(UN)Conventional Wealth

Most of us have lived with a roommate or significant other with their own solidly-held ideas on how the dishwasher should be loaded, and we therefore know what it’s like to butt heads on the issue. How does the issue get resolved if both sides aren’t even using the same language?

This episode of the Rigging the Game podcast breaks down the difference between agreeing and aligning, tips for reaching a happy conclusion when communication has gone off the rails, and how alignment removes excuses and promotes progress. Listen in for important insight from an unexpected place.  

What You’ll Learn 

• Why the word “agree” makes us hesitate
• How to tweak your communication strategy for maximum efficiency
• How confrontation happens in a room full of results-oriented people
• And much more!

Favorite Quote

“The word choice of ‘agree’ tends to carry a lot of weight because you're in your head. Like if I have to agree, then that means that it's the way I would do it, and it's not the way I would do it.”

- Dan Nicholson

How to get involved

• Visit Dan Nicholson’s website - Nth Degree CPA’s and the Rigging The Game to learn how he helps small business owners cultivate good accounting and tax practices to achieve their financial goals. To rig the game to win and to set the outcomes that you want in life and business.
• Get the news that gets you closer to what you want with Certainty News.

Enjoyed the Podcast? Be sure to subscribe on iTunes and leave a review. We love to hear your feedback and we’d love for you to help us spread the word!

Autopilot is a big pitfall for business owners and anyone responsible for making decisions that affect themselves or others - which is most of us. We often don't take the time to figure out our own values, goals, desires and ways that we might reach them. That said, when we do shift into alignment with these parts of ourselves and move forward in our unique value, we win as only we can. 

Alan Andersen specializes in leadership; through his work as the Managing Director of the Shandel Group, an executive leadership organization, Alan has fine-tuned the process through which he walks leaders, teams and audiences to help them emerge with a crystal-clear view of their game and how to play it with incredible success.

On this episode of the Rigging the Game podcast, Dan and Alan lay out the four aspects of your life to examine in order to define and pursue your own definition of success, the questions to ask yourself that will help you collaborate with others who share your values, and the blueprint to help you determine your primary purpose (along with the reason why knowing that purpose will set you apart). This is an interview you can’t afford not to hear.

What You’ll Learn 

• How to evaluate your business to lead well, add value to the market and confidently play the long game
• What Forrest Gump teaches us about when to optimize vs. maximize
• How to develop your collaborative intelligence (and why it's part of a healthy sense of self-preservation)
• And much more!

Favorite Quote

“Figure out your strengths, figure out your potential blind spots, figure out what your uncommon advantage is, figure out what the game looks like for you, so that when you do get punched in the face - and you will...you have a greater likelihood to stand and persist and be patient and move forward.”

- Alan Andersen

Connect with Alan Andersen: 

• The Shandel Group
• On LinkedIn

How to get involved

• Visit Dan Nicholson’s website - Nth Degree CPA’s and the Rigging The Game to learn how he helps small business owners cultivate good accounting and tax practices to achieve their financial goals. To rig the game to win and to set the outcomes that you want in life and business.
• Get the news that gets you closer to what you want with Certainty News.

Enjoyed the Podcast? Be sure to subscribe on iTunes and leave a review. We love to hear your feedback and we’d love for you to help us spread the word!

What do high school sports have to do with succeeding in business? Answer: more than you think. You can only play the game your way once you know what “your way” is, so how do you go about finding that out? 

On this episode of the Rigging the Game podcast, Dan dives deeper into the concept of “playing your game”, explains how to discern your unique style of business using your favorite sport, and explores why we lose touch with that singular style as we grow up.  

What You’ll Learn 

• How your greatest strength can overbalance and become your greatest weakness
• What your memories can teach you about finding and operating in “your style”
• How we are conditioned to operate according to what we “should” do - and why that really doesn’t matter
• And much more!

Favorite Quote

“What’s the point of winning if you have to play someone else’s style?”

- Dan Nicholson

How to get involved

• Visit Dan Nicholson’s website - Nth Degree CPA’s and the Rigging The Game to learn how he helps small business owners cultivate good accounting and tax practices to achieve their financial goals. To rig the game to win and to set the outcomes that you want in life and business.
• Get the news that gets you closer to what you want with Certainty News.

Enjoyed the Podcast? Be sure to subscribe on iTunes and leave a review. We love to hear your feedback and we’d love for you to help us spread the word!

No one’s story reads like yours. But business ownership and the world of entrepreneurs can make it feel necessary to tell a story that isn’t yours, or to make yourself into someone you aren’t. Suddenly, you’re not making decisions that fit with you anymore. How do you get back on track and continue to succeed? 

