The "Earning a Living" Thread

My industry like many is being attacked by cheap online sales. Im in a service based industry and what people dont realize is that if you buy cheap crap on line from overseas, there is no service to come with it. Being technical, that bit is important. Getting really hard to survive. Im going to transition into training. Lucky for me I have skills in the industry that will be of use to tafe and or private institutions around the NBN rollout. Money isnt too bad either. $70 a hour or thereabouts.

My industry like many is being attacked by cheap online sales. Im in a service based industry and what people dont realize is that if you buy cheap crap on line from overseas, there is no service to come with it. Being technical, that bit is important. Getting really hard to survive. Im going to transition into training. Lucky for me I have skills in the industry that will be of use to tafe and or private institutions around the NBN rollout. Money isnt too bad either. $70 a hour or thereabouts.

What are the products ?

Even for high-cost high tech specialised products like ours, we suffer from the internet. Our profit margin has dropped by about 30% because of the world-wid-web

Also, what are the retail / wholesale job costs and consequential income and GST revenue costs?

Started off as a medical scientist after completing my med lab science degree. Did that for seven years then moved into making diagnostic blood transfusion reagents for seven years. Quit that job without anything else lined up, hoping like hell I could break out of a rut that I was in and it could pressure me to search for another job probs outside science related industry. For five months I searched for another job and it was sheer luck that I got my current position of working night shift in a pharmaceutical factory as the person they were going to hire dislocated his shoulder and they needed someone straight away.

As my savings dwindled, my five months unemployed was really telling as it really reinforced my poor job prospects if I do ever lose my job while and the need to look for another income source outside my job. Been ■■■■ at all my jobs - don’t know how employers have put up with me for so long and promoted me ffs.

You’re really a vampire, aren’t you?

Close enough now. Sleep during the day and up all night; don’t think I have a pulse anymore either. Just missing the coffin.

You could try taking up smoking …??

Just a thought.

For those working for themselves what are you operating as? Was going to work from home/for myself while I'm studying the next couple of years and trying to work out the best way to (officially) do it
Family Trust.

Cost about a grand to set up

  • Company is ideal. Company as it means your personal belongings are liable if you ever went broke / got sued. The trust is there to distribute the income to whomever you please.

The ASIC website actually has good information on this.

http://asic.gov.au/for-business/your-business/your-business-structure/


Yep company is in my name, house is in my wife’s name, just in case for worst case scenario.

As it turned out, business is thriving, so no real need for the above set up, just my accountant’s way of being prudent in the early days - he would see a lot of new businesses come & go by the wayside.

Better scenario is Family Trust Company in your and wife’s name that owns all your assets, and you rent your family home from the trust, so it can be negatively geared. The only Trust income is rent and you do no other trading.

You have a separate Pty Ltd for your business that is owned again by you and the wife, but it has no assets. You actually work for the Family Trust who contracts you to manage the other Company. So all income can be split amongst family to minimize tax.

There are still rules and liability around being a Director but find relatives you don’t like and make them Directors with one share.

My Accountant also manages footballers.

Can I just add that some of the accounting advice in here is scary and there is a lot of confusion in terms and legalities. I understand where you are coming from Bacchus but some caution is needed in what you say.

If you can’t understand the below you shouldn’t be going anywhere near it, and that example is for an investment property and not even the primary residence while renting it back to yourself!

Remember you can’t outsource your liablity to your accountant if it all goes wrong. Doesn’t hold up as a defence.

The Tax Issues Of Using A Trust To Own Your Investment Property

By Eddie Chung

1/9/2016
By law, a trust is a relationship under which the trustee of the trust looks after the trust’s assets for the benefit of the beneficiaries.

If it is set up properly, a discretionary trust may offer reasonably effective asset protection as the beneficiaries of the trust are generally not entitled to the income and/or capital of the trust, until the trustee makes a resolution to distribute the income and/or capital.

