> Acknowledgement of fault is powerful. It shows empathy, a willingness to own the problem, and a desire to then fix it. Company of One Page 119 ([Independent Publisher](https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781328972354?aff=curtismchale) | [Amazon](https://amzn.to/3cU6R8B))

If you’re going to run your own business, you’re going to make mistakes. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been running that business, you’re going to make mistakes. They’ll be different mistakes, but customers will still be mad. They’ll even be the same mistakes sometimes.

One mistake I’ve made repeatedly is committing myself to too many projects. They all sound interesting and I guess I probably have the time for them, but the reality is I like my time off with my family and I’m almost never going to work weekends or evenings. I may fool myself into thinking it’s going to happen, but it’s not.

> If you get value from my writing and videos you can make sure they keep coming by [supporting me on Patreon](https://patreon.com/curtismchale).

I’ve also repeatedly spent too much money on fancy and fun computer nerd stuff. I might have three mechanical keyboards right now, because keyboards are fun.

My wife knows I’m a spender. I know I tend to purchase things when I’m stressed out a bit. For this reason I don’t have a credit card. Sure I could spend all the business cash, but I can’t put the business into debt. My wife is the only one in our house with a card. We run [Profit First](https://curtismchale.ca/2017/06/22/old-business-profit-equation-broken-take-profit-first/) around here and all of our profit gets sent to my wife and she puts it in a business bank account. I’d simply spend it up front instead of saving it.

> If you were on the email list right now you’d be hearing what I did after spectacularly failing a client for a year. How I turned them into a retainer client that I’m working with two years later. [Go Subscribe](https://curtismchale.ca/subscribe)

## I Shipped

Monday I talked about the system I use to keep articles to read later. Because I use DEVONthink to store my long term research, I use it to store anything I think may fall into long term research and [DEVONthink is my read it later system](https://curtismchale.ca/2020/05/18/devonthink-read-it-later).

Wednesday I looked at the differences between a [mouse or a trackpad with your iPad](https://curtismchale.ca/2020/05/20/trackpad-mouse-ipad). I pretty much only use a Magic Trackpad 2 now, but a mouse is still a solid option especially if you have something with a bunch of buttons you can program.

[Today I wrote about some of the books that have come into my house lately](https://curtismchale.ca/2020/05/22/stay-at-home-book-haul). I’m starting Designing Your Life ([Independent Publisher](https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781101875322?aff=curtismchale) | [Amazon](https://amzn.to/2A6kKlt)) today. Out of that set of books the other one I’ve recommended and gifted many times is Boundaries ([Independent Publisher](https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780310351801?aff=curtismchale) | [Amazon](https://amzn.to/2SIzGg6)). It’s a great book if you’ve got to set some…boundaries with people in your life. I use some of the stuff in that daily with my kids to acknowledge their problems, without taking responsibility for fixing those problems.