#52 Happy Birthday to Us!

Good morning and welcome back!

Today is OTF’s first birthday! That’s right - it’s been exactly one year since our debut edition.

First and foremost, we want to thank each and every one of you for making this past year so enjoyable and fulfilling.

We’re so appreciative of all the support, constructive feedback, and word-of-mouth that has helped us get to over 1,200 subscribers, and we look forward to an even bigger and better 2024.

Second, if you missed last week’s edition, you can find that here. And if you missed any other of our 52 editions, they’re all available at ontheflydaily.com.

Here’s How We’re Celebrating This Week:

🤔 Should You Max Out Your 401(K)?

👀 The Most Important Thing to Consider When Emailing

📊 An All-New Search Bar

➕ Much. More.

Expert Advice 🤝 

Who is Adam Grant?

• He’s an organizational psychologist who explores the science of motivation, generosity, original thinking, rethinking, and potential.

• He’s the #1 New York Times best-selling author of five books - Think Again, Give and Take, Originals, Option B, and Power Moves.

Who is Brad Stulberg?

• He researches, writes, and coaches on health, well-being, and sustainable excellence. He’s also the best-selling author of The Practice of Groundedness and co-author of Peak Performance.

• His work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, Outside Magazine, Forbes, and other outlets.

Making Cents 💰️ 

Should You MAX Out Your 401k Plan With Your Employer?

Short and Sweet: A 401(k) plan is an employer-provided retirement account where you can contribute to this plan with pre-tax dollars.

As for whether or not you should max it out? It depends…

Why It Matters: Because this perk can be incredibly beneficial in the long run. The more you can put in now, the better off you’ll be when retirement rolls around.

According to Motley Fool, here’s when it makes sense to MAX out your 401(k) plan:

💡 Here are 3 MORE things to consider when it comes to your 401k plan:

• Free Money Alert: Some employers will match up to a certain percentage that you contribute. Which is free money…who doesn’t love that?

• Future You Will Thank You: #CompoundGrowth. The more you save now, the more it will grow over time. Plant that money tree for your future self.

• Loan Lifeline: Some 401(k) plans have loan options. Don’t get this twisted with withdrawing the total amount from your 401(k) plan as that will get HEAVILY taxed. The loan options allow you to borrow against your 401(k) plan and pay yourself back.

 🤔 AN EXAMPLE OF A 401(K) LOAN OPTION…

• Say you take out a $2,400 loan from your plan.

• This amount gets deposited into your bank. You then have the option to pay yourself back through your bi-weekly paycheck over, let’s say, a one-year term.

• That end’s up being $100 per pay period, or $200 per month, until your loan is paid off.

• Remember: the loan was from your retirement account, so you’re paying yourself back (sometimes these loan payments have interest, and sometimes they don’t, but no matter what, it’s going back into your account).

(Disclaimer: we’re not financial advisors, but we do our best to help you make sense cents of financial opportunities.)

Hustle Hub 📈 

• YOUR SUCCESS: Business is all about networking - take 3 minutes to learn from Simon Sinek (1.9M subscribers on YouTube) on how to have better conversations with people.

• THEIR SUCCESS: Read about the Founder of Bell & Bone, a seven figure+ company selling natural dental treat sticks to reduce the risk of dental disease in dogs.

• YOUR SUCCESS: 9-to-5’s are a hustle, too! Here are three new LinkedIn features that make it easier to find and apply to new jobs.

• THEIR SUCCESS: That Einstein guy was pretty successful in his field - here are his 7 rules for a better life.

Email Errors 📧 

In 2023, we used “Email Errors” periodically as an alternative to Cool Communicator or Networking Hacks, focusing specifically on common errors people make when emailing colleagues, clients, and superiors.

This is its first appearance in 2024, with an article from Psychology Today that reviews some key points we covered last year.

TL;DR:

The article’s emphasis is on paying close attention to your audience, or the person/people you’re emailing. Keeping who they are - the language they use, what they like / don’t like, etc. - in mind will help you know:

• How Formal Your Email Should Be

• What Their Definition of “Polite” Is

• What Greeting / Title / Closing to Use

• How to “Err on the Side of Caution” With Your Language

In email, just like in every other form of communication, keeping your audience in mind is paramount.

For a deeper dive on this short synopsis, simply click the link above.

The Search Bar 📊 

As of Monday, January 22nd at 10:30 PM EST.

• MOST-SEARCHED $$$ TOPIC: DOW JONES - The Dow closed above 38,000 for the first time ever. The S&P 500 also set a record high. Good news for investors.

• SPEAKING OF STOCK… CHINESE STOCK MARKET - It has lost over 6 TRILLION dollars since 2021, and according to reports, 2024 doesn’t hold much optimism. This was #2 in Google’s Realtime Trends late Monday night.

• MOST TRENDING APP: MICROSOFT TEAMS - the Zoom rival moved up 141 spots on data.ai’s app rankings this week.

Food For Thought 💭 

Before You Go

Some things to look forward to next week:

• Our first Digital Networking Hack of the new year, focused on how to send effective cold DMs.

• A new informative section that keeps you in the know on the biggest stories in AI.

See you then.

You are now On The Fly and In The Know.