Miles' Thoughts

Observations about how technology is changing the way we work, and those not paying attention will get left in the dust. Computer technology - most notably the internet - has made communication across the globe much easier. This means that an accountant in Wyoming can collaborate with a developer in Romania with little more than a laptop and internet connection. You no longer have to find someone with the specific skillset you need within your same geographical area, so now the pool of skills is much, much larger. In a hyper-connected world where the average person has access to this massive pool of skills, suddenly you don't need as many generalists and a lot of human capital is freed up to become incredibly specialized. With low communication barriers and lots of specialists, we all win. Think of a small town that just has one doctor. In the past, that doctor would have to know a little bit about everything. If you had a fever, you went to that doctor. If you broke your arm, ...

It's that time of year again and everyone is getting amped up about filing taxes, right? Well regardless of whether your president will be paying his or not, chances are you have to. And if you're like many people, it's a kind of painful process that results in you owing the IRS a little bit of money. Not to worry though because I've got a tax secret no one is talking about . Guaranteed way to pay less taxes, period! To set the scene, let's talk about how income tax works for just a moment, as many people don't actually understand this part. Since this is the most boring subject on the planet (literally), we'll keep it simple: The tax bracket you fall into is not the rate at which all of your earnings are taxed Instead it works in tiers. You pay a certain percentage for the dollars that fall within each tier. For example, if you filed as a single person for 2016, you paid: 10% on the first $9,275 Plus 15% of the dollars between $9,276—$37,650 Plu...

Are you putting premium in your tank and garbage in your mouth? When was the last time you took a close look at the results your lifestyle have had on your body? To paraphrase author/thinker Tim Ferriss - If you're getting your car checked out more often than you're having your own blood work done, you need to get your priorities straight! Whether you've been suffering from the same health problem for years or just can't quite get to the level of fitness you're aiming for, chances are what you're eating is a major factor. Think about it, the things you put into your body are what it uses to operate. It's the gasoline to power the generator, the bricks that make up the walls, the oil which lubricates constantly moving parts, and it feeds the system which washes out waste. If you're supplying your body with sub-optimal fuel it's going to give you sub-optimal results. That being said, I'm not a doctor, dietician, or even a wanna-be online person...

Does anyone remember Coinstar, the friendly little vending machine that would turn two years of dropping pennies into an old Jack Daniels bottle into spendable cash, for only a mere 8.9% cut? As we rely less and less on physical cash to operate in our daily lives this machines have slowly started to disappear, or at least become much less relevant. It's a little bit funny, but at least in the United States the idea that change is essentially worthless has penetrated the minds of the many for some time. I think because of this we think about almost all pricing in terms of dollars - not cents. The $x.99 and $x.95 were lovely pricing tricks aimed at duping our subconscious minds a bit for this exact reason. And in a world where it was a pain in the ass to complete a monetary transaction - get your wallet out, count out the bills, hand them to a stranger, and awkwardly cup your hands waiting for change - it made a lot of sense to price all products high enough to warrant going throug...

It's the oldest law of nature, yet somehow it's so one of the most difficult concepts for us to truly accept. The vast majority of people talk about how they are open to change and we talk about how great change is in public forums, but I'm afraid the truth is that when it really comes down to it most people are not willing to actually accept, embrace, or incite change. On a biological level I can somewhat understand that. Change is a shift away from the unknown, and why shift to the unknown when the known is perfectly safe, especially in the big scary world we live in. Yet there are many instances in which as a species we have made the conscious effort to resist our instincts; in fact "civilized society" is often defined by this ability to overcome some of our basic human instincts. Even more interesting is that living organisms are constantly adapting to their surroundings, both on a biological level and a behavioral one. Nature has long since proven out the b...

Just outside Barton Springs - Austin, TX There's a beautiful world out there if you'll just open your eyes once in awhile. One of my favorite aspects of the wave of technological innovation that we're experiencing is how much easier it is to immerse yourself in nature. From access to information on far away destinations, to the infrastructure to cheaply reach them, to the tools that allow you to continue to be productive and connected (should you so wish) once you get there. I find it troubling that most people haven't made a very simple connection yet: just as easily as you can check your Facebook on a flight to Brazil you can add value to team meetings from a hammock in your backyard, respond to emails from a picnic table next to your favorite swimming hole, or engage with clients to accomplish projects from the front porch of a cabin deep in the Rocky Mountains. For the vast majority of you, there's no reason you can't too. The question we need to be ...

How in the hell did we become so accepting of the idea of indebtedness? When did the word usury - which is referred to as a sin in many religious texts - shift from the practice of lending money and charging any  interest to lending money and charging too much  interest? How did we build a society in which people decide to purchase goods and services without even checking how much money is in their bank account? That's like saying I'll trade you this cow for that lumber but you don't even know if you have a cow. That's insane, and the fact that no one thinks twice about it is even more insane. These questions and a 1000 of their closest reincarnations fly through my mind in dizzying fashion. I'm afraid we could spend the rest of our lives talking about how we got here - from greedy profit-seeking useless-widget makers shoving consumerism down our throats to banks who lock their customers into contracts with language that might as well be hieroglyphics the story is...