A short summer sabbatical has been in the works ever since my wife and I took a month off 5 years ago (when we were 30 years old). The experience was very valuable and formative for both of us, so we decided to do it again. This summer we are each taking a month off to rest. My wife just finished her 4 weeks off (she writes about her experience of taking a Sabbatical as a mother of two young children on our personal blog), and I’ve just started mine.

On Tuesday I decided to take my wife on an impromptu lunch date. We headed to downtown Vancouver and were thinking of a place to eat. She had heard me tell her about the amazing sandwiches at Meat + Bread and wanted to try it out for herself. As we enjoyed our fresh roast meat sandwiches, we found ourselves analyzing why their marketing works so well. Their key? They’ve limited their menu items and perfected them. Then they let their product do their marketing.

“How do you make money blogging?” That’s one of the most common questions I’ve gotten over the last 4 years, ever since my wife and I tried blogging full-time. We blogged full-time for a year before starting our marketing company. During that time we learned how to make money blogging (mostly through trial and error). Here are the 3 ways anyone can make money through blogging.

At the beginning on this year I set a few goals for myself. One of the goals was to blog about marketing, business, or leadership once a week for 52 weeks. Today is the midway point of the year and I am on track to reach my goal, having published 26 new blog posts. I wanted to blog weekly for 2 reasons. First, to sharpen my thinking and expertise in marketing. Second, to generate more sales for my business. So far, my sales leads have increased by 122% and my revenue has increased 42%. Here’s how it happened.

“The best marketing begins with explaining,” said Susan Su of 500 Startups, a leading global venture capital seed fund and startup accelerator. I heard that line earlier this week at a marketing conference and it’s stuck with me.

Microsoft announced this morning that they will purchase LinkedIn for $26.2 Billion in cash, making it the largest acquisition in Microsoft’s history. To compare, the next largest acquisitions by Microsoft were Skype ($8.5 billion in 2011), Nokia’s phone division ($7.6 billion in 2013), online advertising company Aquantive ($6 billion in 2007), and Minecraft maker Mojang ($2.5 billion in 2014). LinkedIn’s CEO Jeff Weiner will report to Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella. LinkedIn will keep its branding and become part of Microsoft’s productivity and business process division.

Why does this acquisition make sense for both companies?

I recently came across the Internet Trends Report put together by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), presented by Mary Meeker at the Code Conference. After looking through the presentation (213 slides!) I have summarized the most relevant points in this blog post.

In the fall of 2012 I quit my job to become an entrepreneur. My first business was a blog about marriage and parenting that I ran with my wife. In terms of impact, it was a success (it is still being read by 100,000 people per year). In terms of being a profitable business, it was a failure. My second business was a marketing company. Thankfully, we’re in our third year of business and continue to be growing. Life as an entrepreneur has its ups and downs. It’s not for everyone. But more and more people are considering this route. A recent Forbes article estimates that by 2020, 50% of the workforce will be self-employed. For anyone that is considering becoming an entrepreneur, I hope this list of pros and cons will be helpful in your decision making process.

Last weekend I attended the funeral of the father of my good friend. The church was packed with hundreds and hundreds of people. It may sound funny, but I find attending funerals to be very meaningful. This time is a difficult time for friend, as he was very close to his father. I felt that it was important to be at the funeral to support my friend. But from a selfish point of view, attending the funeral gave me a chance to reflect on death. Thinking about death has helped me to improve my business and my life. Here’s why.