about wha...

A habit that is important to get into is paying yourself first before you pay any of your other bills. Paying yourself first should be under the goal of putting aside money for yourself to increase your wealth, not to be spent on things you want. An emergency fund is a good place to start if you don't have one. From there, you want to ...

When I was in my early teens, I decided I wanted to learn how to write software code. I didn't have this grand plan of making money or making a career out of this skill. It just interested me, so I pursued it. Looking back 20 years, that decision to start pursuing the idea ended up defining my life up until this point. It resulted in s...

I needed to build a simple website for a book I am writing. The book is going to be published on the web (similar to Basecamp's Shape Up) and since it's mainly text content, I decided to go with VuePress 2. After building the site quite easily in VuePress 2, I found out that VitePress existed. After some research, I thought it would be...

What if I told you that you can create money out of thin air? People do it all the time. They create businesses or use their talents and tools around them to make money. When I created the software business that I sold for millions of dollars, I created that money out of thin air. It was my time and intelligence over 7 years that built...