Off The Books

Hello! I’m Andrew.

I’m a small business operator, finance guy, occasional writer, and Excel fanboy. I love books, craft beer, and great steak with red wine. My pronouns are SUM() and SUMIFS().

Remember what personal blogs were like in 2007? That’s what this newsletter is. Unstructured, unpolished, and unedited posts, on a sporadic basis, with no agenda other than the fact that I like writing them.

I’m not a media company, I’m not an influencer, I’m not a guru, and I have no course to sell you. I’m just a normal bloke from England, and I try to live by the advice of investor and billionaire Charlie Munger:

"I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up, and boy, does that help, particularly when you have a long run ahead of you."

‍‍That’s what I’m going for here. Just a little bit of progress, every day, compounded over a lifetime. Over time, I trust those small gains will compound into a good life.

Best Of

These are the most popular posts I've written in the past decade:

• How I got fired from my dream job, and what I learned

• The number one way to increase your productivity, get healthier, and become a happier person

• Why do people love CrossFit so much?

• Focus on the fundamentals

• How we doubled revenue and increased margins 10x in 4 Years

• 10 things I learned by getting in shape

• You are the priority

• The secrets of being likeable

• What I learned from two years of online poker

For a full list of everything I've ever written, you can click here.

I promise no specific themes to my future writing, but the things I care a lot about are:

• Running and scaling small companies

• Being an effective individual and leader

• Being a good father, friend, and husband

• And staying, healthy, happy, and fulfilled while you do those things

If that’s your jam, great! You’re in the right place.

And for a little taste of more, check out some of these Twitter threads I’ve written:

• As an SMB owner, how do I know if my Finance team is doing a good job?

• Companies ultimately fail for only one reason — here’s how to avoid it

• Why stand-up comedy was the best thing I ever did for my career

• How this CIA rebel field guide from the 1940s can help you be better at your job

• This unsexy, boring company is my new favourite business

Lastly, I’m writing this so I can, as