Every growing business moves along an S-curve: slow growth, dynamic growth, then a plateau. In this episode of Resilience Talk, I walk through the stages from zero to $500K to $1 million and beyond, why a business naturally falls back to the capabilities of its system, and why you can't build your $20 million company today. If you've been stuck at the same ceiling for a while, this is a framework for understanding why, and for deciding how to evolve. Connect with Paul Website: https://www.secondnature.solutions/ Subscribe to the newsletter: https://www.secondnature.solutions/join LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-spencer-7252118/ Chapters (00:00) Evolution and the S-curve (03:29) From zero to $1 million (09:36) Plateaus and falling back to your system (13:33) Why you can't skip to $20 million (17:09) Capacity planning and simplifying as you grow (21:11) Stop asking your team to pedal faster (25:04) Know your aim

On this week's episode: most people assume Microsoft's 2.44% tax rate means the game is rigged for billionaires, and never ask what the tax code has already built in for anyone willing to invest the same way. What the tax code already rewards: 1. Corporations pay a flat 21% tax rate — that's the rule. Microsoft backed into 2.44%, which means roughly $85 billion of its $101 billion in profit was offset by deductions and credits written directly into the tax code, available to any business that invests the way Microsoft does. 2. Buy $100,000 of office equipment and you write it off a little at a time over several years. Put that same $100,000 into qualifying AI data center property — or a rental property using the same bonus depreciation rules — and it's largely 100% deductible this year, against income you're already earning. 3. R&D tax credits aren't a deduction that lowers your taxable income — they're a dollar-for-dollar reduction of the tax you actually owe. Every dollar of W-2 wages paid to build genuinely new technology counts the same way for a five-person business as it does for Microsoft. 4. Most taxpayers don't lose out because the tax code is stacked against them — they lose out because they have a tax preparer instead of a tax strategist. The fix isn't a bigger tax bill, it's proactive planning before the year closes: we have clients landing at 0% and 2% effective tax rates using this exact playbook. Get in touch: https://www.revotaxpayer.com/?utm_source=revo-taxpayer&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=s4e30-get-tax-strategies-like-microsoft&utm_content=show-notes#contact-1 Connect With Us • Website: https://www.revotaxpayer.com/ • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/revotaxpayer/ • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/revotaxpayer/ • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/revo-taxpayer-advocacy • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HiddenMoneyPodcast Chapters [00:00] Why "the rich don't pay their fair share" misses the real story [01:11] Microsoft reported $101B in profits and paid 2.44% in tax [02:46] The math: backing into $85B in deductions [03:19] These aren't loopholes — they're intentional tax incentives [03:39] Inside the strategy: AI data centers and 100% deductible property [05:12] R&D tax credits: a dollar-for-dollar reduction, not just a deduction [06:54] You don't have to be a corporation to use this playbook [10:01] Real clients getting to 0% tax — and how [11:01] A retired client's capital gains deferral through a rural opportunity zone [12:53] Tax preparer vs. tax strategist — the gap that costs people millions [13:44] These opportunities exist for every taxpayer, not just billionaires

On this episode of Wired In, KONTEK's Marques Manning unpacks why AV should always be the last trade into a construction project, and why KONTEK needs to be one of the first calls made in planning. He covers the physical and warranty risks of installing early, the four infrastructure conversations that protect a project's budget, and the three questions that set every schedule: what, where, and when. Connect with us Website: https://www.kontek.com/ Email: info@kontek.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kontek-systems Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/konteksystems/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/konteksystems YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/KontekSystemsDurham Chapters [00:00] Introduction. [00:01] The go-last problem. [00:02] Furniture, dust, and warranties. [00:05] Change orders and "who owns it". [00:06] Getting KONTEK first in the room. [00:09] Delays that aren't your fault. [00:10] The four conversations, pathways, structural capacity, power, and environmental conditions. [00:13] The vacuum cleaner story. [00:16] Structural math. [00:20] What, where, when. The three questions that set every project's timeline. [00:22] Closing thoughts

Markets, inflation, elections and geopolitics all shape the numbers on your screen, and none of them are yours to control. In this episode of AWM Insights, Justin Dyer and Mena Hanna return to one of the most powerful reminders in investing: control what you can control. They break down the structural controllables, like your savings rate, your spending and the levers that influence taxes, and the behavioral ones that trip up even disciplined investors: chasing hype, concentrating at the wrong time, neglecting diversification and living on a steady information diet of hype and doom. They close on the hardest discipline of all: recognizing that sometimes doing nothing is the best action you can take. Connect With Us Call or text us: 626-862-0355 Website: https://www.athletefamilyoffice.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc1NxpK21N1vKWEExC45YEA LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/awmcapital/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/awmcapital/ X: https://twitter.com/awmcapital Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/awmcapital/ Chapters [00:00] Control What You Can Control: Why the simplest reminder in investing is also one of the most powerful. [00:27] What's In Your Hands: Elections, geopolitics and markets vs. behavior, spending and taxes. [01:29] Savings Rate Comes First: Inflows minus outflows, and why discipline around a plan matters. [02:50] Structural Controllables: Dollars and cents, and why overspending is a sunk cost. [03:08] Behavioral Controllables: Keeping up with the Joneses and the pull of material things. [03:58] Chasing Hype: Concentration, asset selection and the cost of the shiny object. [04:32] When Behavior Becomes Structural: How chasing hype creates structural problems, and the diversification gap. [05:12] Your Information Diet: How social media and the news feed hype loops and doom loops. [06:46] The Uncontrollables: Markets and inflation, and controlling your reaction to them. [08:44] Keep It Simple: Why the basics are hard to act on, and why they matter.

For 25 years, Tony Simmons sold construction cranes. Then a phone call brought him home to Avery Island, Louisiana, and into McIlhenny Company, his family's company and the maker of Tabasco, where he became the seventh family CEO. In part one of our three-part conversation, Tony walks me through the basics of a 158-year-old family company, from Edmund McIlhenny's start as a destitute banker after the Civil War to a family home kept for 208 years. Then we turn to his own path: being told not to plan his life on joining the business, a board seat he never asked for, 12 years as his cousin Paul's understudy, and why he thought about the job the way a physician does: First, do no harm. 21C Links Twenty One Clear website: https://www.21clear.com?utm_source=twenty-one-clear&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=ep-15-do-not-plan-your-life-on-it&utm_content=show-notes Adam Hatcher on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamhatcher Subscribe to the Twenty One Clear newsletter: https://21clear.substack.com/ Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/fIBHaZJ5oEk Bumper Music Still Hot by Nic D, Connor Price (c) Lossless, 2023 Episode Produced By https://snapmarket.co Chapter Timestamps (00:00) Cold Open: One Red Thing, a Million Red Things (00:15) Welcome and Introduction: Meet Tony Simmons (02:44) McIlhenny Company by the Numbers (04:34) Edmund McIlhenny, From Destitute Banker to Founder (06:35) Avery Island, McIlhenny Company and Tabasco (10:15) "Don't Plan Your Life On It" (12:16) Twenty-Five Years in Cranes (15:16) A Surprise Board Seat and 12 Years as an Understudy (17:29) What an Outside Career Teaches (19:10) The Seventh Family CEO: First, Do No Harm (21:15) The Burlesque Opera of Tabasco (25:34) Drift and the Long Horizon (26:31) Coming Up in Parts Two and Three