Going Deep with Aaron Watson

Tadas Viskanta is the Founder and Editor of Abnormal Returns. His “forecast-free investment blog” has become a fixture on the financial scene for over nine years. Tadas is a private investor with over 25 years of experience in the financial markets. He is the co-author of over a dozen investment-related papers that have appeared in publications like the Financial Analysts Journal, Journal of Portfolio Management among others.

Tadas is also the author of the well-received book: Abnormal Returns: Winning Strategies from the Frontlines of the Investment Blogosphere that distills lessons learned from his time blogging.

Tadas holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and a BA from Indiana University and lives with his family in

Tadas’s Challenge; People are too hard on themselves when it comes to investing. Give yourself a break and do the best you can. The most important thing is learning from your mistakes.

Tadas’ Book

Abnormal Returns: Winning Strategies from the Frontlines of the Investment Blogosphere

Connect with Tadas

Twitter

Stocktwits

LinkedIn

Website

Steve Gordon is co-founder and President of Ultimate Xperience Ventures, LLC, a sports and entertainment holding company. UXV owns a majority interest in the American Ultimate Disc League and has interests in video, print and digital services relating to Ultimate Disc content. Mr. Gordon also serves as the AUDL League Commissioner.

Steve is also founder & managing partner of the Chicago Wildfire, Chicago's professional Ultimate Disc team in the AUDL. The Wildfire began play in the 2013 season and play at Lane Tech Stadium in Chicago.

Steve is also founder of Capstone Concepts, Inc, a firm dedicated to bringing products and/or services that are unique or early in their life cycle to mass markets. Industry concentrations include financial programs, smartphone apps, sports and health-related products.

Steve’s Challenge; Eat organic 3x per week for one month and see how it affects your body.

Connect with Steve

LinkedIn

Website

Email; [email protected]

This episode of Going Deep with Aaron Watson is brought to you by the Ultimate Athlete Project. UAP is founded on helping athletes get results through well-developed workout plans that relieve you of the need to research effective workouts or worry about your workouts becoming boring. Check out a free core workout and learn more about what regular users are saying about the program.

Ben is the Director of Institutional Asset Management at Ritholtz Wealth Management. He helps the team create detailed investment plans and manage portfolios for institutions and individuals to help them achieve their goals.

Ben has been managing institutional portfolios his entire career, starting out with an institutional investment consulting firm developing portfolio strategies and creating investment plans for various foundations, endowments, pensions, hospitals, insurance companies and high net worth individuals. More recently, he was part of the portfolio management team for an investment office that managed a large endowment fund for a charitable organization.

Ben’s blogging mission is to try to explain the complexities of the various aspects of finance in a way that everyone could understand them. Both the economy and the financial markets are complex adaptive systems, but they don’t necessarily require complex solutions. Common sense and self-awareness are extremely underrated attributes in the world of finance.

Ben’s Challenge; Reach out to someone you admire and take them out for lunch/coffee. Networks are underrated.

Ben’s Book
A Wealth of Common Sense: Why Simplicity Trumps Complexity in Any Investment Plan

Connect with Ben
Twitter
LinkedIn
Website

Mike Gable has been running Construction Junction since 1999. The nonprofit collects and sells salvageable building materials around the Pittsburgh area. This environmental recycling mission has been growing consistently year by year and Mike deserves much of the credit.

He works with contractors around the area, spreading his organization’s mission. He has applied business principles to a nonprofit, focusing on revenue, marketing and profits, instead of being reliant on donations and grants.

Mike’s Challenge; Be on the lookout for building materials that can be reused in projects around your city.

Connect with Mike

Twitter

LinkedIn

Website

Aaron T. Walker, a businessman and life coach, inspires through his leadership, mentorship, and consistent pursuit of excellence. 35 years of entrepreneurship and marriage have given Aaron an opportunity to broaden his perspective by examining his experiences and growing from them.

For 19 years and counting, Aaron has taken classes from and has been coached personally by his friend, financial guru, Dave Ramsey. Spiritual mentors David Landrith and Bob Warren have impacted his spiritual life beyond measure. Two other disciplined mastermind groups, 48 Days led by friend Dan Miller and The Torch have played a role in his understanding of how to live a significant, successful life.

Years ago, it only took a few years as a partner with David Patton Construction LLC for Aaron to help take the business from doing one to two projects per year to a multi-million dollar company, voted number one builder for three consecutive years by Nashville’s House & Home & Garden Magazine's People's Choice Awards. He sold his retail business to Cash America USA, a Fortune 500 company. In addition to being the owner of eight lucrative businesses, Aaron participates in civic endeavors.

Aaron’s Challenge; Call people randomly without asking for anything.

Aaron’s Book Recommendations

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Connect with Aaron

Twitter

LinkedIn

Website

Jim, Executive Director of Pittsburgh’s AlphaLab accelerator program, provides mentorship, education and network-building for technology startups. His accelerator helps companies rapidly iterate through early stages of product and customer development.

Launched in 2008, AlphaLab is ranked #6 among accelerators in the US and a charter member of the Global Accelerator Network, where Jim currently serves on the Advisory Board.  AlphaLab alumni companies include The Resumator, No Wait, Black Locus (acquired by Home Depot), Shoefitr and SolePower.