Therefore, if the investor is sued for whatever reason, but has used a properly established discretionary trust to buy a property, creditors of the beneficiaries do not generally have any recourse against the assets held by the trustee. This is because the beneficiaries do not really own these assets – the trust owns the assets. An exception to this principle is in relation to Family Court matters.

While a unit trust may not be as powerful an asset protection vehicle as a discretionary trust, it may still afford a level of asset protection, depending on how the units in the unit trust are held.

To that end, a unit trust may overcome some of the tax impediments associated with a discretionary trust. Multiple parties from different families can be involved in a unit trust, while retaining the general tax benefits associated with trusts. This is why a unit trust is still a popular choice of structure for property investors.

Passing through depreciation and capital works benefits

Perhaps one of the main reasons for trusts being favoured as a property investment vehicle, instead of a company, is its ability to pass on any net cash prot. These prots can be passed from the property that represents non-cash depreciation and capital works deductions, to the beneciaries (or unit holders in the case of a unit trust).

As an example, consider the annual net rent derived on an investment property as follows:

Given that the depreciation and capital works deductions are not ‘real’ cash expenses, the net cash available to the investor from the investment property will be $25,000 – $15,000 = $10,000.

If the investment property is owned by a company, the payment of the net cash profit of $10,000 to its shareholder will usually be treated as a taxable dividend.

However, if the investment property is owned by a discretionary trust, notwithstanding the fact that the trust has distributed the $10,000 in cash to its beneficiaries, the taxable distribution to the beneficiaries will be limited to $3,000, as the trust can essentially pass on the depreciation and capital works deductions to which it is entitled to the beneficiaries.

Given the other benefits associated with a unit trust, it is commonly used where there are multiple property investors from different families

to the beneficiaries will be limited to $3,000, as the trust can essentially pass on the depreciation and capital works deductions to which it is entitled to the beneficiaries.

A unit trust has a similar ability to a discretionary trust in this regard but involves an additional level of complexity. Using the same example above, while the unit holders will only be assessed for tax on $3,000, the $7,000, being what is colloquially known as an ‘E4 amount’, will generally reduce the cost base of the units. As the cumulative E4 amounts distributed by the unit trust exceed the entire cost base of the units, any excess will give rise to
a taxable capital gain in the hands of the unit holders.

It should be noted that the combination of this E4 mechanism and the requirement to reduce the cost base of the property when the unit trust sells the property by the cumulative capital works deductions to which it was entitled (if the property was acquired after 13 May 1997) could potentially give rise to double taxation, but this has been a known issue.

Given the other benefits associated with a unit trust, it is common, where there are multiple property investors from different families, to still use a unit trust to own their properties, despite this double taxation problem.

Passing on 50% CGT discount

Unlike a company, which is not eligible for any capital gains tax (CGT) discount, a trust is eligible for the 50% CGT discount provided that the trust has held the property for at least 12 months before it is sold.

However, if the trust distributes the discounted capital gain to its beneficiaries (or unit holders in the case of a unit trust), the beneficiaries are required to ‘gross up’ the capital gain by multiplying the discounted capital gain by two. Assuming that the relevant beneficiary is an individual, the grossed-up capital gain will first be offset by any capital loss the relevant beneficiary has before the remaining capital gain is subject to the 50% CGT discount in the hands of the beneficiary again.

For a unit trust where the E4 amount would give rise to a taxable capital gain in the hands of the unit holders, it is important to note that the capital gain will also be eligible for the 50% CGT discount, provided that the unit holder has owned the units in the trust for at least 12 months.

Recouping tax losses

Any negative gearing loss generated by a property owned by a trust is usually trapped in the trust, unless the trust has other income to offset the loss. While the trust can theoretically carry forward tax losses for an indefinite period, the losses can only be recouped if certain trust loss recoupment tests are satisfied under the ‘trust loss provisions’.

The same applies to any capital losses incurred by the trust.

