Last week, I found myself critiquing and tisk, tisking the coffee selections at an organic grocery store. I don ‘t even drink coffee!

But I was in the progress of reading, Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time. I picked up the book to learn about fast-growing startups and found myself picking up a few tips on the best roast and coolest coffee house colors from the Starbucks point of view. So what did I learn (besides the perfect foam spread) from “one of the most amazing business stories in decades”?

There is no more precious a commodity than the relationship of trust and confidence a company has with its employees. If people believe management is not fairly sharing the rewards, they will feel alienated. Once they start distrusting management, the company ‘s future is compromised.

In daily life, you get so much pressure from friends and family and colleagues, urging you to take the easy way, to follow the prevailing wisdom, that it can be difficult not to simply accept the status quo and do what ‘s expected of you. But when you really believe in yourself, in your dream you just have to do everything you possibly can to take control and make your vision a reality. No greater achievement happens by luck.

To any entrepreneur, I would offer this advice: once you’ve figured out what you want to do, find someone who has done it before. Find not just talented executives but even more experienced entrepreneurs and business people who can guide you. They know where to look for the mines in the minefield. If they have thought and acted boldly in their own careers, and proven successful, they can help you do the same.

One of the most fundamental aspects of leadership, I realized more and more, is the ability to instill confidence in others when you yourself are feeling insecure.

Success is not an entitlement. We have to earn it every day. Just because Starbucks has achieved all its goals in the past didn’t mean that we were immune to mistakes. We had to be in a mode of constant renewal and recognize that the future of our company was not based on what we achieved yesterday. We had to preserver, even when our near-term targets seem out of reach.

So would I recommend this book? I ‘m not sure. The first hundred pages were great; I couldn’t stop reading. Of course, I also don’t know if I’ve ever been in an actual Starbucks, so I was seeing the business as more than a conglomerate giant that is consuming America and the world. I saw the company from the personal and passionate vantage point of the CEO. I enjoyed wearing the rosy glasses. And I enjoyed the constant reflections the stuff you and I can gain from in our own lives.

But then the book started to drag on. I didn’t see so much reflection, just a lot of bragging. The rest of the book took me weeks to finish, and I didn’t get much out of it. The last two chapters wrapped up in the typical “we ‘ll keep working to be the best and live happily ever after”. I wasn’t reading Disney, though!

A lot of people ask Todd and I what Aridni stands for. Guy Kawaski, author of the blog, “How to Change the World“, has an explanation for crazy entity names that don’t necessarily mean anything at all!

A remarkable name for your organization, product, or service is like pornography: It’s hard to define, but you know it when you see it.

Ever wish you were capable of something, thought of all the experts out there, and quickly lost faith in yourself? I know it happens to the best of us. But I also think that the only difference between those experts and our amateur selves is dedication and experience.

When a professional figure skater always falters in a footwork sequence, she keeps working and working until “always falters” becomes “never falters”. I grew up with skating lessons and dreams of the Olympics; I didn’t have the dedication to ever take me to the Olympics, obviously. I found myself practicing the footwork sequences that I could do best because I liked them, I looked good on the ice, and the moves were easier.

Most of us practice the things we’re good at, and we avoid what we’re not good at. We stick with what’s easy and comfortable. As a result, we’re forever average.

Richard Restake quoted in his book, The New Brain,
For the superior performer the goal isn’t just repeating the same thing again and again but achieving higher levels of control over every aspect of their performance. That’s why they don’t find practice boring. Each practice session they are working on doing something better than they did the last time.

What matters isn’t how long you work; it’s how well you work. Did you brush every tooth before bed? Is the math problem correct?

Thinking of all the things we want to be great at is easy. You could probably ramble off a handful right now. What are they?

Then the depressing part… how are you working toward becoming an expert at these things? Sometimes, amateur skill is enough. We’re content where we are. We could make lists and lists of goals, yet when it comes down to doing the things that count, we change our minds or forget.

Block the obstacles in your mind. A local business man sells worldwide tours through the internet. He told me, “If I had known the competition out there, I probably wouldn’t have had the nerve to try this business.” He went from amateur business man to a booming expert, and he’s dedicated to keep working toward his goals of furthering his business. He’s become the expert.

The path toward financial freedom requires some pretty heavy planning. Todd and I seldom divulge much about our personal lives, yet with the decisions that my husband and I have been making, I feel like readers could benefit from some of the ideas we’ve been implementing. As a bonus, Todd can’t argue, “You didn’t tell me that!”

Our idea of money freedom requires:
- Setting goals
- Creating behaviors
- Discussing our plans, progress, and reasons for working so hard

1. Setting goals

The most important factor is that my husband (age 27) and I (age 24) hold the same idea about money. I’ve often read that wealthy men become wealthy through two positive attributes: their spending habits and the even more frugal spending habits of their wives. Am I trying to boost my ego as a wife? No’but I think that we all want to splurge sometimes. You need someone who can remind you that you don’t need that pair of shoes or new computer right now. A spouse with common goals will discourage bad habits and unnecessary desires. Meanwhile, a spouse who acts nonchalant or encourages abundant spending habits could quickly spell disaster.

My husband and I go to coffee shops to compile our thoughts on work, school, and schedules. We love the youthful environment. My husband announced his resignation at work; detailed ideas of how we’re going to financially support ourselves and our projects without his income are crucial. We’re heading to the coffee shop more often now. Can’t believe I’m going to be the breadwinner for a little while!

Record your finance goals and keep them updated. We update an excel template every month to show our net worth. You need to see where your money is going, areas that are growing, and roughly how much money you need to cover yourself. When one of our rental properties is vacant, we have to cover all those expenses’utilities, mortgage, insurance, taxes’until the property generates income again.

Track your long-term goals. I made a progress chart for us to color each $10,000 growth mark to $1 million like those United Way boards. Every so often, we can fill in another tick when we know it’s stable. Beside our chart is an estimate of how much our net worth needs to grow every six months to keep in target with our final goals. Your estimates will never be exact, though you build something to dream off of.

2. Creating behaviors

I’m surprised at how easy it has been for us to get into some great habits’biking as much as possible instead of driving. My husband even has studded bike tires for his winter commutes; he’s pushing it more than most of us could handle, yet this savings means we don’t need two cars.

The easiest behaviors to change (the ones I prefer most) are the ones you can do once and not look back, like electric bills. Even though we rent a house, my husband replaced the thermostat with a programmable thermostat. We switched to energy efficient light bulbs. When our lease ends, we’re taking our energy efficient items with us to save at our next home. Doesn’t it make sense to cut back on the things you don’t need/use anyway?

Other temptations, however, aren’t so easy to forego‘especially eating out when we don’t want to cook or managing our unproductive time during the weekends. No one is ever perfect, and it’s so easy to see how other people aren’t perfect. The hard part is recognizing bad (i.e. expensive) habits that we have and transforming them. You’ve probably heard of the latte factor, which is a great thing to cut, of course… but what if you don’t have a latte factor habit that you know of? Again, a spouse will let you know… unless he holds the same habits.

3. Discussing plans, progress, and reasons for working so hard

My husband and I work seven days a week, five for someone else and two for ourselves. A quarter of our income transfers hands to another person working on our real estate development. Gaining financial freedom is a process. Quitting would be so easy! For that reason, we constantly talk about our plans and ideas. Don’t put your goals in a time capsule to pull out in ten years and say, “Well, looks like we didn’t quite meet our goal, honey.” We’ve got reminders everywhere in the house… short of the bathrooms, I guess. And the reminders are working.