BLOG FEED

Most people think finance is about numbers. It isn’t. Numbers are just the surface. What finance actually does—when done honestly—is reveal behavior. It exposes patterns. It records decisions long after the emotion that created them has passed. Your business already knows who you are. The question is whether you’re willing to look. Every line on a financial statement is the residue of a choice: What you prioritized What you avoided What you hoped would fix itself What you wer

What works in business? Hard work, relentless effort, vision, and passion. What doesn’t? Shortcuts, carelessness, knee-jerk reactions, and selfishness. We have all worked in situations where both versions of “what works” are evident. The shortcuts and selfishness usually leads to us finding a new job - a new set of the same problems at a different organization. How do we build a business – a culture – the right way? Can we expect our leaders to act in our best interests? Don

Clarity through confusion   Internal thought #1 “Most people don’t burn out because they’re weak. They burn out because they confuse endurance with purpose. Just because you can push through something doesn’t mean you should . Discipline without direction eventually becomes self-destruction.”   Internal thought #2 “Discipline isn’t the problem. Discipline without honesty is. Most people don’t ask if something still matters —they just prove they can survive it. Stoicism isn’

The Discipline of Saying “Enough” What are impossible decisions? We’ve all been there. Unsure what to do, and in the frenzy of the moment make a decision that is based on fear or bad timing versus sound judgment, planning, and/or responsibility. These decisions are unavoidable in life. We come across them in business and our personal lives all the time. “I need to do X, but I can’t because A, B, and C have already occurred.” The dominos have already started to fall. “I should

Three words that changed my life. It was several weeks into my spring semester marketing class when my professor made an impromptu comment that would shape the following twenty years of my life. He said, “I want you to write this down: peace, purpose and passion.” And so, I did. Peace, purpose, and passion . I thought about what he would say next.   “Go home and write those Three Ps down and connect them together. Draw it out on a piece of paper and see what provides you happ

Removing financial confusion with clarity. We have all been there. We know, at times the pressure from the situation we find ourselves in will get the best of us. We decide to look the other way while the problem festers and propagates within an already weakening business or situation. “We have no money!” A business owner will say in a panic! I have heard that a lot. Actually, you do, but just don’t have the visibility and experience to find it. The confusion stems from lack

Running a business is hard. Doing the right thing when the moment calls for it is even harder. In times of pressure, uncertainty, or crisis, the real question is rarely about strategy or skill—it’s about character. Who do we choose to be when the path forward is uncomfortable? Moments of stress expose our defaults and faults. Do we fall to temptation and chart the course of least resistance, or do we apply deliberate effort to what must be addressed—refusing to let the hard w

Fun post about some reading accomplishments. During 2025 I read twenty-eight books. Not bad! Massive improvement from the sixteen I read during 2024. Breaking down the genre of the twenty-eight books I read last year revealed a dead split between fiction and non-fiction, both earning fourteen reads apiece. Non-Fiction standouts: Seven books on Stoicism, six of them by Ryan Holiday. My favorite Holiday read was Stillness is the Key . Just a fantastic, well researched book, on

Who am I? Regardless of what I have achieved, for as long as I can remember, I have been haunted by failure. Is failure who I am? What is success, anyway? Maybe these are questions you have asked yourself as well. It’s hard to stay positive when so many other areas of my life have   left scar tissue. I spent most of my life believing that endurance could outrun failure. I was wrong. My name is Dan Romeo. I live in San Diego, California, and I am an endurance athlete who has c

Stoic Philosophy as the Act of Living Philosophy is the study of living—an attempt to understand what it means to be human, to make choices, to move through the world with some sense of purpose. Stoicism, however, takes this one step further. It isn’t merely about contemplating virtue; it’s about embodying it. Stoicism is the art of enduring, of doing, of showing up even when comfort whispers its temptations. So when you bring the two together—philosophy and stoicism—you arri

During college I met a professor who would change my life. Several weeks into my spring semester class he began his lecture by saying, “I want you to write this down: Peace, Purpose, and Passion.” And so, I did. “What will you do that gives you peace, provides you purpose, and enables you to have passion?” he continued. Blank stares had formed on students’ faces across the room, but I was locked in. Something within me was clicking, and my mind was firing. Peace, purpose, and

The elements move upward, downward, in all directions. The motion of virtue is different – deeper. It moves at a steady pace on road hard to discern, and always forward.- Marcus Aurelius Well before I started my business I had come across the words of several Stoics that have since inspired me in unpredictable ways. Stoicism isn’t about abstract theory – it’s about how we show up in real life, especially under pressure, and our response to it. It is this pressure that provide

Throughout my time running my business, I often met eager, soon-to-be entrepreneurs who would stop in for a cup of coffee. Once they realized I was the owner, they’d naturally gravitate toward me, becoming captivated by my journey and progress. Each person was different, yet exactly the same. They all had grandiose ideas and plans for their future business successes and were blissfully ignorant of the demands and sacrifices necessary to succeed at their future endeavors. Usua