For a discretionary trust, the trust loss recoupment tests may be simplified by way of the trust making a ‘Family Trust Election’, but once the election is made, and a trust distribution is made to an outsider who is not part of the family group for which the election is made, the Family Trust Distribution Tax will apply.

For a private closely held unit trust, the trust loss provisions generally allow a unit trust to recoup tax losses if the majority unit holders of the relevant trust continue to own the units of the trust from the start of the loss-making year to the end of the loss recoupment year. However, this test is only relevant if the unit trust is a ‘fixed trust’.

For quite some time, it was assumed that most unit trusts were fixed trusts until a number of relatively recent legal precedents suggested that it was extremely difficult from a technical point of view for any unit trust in Australia to qualify as a fixed trust.

As a consequence of these common law cases, there is now an increasing risk that unit trusts with carried-forward tax losses would not have been or will not be able to recoup tax losses (unless they make a Family Trust Election, which may not be appropriate if the unit holders are not part of the family group).

To that end, there is no need to be alarmed at this point, as the ATO, as an administrative practice, will still treat a unit trust as a  xed trust (provided that the trust deed includes certain provisions to ensure that dealings in the units of the trust are required to be effected at market value). Nevertheless, watch this space as the technical position of the law will need to be reconciled with commercial practice sooner or later.

Distributing income and capital gains

For taxation purposes, a discretionary trust provides maximum fl exibility in terms of the annual net rental income of the trust and/or any capital gain on the sale of an investment property. This is because the trustee has the discretion to distribute different amounts of income and capital gain to different beneficiaries, having regard to the respective tax position of each beneficiary from year to year.

However, a unit trust will not have the same flexibility as the unit holders are generally entitled to the income and/or capital gain of the trust that is proportionate to their unit holdings. In this regard, unit holders of a unit trust are like shareholders in a company, who are generally entitled to distributions based on their proportionate interest in the entity.

An important point to note about trust distributions is that, under the current tax law, a trust must have resolved to distribute its annual income to its beneficiaries on or before 30 June each year to avoid the trustee being taxed on any undistributed income at the highest marginal tax rate.

Therefore, it is critical for the trustee of a trust to have made a trust distribution resolution to distribute all of the income to beneficiaries on or before 30 June each year.

This is probably less critical for a unit trust as the trust deed of a unit trust would often include a provision that automatically distributes the income and/or capital gain of the trust to the unit holders. In that regard, it may be worthwhile to consider the inclusion of a ‘default beneficiary clause’ in the trust deed of a discretionary trust. This would ensure that the inadvertent failure to distribute the income of a discretionary trust by the end of the year would mean that the default beneficiary or beneficiaries will automatically become presently entitled to the trust income, which would avoid the trustee being taxed on any undistributed income at the highest marginal tax rate.

Conclusion

As illustrated above, while trusts can be useful investment vehicles, the tax issues associated with them can also be highly complex. In this regard, it is advisable to always engage professional advisors whenever trusts are involved to ensure that you do not inadvertently fall foul of any tax rules.

Well Mr Soulnet, that is why I have a good Accountant. And why I never sign anything.

Well Mr Soulnet, that is why I have a good Accountant. And why I never sign anything.

I sleep with my accountant. I sign whatever she asks for.

Re-read my posts. My Accountant's advice has always been to buy low cost investments that will always give a better yield as there is always a shortage and rents in terms of yields are higher.

We didn’t take his advice and bought a rental property in Toorak, currently give a return of about 3%. If we had done as he suggested, we could have purchased three properties locally which have yields of nearly 7%.

And over the period of the last six years, the Toorak property has probably increased in market value by 20% while the local figures are more like 30%.

I do agree with caution, but this Accountants strategy is sound with a lot less risk.


