On The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy – Thomas J. Stanley, William D. Danko

On The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy - Thomas J. Stanley, William D. Danko

I found out about the book via Vali Petcu (Zoso.ro): “The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy” – by Thomas J. Stanley, William D. Danko.

Some thoughts?

  • Generally, I find a lot of advice on money quite basic. There’s plenty of very very very basic advice out there. The book manages two things – it tells new things (at least to me) and it says important things, things that matter.
  • Very simple language, easy to read.
  • It’s not a large book, it can be read with ease.
  • It brought me some good understanding on the topic.

I wholeheartedly recommend it!

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Difference between BMW and Mercedes

Ed - Original Aston Martin Z-Car

They are both sports luxury cars, so it might seem they are identical.

But BMW and Mercedes cars differ in one important thing:

  • BMWs tend to focus on the drivers.
  • Mercedes tend to be aimed at the passengers.

For this reason, you will generally see Mercedes taxis, but very rarely BMW taxis.

Idea heard at this year’s Search Evolution Summit – SEO Conference in Cluj-Napoca, RO.

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Too much selling

GGMGastro

It happened to me multiple times – some event organizers organize various shows in restaurants.

Theater plays, stand-up, concerts etc.

Sometimes, they just announce it like this “You can enter the venue starting X hour”.

And you go there, and you discover that the event starts much later than the announced X hour.

They have an incentive to do so, to encourage people to order drinks and food.

I don’t like this way of doing business.

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SERP Conf. Vienna 2026 Goes Two Days for the First Time

Barry Schwartz and Dan Petrovic on the Future of SEO. Plus Martin Splitt from Google, Jes Scholz, and more.

For the first time, SERP Conf. Vienna will be held as a two-day event. On November 3 and 4, the 2026 edition will take place at Tech Gate Vienna. Now in its third year in the Austrian capital, the conference has firmly become one of Europe’s most important gatherings for SEO, AI, and e-commerce professionals.

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Migration. Immigration. Emigration

Follow-up: Ce este pentru mine satul Curmătură în 2018?

“As many as 3.4 million Romanians have fled the country since it joined the European Union in 2007. The figure represents 17 per cent of the country’s total population. The exodus is unprecedented anywhere in Europe during peacetime. Over the same period, only war-torn Syria has seen a higher percentage of its citizens emigrate.” (New Statistics Confirm Romania’s Demographic Catastrophe – Emerging Europe)

About living abroad, I think the following tends to be more true than not:

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” ― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

We need people who are at least partially unhappy with the situation, so that there is change.

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Crammed subway

metro metro way tube train subway metros metrou tren calator rider riders passengers

Sometimes, at the subway/tube, there are delays in train circulation. What happens after such a delay is that some trains come crammed with people, and you can’t get in.

My solution? (note – it’s not always the optimal solution) Take the tube in the opposite direction, and get on a subway a few stops earlier.

It’s much more likely that the subway train will have fewer passengers at earlier stations, and I can get in.

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Starting with the divide

Matt - Competition

One friend of mine told me that at the beginning of a school year, at the opening ceremony, a teacher told them something in the lines of – “Welcome to the best high school in all Constanța”.

There was just a small, tiny, little problem – it was clearly not the best high school in Constanța.

The best high school in Constanța is, by pretty much all measures, Mircea cel Bătrân National College (Constanța).

Of course, if you compare two entities with lots of features and comparison options, perhaps the teacher was right – in some specific niche, in some specific situations, there might be disputes on which is the “best” high school.

But coming back to the original assertion – that’s not the way to start the school year.

There are so many ways in which you can find bridges between two high schools, and yet, you start the year with the divide.

All those school years, the pupils will likely question which really is the best high school in Constanța.

That shouldn’t be the question and the dilemma. It doesn’t even matter.

What good is of me to know that a few hundred kilometers away you can go into a high school that is in top 10 in the world? This information brings me little to no value.

And if you start with negative things (comparison, what divides us, how are you different than me, why are you better/worse than me), you tend to keep staying in that place.

That’s not the place to be; the focus should be on useful things.

This happens a lot in other fields, also. Football fans state that they are not following brand X, but Y. Political audiences keep showing how they are much better than others.

A better solution? Start with what unites us, with what brings us closer. Also, focus on what’s in your control (your actions), not on something that is likely out of your influence (Team X has more titles than us).

A quote:

Division among humanity is not random. It is not just a social trend or a collection of misunderstandings. Division is a calculated tactic and deliberate strategy used by the enemy. Jesus Himself said Satan’s goal is “to steal, and to kill, and to destroy” (John 10:10) and division is one of the tactics he uses to do so.

The Tactics of Satan: Division.

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The watermelons seller

watermelon pepene pepeni watermelons fruits eat food mancare mâncare

I buy watermelons from a local seller.

He doesn’t know me personally; I don’t know him personally.

I came to think of it – even if we respect each other a lot, we know little of the lives outside the process of buying/selling melons.

Not complete strangers, not far from it.

This happens in most contexts. We know some parts of others’ lives, but generally few things.

The question comes: how do you treat a complete stranger? Is it someone worth your deepest respect and care, or is someone not worthy of such honors?

In my opinion, the answer should always be: treat others with the highest respect. You can’t go wrong with this rule.

There isn’t anyone on this Earth (OK, not even in space) not worthy of being treated with respect.

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On going to theater

De Profundis (Oscar Wilde) - spectacol de teatru

There are two opposite things happening at the same time when going to the theater:

  • You are amazed by some things (How did they do this, from a technical point of view? How did they give me this emotion? How did the subject evolve like this?);
  • You don’t understand some things within the play (Why did they say so? What’s the main idea? What happened one minute ago?);
  • In general, I get so absorbed in the story that I completely disconnect from my current problems;
  • Theater relaxes me tremendously, unlike movies, which make me tired because of the concentration required when watching a screen.

The thing is, these tend to compensate one with the other – so, first you are amazed, but then you don’t understand some things, but these two tend to compensate one with the other.

All in all, generally you like what you see, even if you don’t understand everything.

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Winston Churchill about painting and sculpture

La grande bellezza (2013)

Winston Churchill did said this:

[…] a different, authentic statement Churchill made about painting and sculpture: “The arts are essential to any complete national life. The State owes it to itself to sustain and encourage them. The country possesses in the Royal Academy an institution of wealth and power for the purpose of encouraging the arts of painting and sculpture … .”

Source: No, Winston Churchill didn’t say ‘what are we fighting for?’ about the arts – PolitiFact

Note: Winston Churchill did not say this:

He also didn’t make this statement that appeared on Facebook on March 31. The post says: “When Winston Churchill was asked to cut arts funding in favour of the war effort, he simply replied, ‘then what are we fighting for?’”

Source: No, Winston Churchill didn’t say ‘what are we fighting for?’ about the arts – PolitiFact

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