#54 Handling Your Taxes, Humorbragging, & Happy Super Week!

Good morning and welcome back!

This Sunday is Super Bowl Sunday. Whether you’re a Niners’ fan, a Chiefs’ fan, or simply a fan of your own bets, many of you are counting on a victory this weekend.

Here at OTF, we believe in the power of small successes, their ability to get you through a day, a week, a month.

So whether it’s inspiration from our Hustle Hub, the reminder from our Making Cents, or the tip from our Cool Communicator, use something from this week’s edition to get yourself a win before the big game!

Our goal, as always: to help you fly so high that you never touch down.

Corny flight pun? Check

Corny football pun? Check

Yep, we’re ready!

This Rundown Will BOWL You Over:

💰️ Making Cents of Why You Should Do Your Taxes NOW

👍️ Bragging + Joking = An Effective Self-Promotion Technique

💡 A February 2-DO

➕ Much. More.

Making Cents 💰️ 

Why Should You Be in Tax Mode Already?

Short and Sweet: The deadline may be a couple months away, but tax season is now. Being on top of it and filing sooner rather than later will make your spring much less stressful.

Why It Matters: Because being on top of your taxes and filing right away takes weight off your shoulders - creating one less thing to do as we move our way towards April. (I mean, who wants tax season living rent-free in their head for two more months?)

💡 Here are 4 things you get out of getting them done ASAP…

• Money Back Quicker: If you're due a refund, the sooner you file, the sooner you can get that sweet cash back. Why wait to file to get your money later if you’re due for the refund?

• Dodge the Late Fees Boogeyman: Late fees are like unwanted party guests. File on time and keep those pesky penalties at bay. Why risk paying late fees if you can avoid them?

• Beat the Clock: Nobody likes a last-minute scramble (ESPECIALLY your accountant if you don’t DIY). File early and dodge the stress-ball of rushing to meet deadlines. Why rush something so important?

• Peace of Mind: Knowing your taxes are sorted lets you sleep like a baby. Sweet, money-saving dreams! Why let taxes keep you up at night?

Helpful Links For You:

• Five Hidden Ways to Boost Your Tax Refund from TurboTax.

• 10 Things You Need to Know Before Filing Your Tax Return from AARP.

• Learn about the penalties you can incur for being late on filing from the IRS.

Lol @ 👇️ 

Hustle Hub 📈 

• YOUR SUCCESS: Here are 4 AI-assisted side hustles anyone can do, courtesy of HackerNoon.

• THEIR SUCCESS: This 28-year-old with a net worth over $500K shares five money tips that go a long way.

• YOUR SUCCESS: Looking for a career change? Here are Indeed’s best jobs of 2024.
  

• THEIR SUCCESS: Do you consider it success when someone achieves better work-life balance? Even if it comes with a pay cut? Read about Millenials’ rejection of “American hustle culture” here.

Cool Communicator 😎 

😆 Humorbragging: Simple Yet Effective

Whether interviewing for a new job, hunting a promotion, or trying to close a deal, it’s hard to discuss your own awesomeness while remaining likable.

If you’re too complimentary of yourself, it comes off as cocky and self-obsessed; if you don’t spend enough time on your accomplishments and qualifications, you might not get the outcome you desire.

How do you achieve that perfect balance? According to PsyPost, the best technique to employ might be “humorbragging.”

TL;DR Takeaways:

1. It can be awkward discussing your achievements. Humor is a timeless way to diffuse awkwardness.
   

2. You can do it in print! The following examples appeared in two sample resumes - guess which one received 3x the interest?

• “I am a highly motivated and detail-oriented salesperson with experience and a proven track record…”
  

• “I am a driven sales representative who is detail-oriented [with] a proven track record of turning caffeine input into productivity output.”

3. When in an interview, the humorbragger comes off as more competent and warmer. Even better when you can add a dash of self-deprecation.
   
   EXAMPLE (from a baker who made a soccer-themed bday cake):
   
   “I’m just glad I only had to make the soccer ball, not kick one.”
   

4. The study finds that even a single line of “self-enhancing humor” could have a MAJOR effect.
   

5. CONCLUSION: Humorbragging allows people to “highlight competencies and achievements in a manner that is perceived as more likable and less threatening…[it] can make a person more appealing and relatable.”