Speaking very generally, a higher initial yield will provide less rental growth in the long-term - Chadstone shopping center is a 4% yield asset whereas a local strip mall might be more like 7-8% because the implicit expectation is that Chadstone will grow its rents faster than a suburban strip mall, 101 Collins is a 4.5% yield but a suburban office block might be more like 7% because 101 Collins is expected to grow its rents faster etc. The same general theory applies in residential property. What you tend to see in all speculative booms across all income-producing assets, such as the one we are in now in residential real estate, is that yields compress across the quality spectrum, but compress particularly hard in the higher yield segments as discernment between asset quality falls by the wayside during the boom, but then when the tide goes out, the yield spreads get reasserted, which is a technical way of saying that the lower quality assets get crunched relative to the higher quality assets. This is common across stocks, bonds, real estate and so on.

I’m glad to hear you’ve had good results from your strategy thus far, but i personally don’t believe there’s such a thing as a ‘free lunch’ in the sense of high-yielding assets being less volatile or risky - the immutable law of finance, which i subscribe to, is that higher risk comes with higher expected returns.

What do experts think of the impact on real estate prices of China's restriction on capital outflow (ie Chinese people can no longer take their RMB out of the country to buy overseas property)?
Read Michael Pettis if you want an expert's opinion on the Chinese economy - he can be technical and a little turgid, but is the best i've ever read in that particular field.

Sure but as a Prof in Beijing I suspect he doesn’t have many insights into the Australian real estate market.

Well Mr Soulnet, that is why I have a good Accountant. And why I never sign anything.

There goes my dream of assembling a complete collection of Bacchus’ autographs.

Sure but as a Prof in Beijing I suspect he doesn't have many insights into the Australian real estate market.
Nor do the overwhelming majority of purported, Aus-based RE 'experts'. If you're looking for a reliable and precise answer as to the likely impact on the RE market of a reduction in Chinese investment, you won't get it because it's largely unknowable, and any professional that purports to quantify it with any sort of exactitude is likely performing some form of mental masturbation, in my opinion.
Well Mr Soulnet, that is why I have a good Accountant. And why I never sign anything.

There goes my dream of assembling a complete collection of Beers’ autographs.

Those Blitzers old enough to remember, back in the day last century well before any ID cards, when us underage drinkers in most pubs were requested to “sign the book” with our name and address.

I drank with so many Super-heroes, Mickey and Donald and all the Seven Dwarfs. So I was not completely truthful when I said I never sign anything, as back then I did sign the book at a pub in Coburg most Saturday’s. It was not my name of course, but of the kid at school I didn’t like the most.

I always wondered what the Police thought when they came in the Pub, checked the book, and could never find Batman or Robin.

My industry like many is being attacked by cheap online sales. Im in a service based industry and what people dont realize is that if you buy cheap crap on line from overseas, there is no service to come with it. Being technical, that bit is important. Getting really hard to survive. Im going to transition into training. Lucky for me I have skills in the industry that will be of use to tafe and or private institutions around the NBN rollout. Money isnt too bad either. $70 a hour or thereabouts.

What are the products ?

Even for high-cost high tech specialised products like ours, we suffer from the internet. Our profit margin has dropped by about 30% because of the world-wid-web


Telecoms
For those working for themselves what are you operating as? Was going to work from home/for myself while I'm studying the next couple of years and trying to work out the best way to (officially) do it
Family Trust.

Cost about a grand to set up

  • Company is ideal. Company as it means your personal belongings are liable if you ever went broke / got sued. The trust is there to distribute the income to whomever you please.

The ASIC website actually has good information on this.

http://asic.gov.au/for-business/your-business/your-business-structure/


Yep company is in my name, house is in my wife’s name, just in case for worst case scenario.

As it turned out, business is thriving, so no real need for the above set up, just my accountant’s way of being prudent in the early days - he would see a lot of new businesses come & go by the wayside.

Better scenario is Family Trust Company in your and wife’s name that owns all your assets, and you rent your family home from the trust, so it can be negatively geared. The only Trust income is rent and you do no other trading.

You have a separate Pty Ltd for your business that is owned again by you and the wife, but it has no assets. You actually work for the Family Trust who contracts you to manage the other Company. So all income can be split amongst family to minimize tax.