Zachary Babcock lasted exactly half a shift at his first job. Equipped with a naturally restless mind, he walked a winding path – including drug use, 5 years of prison time and a stint in life coaching – and ended up finding a way to make an impact on others like him through podcasting. Now, he runs the Underdog Empowerment podcast, which has drawn an avid listener base and reached the top 50 list on iTunes. 

On this episode of the Rigging the Game podcast, Zach and Dan walk through the concept of “playing your own game”, the blueprint for (quickly) churning out unique, high-quality content, and how Zach turned the perceived “weaknesses” of his childhood into superpowers. Join the conversation to start focusing in on your own story. 

What You’ll Learn 

• How ignoring your intuition in favor of what you “should be doing” will compromise your success
• Why strategically being yourself is different than filtering your personality to be popular (and why one helps and the other hinders)
• Which metrics will get your podcast into the top 200 on iTunes
• And much more!

Favorite Quote

“No matter who you act like, there’s always going to be a bunch of people who don’t like you regardless. So, it’s a lot easier being yourself.”

- Zachary Babcock

Connect with Zachary Babcock: 

• Underdog Empowerment

How to get involved

• Visit Dan Nicholson’s website - Nth Degree CPA’s and the Rigging The Game to learn how he helps small business owners cultivate good accounting and tax practices to achieve their financial goals. To rig the game to win and to set the outcomes that you want in life and business.
• Get the news that gets you closer to what you want with Certainty News.

Enjoyed the Podcast? Be sure to subscribe on iTunes and leave a review. We love to hear your feedback and we’d love for you to help us spread the word!

Have you ever looked back at your bank statement and realized that you’re still paying for the $20/month software subscription you don’t use anymore and forgot about completely? Unfortunately, seemingly small amounts of waste like this can compound over time to make a larger impact – much like a couple of Oreos a day. 

On this episode of the Rigging the Game podcast, Dan dives deeper into the 2-Oreo principle and discusses how to purposefully organize and optimize your time and energy, what it takes to correct the aftereffects of waste, and a few relevant examples that you might have experienced yourself.  

What You’ll Learn 

• How to shift the scope of your perspective with useful data
• Which aspects of your life might be hiding a few extra Oreos
• How to put this principle in action to cut down on wasted time and resources
• And much more!

Favorite Quote

“Let’s be intentional about it, let’s opt in to where we want to spend our money and spend our time…We can actually make a conscious choice to identify those Oreos.”

- Dan Nicholson

How to get involved

• Visit Dan Nicholson’s website - Nth Degree CPA’s and the Rigging The Game to learn how he helps small business owners cultivate good accounting and tax practices to achieve their financial goals. To rig the game to win and to set the outcomes that you want in life and business.
• Get the news that gets you closer to what you want with Certainty News.

Enjoyed the Podcast? Be sure to subscribe on iTunes and leave a review. We love to hear your feedback and we’d love for you to help us spread the word!

What do a professional football player and a financial planner have in common? As it turns out, the answer is a strong sense of goal orientation, exceptional perseverance, and the ability to reverse-engineer the process of reaching the finish line. 

Jedidiah Collins’ eclectic story began with a record-breaking stint in college football at Washington State, followed by 8 years in the NFL, much of which was spent with the Saints. The wealth of knowledge and strategy he gained there unexpectedly carried over to a financial planning career with industry giant Brighton Jones. Ever evolving, Jedidiah got involved with speaking and went on to start the Rookie to Veteran podcast, where he dedicates himself to teaching others the ins and outs of financial fitness.  

On this episode of the Rigging the Game podcast, Dan and Jedidiah share insights on topics ranging from the lessons we can take from Drew Brees’ practice rituals, how journaling connects you to both your loved ones and yourself, and the critical importance of beginning with the end in mind.

What You’ll Learn 

• How incremental gains add up to a lofty goal

• Why following the process will bring the results to you

• What Oreos have to do with your spending habits

• And much more!

Favorite Quote

“I can steal inches daily. And that’s how I’m truly going to add up and get to the ultimate objective, is by identifying, where are those marginal gains I can go and get?”

- Jedidiah Collins

Connect with Jedidiah Collins: 

• LinkedIn 

• Instagram 

• Rookie to Veteran Podcast

How to get involved

• Visit Dan Nicholson’s website - Nth Degree CPA’s and the Rigging The Game to learn how he helps small business owners cultivate good accounting and tax practices to achieve their financial goals. To rig the game to win and to set the outcomes that you want in life and business.
• Get the news that gets you closer to what you want with Certainty News.

