Whenever I get a chance to visit Barnes & Noble I love to frequent the Management & Leadership/Marketing & Sales sections.  I just enjoy reading these books.  One of my favorite authors in this section is Seth Godin.  Godin writes about, “the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything.”  If you’ve never read Godin, he often writes in very short, pithy paragraphs that give his books a proverbs like feeling to them.  You can pick up any of his books, open it randomly, and likely get something useful from the page.  Try it.  You’ll understand.

As effective as Godin’s writing style is in printed form it is even more so in digital form.  It has been suggested that his blog is the most popular in the world written by a single person.  I was perusing some of Godin’s older posts recently and stumbled upon a nugget of financial advice that I love.  It is succinct, to the point, and challenging; it’s counter cultural.  Godin’s sentiments are very Dave Ramseyish.  Freedom!!! Here is my favorite part of his post.

My suggestion: Go to defcon 1, and do it immediately. Shift gears to live well below your means. That means:
No restaurants
No clothes shopping
No cable TV bill
No Starbucks

It means:
Take in a tenant in your spare bedroom
Carpool to work
Skip vacation this year

Eat brown rice and beans every night for dinner. Act like you have virtually no income.
– Entire Post