https://cruciallearning.com/blog/influencer-institute-finding-meaning-in-the-mundane/ VitalSmarts is now Crucial Learning Tue, 25 Jan 2022 17:56:28 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.2 https://cruciallearning.com/blog/influencer-institute-finding-meaning-in-the-mundane/#comment-2995 Sun, 07 Jul 2013 19:43:14 +0000 http://www.crucialskills.com/?p=4647#comment-2995 […] Atilano, a new friend of mine in Mexico, smiles while he delivers bottled water from his bicycle to nearby homes and businesses. His is a small business by nearly every standard, yet it is a powerful component of his escape route from poverty. And it’s working.But that’s only half of the story. It turns out that there are several behaviors besides increasing income that lead a person to the outcome of a reliable financial surplus, and, eventually, to permanently improved economic conditions.Can you imagine what one of those behaviors is?You probably already know the answer—and it isn’t an exciting one. The behavior is: regularly write down every amount of money you take in and spend. People who make a habit (the intersection of ability and reliability) of regular financial record keeping know exactly how much they earn, exactly how much they spend, and can therefore take action if there is an imbalance between the two.Our work with small business mentoring organizations in Latin America verifies this fact: their very poor clients who start small businesses and keep daily financial records manage to escape poverty over time, sometimes rapidly. Those who start businesses but are sloppy with record keeping or neglect it entirely, may never get ahead—and often don’t.  […]

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