**Note: In any high-stakes situation, you should always go with what you’re comfortable with.

If you are not accustomed to incorporating humor into serious situations, we don’t recommend trying this for the first time in the middle of a big job interview. As with anything, practice in low-stakes situations and master it before busting it out with a job on the line.**

The Search Bar 📊 

As of 5:00 PM on Monday 2/5:

• MOST-SEARCHED STOCK (past 24 hrs): Palantir Technologies - After reporting 4th quarter earnings up 20% from the same time last year, PLTR stock price jumped 15%.

• MOST-SEARCHED BUSINESS (past 24 hrs): Amazon - Yahoo Life put their “40+ best Amazon deals this week” out on Monday at noon, and by 5 PM it was #2 on Google Trends’ list of top business stories.

• FASTEST-RISING BUSINESS APP (past 24 hrs): FaxCover - This app, which allows you to easily create a fax cover sheet for either a PDF or traditional fax machine, has risen over 400 spots on data.ai’s “Trending Up” list.

Major Moves 🗞️ 

For anyone who’s new to OTF, our “Major Moves” section isn’t simply a list of the most important stories in the business world.

Its primary goal is to help you stay informed but focuses mostly on positive stories about Fortune 500 companies and startups alike.

🔥 YOUTUBE:

A Major Milestone

Obviously YouTube is a force to be reckoned with, but was it a foregone conclusion that YouTube Premium - a paid subscription plan to get videos without ads, among other perks - would be such a home run?

According to the numbers, it’s more like a grand slam: “YouTube reached an important milestone for its paid music and video tiers, crossing the 100 million subscriber benchmark globally.”

 👀 izote biosciences:

Advancing bacteria one non-breath at a time…

Fermentation is the breaking down of a substance by bacteria and is crucial to the making of many chemicals, medicines, and food products (such as wine).

Izote Biosciences, which raised $2.6 million last year to get started, is developing a new method of fermentation that doesn’t require oxygen. Why is this necessary? Because other methods of fermentation “continue to be costly and not yet perfected for scalability.”

Keep an eye on them. If they succeed, the impact on various industries could be significant.

 🦾 AMAZON:

There was only one way to make shopping on Amazon easier…

Amazon is so big that they don’t really have to keep evolving. No one’s going to stop using them. They could just sit back and chill if they really wanted to, but that’s not good business, is it? You have to continually grow and improve if you want to remain on top.

The latest step in the growth of the e-commerce behemoth? An AI assistant named Rufus: “Amazon announced the launch of an AI-powered shopping assistant that’s been trained on [their entire] product catalog as well as information from around the web.”

If you are one of the luck customers granted access to the beta, you can take Rufus for a test run today.

🤔 NORWAY:

Yes, the country.

After a dismal 2022, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund bounced back with a vengeance: “The so-called Government Pension Fund Global, one of the world’s largest investors, reported record profit of $213 billion in 2023, supported by robust returns on its investments in technology stocks.”

The fund was established in the 90s to invest surplus gas and oil revenue and has put money into more than 8,500 companies across 70 different countries.

2 DO This Month 💡 

1. Get On Those Taxes

Like “Making Cents” made clear, don’t procrastinate! The pros of getting them done ASAP far outweigh the cons.

For further tax reading, here are a couple of recent articles from CBS News:

• Why You Should File Electronically

• Are You Slated for a Bigger Return This Year?

2. Don’t Forget Valentine’s Day

This week’s big event is the Super Bowl, but don’t forget about Valentine’s Day! We strongly recommend doing some planning (or hint-dropping) as soon as you can.

Just like with your taxes (or anything else really): if you wait until the last-minute, you are inviting unnecessary stress into your life. Get ahead of it: make that reservation, pick up those flowers, order that gift, and then enjoy a worry-free weekend.

Before You Go

Enjoy the Super Bowl this Sunday!

Next week, we’ll be back with the return of Expert Advice, a Digital Networking Hack / Working with AI crossover (!!!), and much, much more.

See you then.

You are now On The Fly and In The Know.