Jim guides companies by leveraging his experience and network gained from working closely with over eighty companies in the Innovation Works and AlphaLab portfolios and from his prior management experience in Silicon Valley.  In the Bay Area, Jim built and managed software businesses at Hewlett-Packard, Agile Software (acquired by Oracle), and Instill Corporation (acquired by iTradeNetwork Inc).  As a management consultant at Booz Allen & Hamilton, Jim advised executive management of Fortune 500 companies on marketing, strategy, and organizational issues.

Jim holds a BA and MA in Economics from Stanford University and an MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business.

Jim’s Challenge; Go out of your way to explore viewpoints opposite of the ones you hold.

Connect with Jim

Twitter

LinkedIn

Website

Eric Brown co-founded ImpactGames to influence society and promote change through interactive media.  Toward this end, ImpactGames developed PeaceMaker, a video game simulation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to promote dialogue and understanding.  Unlike most serious games, PeaceMaker aims to bridge the gap between education and entertainment while reaching a mass market. PeaceMaker has been sold in over 60 countries, been featured in media outlets around the world, and has won several international awards.

Eric was listed among "100 Social Entrepreneurs Changing the World" in Newsweek Japan.   He holds a Masters of Entertainment Technology from Carnegie Mellon University and received a BFA in Painting with focused studies in education and computer graphics from Washington University in St. Louis.

Recently, Eric has been working with different groups around Pittsburgh to help bring products to market including Walkingthumbs’ product Blabcake.  He has also helped found a non-profit called The Additive Project that has created 3D printing curriculum that is being used by Manchester Craftsmen's Guild and the Carnegie Library Labs group among others.

Eric’s Challenge; Make an effort to keep in contact with former colleagues and mentors that you admire and nurture those relationships.

Connect with Eric

LinkedIn

Website

Hitting my Kickstarter goal in 3 days was exhilarating! I want to teach you exactly how I did it and what I learned along the way!

My Kickstarter Page

Two Associated Posts

What I Learned from a Successful Kickstarter Campaign

The Steps I Took After a Successful Kickstarter Campaign

Book Recommendation

Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World by Peter Diamandis

Aaron’s Challenge; Spend 30 minutes away from your phone and think about something that you really want. This can be something that you haven’t told anyone because it may seem a little ridiculous. Acknowledge it, and put together a rough draft of a plan for how you would make it happen.

People to Thank

Liam Rosen, TopScore & Skyd Magazine

Joe Marmerstein,

Kenny Chen

Alex Galbraith

Art & Denise Chau

Squirrel Hill Chiropractic

Pitt Ultimate

Greeno, who has helped me edit a few episodes of the podcast

Dan O'Connor, the very first backer

Tyler Kunsa

StartNow Pittsburgh

Jimmy Leppert, UpCall Ultimate

Dan Tremblay

Larry Gioia

Whiskey with Wes

James Park, Los Angeles Aviators

Kevin Tang

Elizabeth Craig Photography

Ryan, CB Insights

Karly Schwab

Michael Wilson

Ryan Richardson

Morgan came on the podcast to talk cognitive biases, personal finance, and writing. He took an interesting path to his current career and uses that to his advantage when teaching through his writing.

Morgan Housel is a columnist at the Motley Fool and The Wall Street Journal. His work is also featured in USA Today, The Huffington Post, and Business Insider.

He is a two-time winner of the Best in Business award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers and was selected by the Columbia Journalism Review for the Best Business Writing 2012 anthology.  In 2013 he was a finalist for the Gerald Loeb Award and Scripps Howard Award. He holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Southern California.

Morgan’s Challenge; Go out and read things that you know you are going to disagree with to round out your view of the world.

Morgan’s Book Recommendations

The Intelligent Investor by Ben Graham

Confessions of a Street Addict by Jim Cramer

Morgan’s Writing

Financial Advice for My New Son

122 Things Everyone Should Know About Investing and the Economy

Why I’m an Optimist

Connect with Morgan

Twitter

LinkedIn

Website

Apart from his family, and new technologies, Ultimate Frisbee is Patrick's biggest passion. He has been very involved in the World Flying Disc Federation, personally launched the Portuguese Beach Ultimate tournament (Bar do Peixe), and an international organization that focuses on promoting Beach Ultimate, called BULA (Beach Ultimate Lovers Association).

In 2004 Patrick and BULA organized the first World Championships Beach Ultimate in Figueira de Foz, Portugal. With 450 participants from 22 countries it turned out to be a serious success, and he has continued to put the event on for over a decade.

The 2nd World Championships in Brazil in December 2007 and the 3rd in 2011 in Italy were also organized by BULA, Patrick, and local players. Just last year, he led efforts to produce the 2015 World Championships in Dubai.

Patrick played on the Portuguese national team through 2014, as well as with national champions LUC, and in Paganello top international all-star team: SeXXXpensive. He has also the Chairman of the WFDF Spirit of the Game Committee and served as president of the Portuguese flying disc federation through 2014.

At the heart of the new economy Patrick turned into a highly effective marketer and 'evangelic' salesman. One company he co-founded, ChemConnect, has been covered in several case-studies and an article in the Wall Street Journal "Top Online Chemical Exchange Is Unlikely Success Story".

Patrick’s Challenge; Find a way to be more efficient with your professional time so that you can spend more time with your friends and family.

Efficiency Tools
Zero Inbox
Clear Context
Boomerang

Connect with Patrick
Twitter
LinkedIn
Website