Enjoyed the Podcast? Be sure to subscribe on iTunes and leave a review. We love to hear your feedback and we’d love for you to help us spread the word!

How do you tackle a tough choice? Maybe you flip a coin or consult an expert - but if you’re looking to make better choices that serve you down the road, it helps to have a solid framework in place. 

On this episode of the Rigging the Game podcast, Dan discusses exactly what constitutes a preference-based decision and introduces the principles that help him make important choices - beginning with the concept of optimizing vs. maximizing. Listen in for the first part of a conversation that will change the way you choose.

What You’ll Learn 

• How our brains are hard-wired to make decisions based on instincts and conditioning
• What factors into a long-term decision-making approach versus one that lives in the short-term
• Why you make different choices than Amazon does
• And much more!

Favorite Quote

“Principles allow me to work through these preferences and navigate life with less anxiety because I’m not going back to this binary mindset of 0’s and 1’s and fact and fiction.”

- Dan Nicholson

How to get involved

• Visit Dan Nicholson’s website - Nth Degree CPA’s and the Rigging The Game to learn how he helps small business owners cultivate good accounting and tax practices to achieve their financial goals. To rig the game to win and to set the outcomes that you want in life and business.
• Get the news that gets you closer to what you want with Certainty News.

Enjoyed the Podcast? Be sure to subscribe on iTunes and leave a review. We love to hear your feedback and we’d love for you to help us spread the word!

Where do we get our definition of success from, and how often do we challenge it? Growing and achieving within the walls you’ve been taught to surround yourself with is tempting – but what you find when you break through and begin to create as only you can will take you further than you ever imagined. 

Randy Massengale is an educator and coach who devotes his days to helping entrepreneurs and business owners achieve with strategies, philosophies and habits that work for their unique blend of creativity and expertise. He has contributed his genius to giants like Intel and Microsoft, and remains a prolific reader with a love of self-educating.

On this episode of the Rigging the Game podcast, Dan and Randy break down the reasons why mentorship is vital to your success, I-shaped people versus T-shaped people, and the art of staying in your lane. Listen in to start growing on your own terms. 

What You’ll Learn 

• Why formal education isn’t completely useless
• How doing the research changes the game
• What to do about the energy-sucking people in your life
• And much more!

Favorite Quote

“I bring back the creativity as a coach, I'm trying to bring back the creativity and then have you do it within context. You may do it within the financial world. Someone else may do it within technology. Someone else may do it within fashion, but there's still this creativity that we want to bring to bear on it rather than we just reinforce rules all the time.”

- Randy Massengale

Connect with Randy Massengale: 

SPU.edu - Bio of Randy

Seattle University

Linkedin

How to get involved

• Visit Dan Nicholson’s website - Nth Degree CPA’s and the Rigging The Game to learn how he helps small business owners cultivate good accounting and tax practices to achieve their financial goals. To rig the game to win and to set the outcomes that you want in life and business.
• Get the news that gets you closer to what you want with Certainty News.

Enjoyed the Podcast? Be sure to subscribe on iTunes and leave a review. We love to hear your feedback and we’d love for you to help us spread the word!

What labels did you grow up with? Were you the nerd, the artist, or the future Rhodes scholar – and when did you come to realize that you are much more? 

Dan Nicholson had a stellar track record in finance. After hitting all the milestones in education and his career, and achieving at ever-higher levels, he began to see that the term “accountant” didn’t begin to cover who he is. As a result, Dan set about developing the principles to help other entrepreneurial oddballs recognize their style and use it to their advantage.

On the first episode of the Rigging the Game podcast, Dan sits down to introduce himself, tell the story of kid who grew up knowing he didn’t fit in, and discuss what it means to rig the game in your favor so you can succeed while staying true to you. Join the conversation to win in ways that only you can.

What You’ll Learn 

• Why the labels you’ve been given don’t really fit
• 
  
• How to shape your business to suit your interests and talents
• 
  
• Why business is personal
• 
  
• And much more!

Favorite Quote

“If you're going to start a business, why not rig the game to win? Why not set yourself up to get the outcomes that you want while playing your style?”

- Dan Nicholson

How to get involved

• Visit Dan Nicholson’s website - Nth Degree CPA’s and the Rigging The Game to learn how he helps small business owners cultivate good accounting and tax practices to achieve their financial goals. To rig the game to win and to set the outcomes that you want in life and business.
• Get the news that gets you closer to what you want with Certainty News.

Enjoyed the Podcast? Be sure to subscribe on iTunes and leave a review. We love to hear your feedback and we’d love for you to help us spread the word!