There are still rules and liability around being a Director but find relatives you don’t like and make them Directors with one share.

My Accountant also manages footballers.

Can I just add that some of the accounting advice in here is scary and there is a lot of confusion in terms and legalities. I understand where you are coming from Bacchus but some caution is needed in what you say.

If you can’t understand the below you shouldn’t be going anywhere near it, and that example is for an investment property and not even the primary residence while renting it back to yourself!

Remember you can’t outsource your liablity to your accountant if it all goes wrong. Doesn’t hold up as a defence.

The Tax Issues Of Using A Trust To Own Your Investment Property

By Eddie Chung

1/9/2016
By law, a trust is a relationship under which the trustee of the trust looks after the trust’s assets for the benefit of the beneficiaries.

If it is set up properly, a discretionary trust may offer reasonably effective asset protection as the beneficiaries of the trust are generally not entitled to the income and/or capital of the trust, until the trustee makes a resolution to distribute the income and/or capital.

Therefore, if the investor is sued for whatever reason, but has used a properly established discretionary trust to buy a property, creditors of the beneficiaries do not generally have any recourse against the assets held by the trustee. This is because the beneficiaries do not really own these assets – the trust owns the assets. An exception to this principle is in relation to Family Court matters.

While a unit trust may not be as powerful an asset protection vehicle as a discretionary trust, it may still afford a level of asset protection, depending on how the units in the unit trust are held.

To that end, a unit trust may overcome some of the tax impediments associated with a discretionary trust. Multiple parties from different families can be involved in a unit trust, while retaining the general tax benefits associated with trusts. This is why a unit trust is still a popular choice of structure for property investors.

Passing through depreciation and capital works benefits

Perhaps one of the main reasons for trusts being favoured as a property investment vehicle, instead of a company, is its ability to pass on any net cash prot. These prots can be passed from the property that represents non-cash depreciation and capital works deductions, to the beneciaries (or unit holders in the case of a unit trust).

As an example, consider the annual net rent derived on an investment property as follows:

Given that the depreciation and capital works deductions are not ‘real’ cash expenses, the net cash available to the investor from the investment property will be $25,000 – $15,000 = $10,000.

If the investment property is owned by a company, the payment of the net cash profit of $10,000 to its shareholder will usually be treated as a taxable dividend.

However, if the investment property is owned by a discretionary trust, notwithstanding the fact that the trust has distributed the $10,000 in cash to its beneficiaries, the taxable distribution to the beneficiaries will be limited to $3,000, as the trust can essentially pass on the depreciation and capital works deductions to which it is entitled to the beneficiaries.

Given the other benefits associated with a unit trust, it is commonly used where there are multiple property investors from different families

to the beneficiaries will be limited to $3,000, as the trust can essentially pass on the depreciation and capital works deductions to which it is entitled to the beneficiaries.

A unit trust has a similar ability to a discretionary trust in this regard but involves an additional level of complexity. Using the same example above, while the unit holders will only be assessed for tax on $3,000, the $7,000, being what is colloquially known as an ‘E4 amount’, will generally reduce the cost base of the units. As the cumulative E4 amounts distributed by the unit trust exceed the entire cost base of the units, any excess will give rise to
a taxable capital gain in the hands of the unit holders.

It should be noted that the combination of this E4 mechanism and the requirement to reduce the cost base of the property when the unit trust sells the property by the cumulative capital works deductions to which it was entitled (if the property was acquired after 13 May 1997) could potentially give rise to double taxation, but this has been a known issue.

Given the other benefits associated with a unit trust, it is common, where there are multiple property investors from different families, to still use a unit trust to own their properties, despite this double taxation problem.

Passing on 50% CGT discount

Unlike a company, which is not eligible for any capital gains tax (CGT) discount, a trust is eligible for the 50% CGT discount provided that the trust has held the property for at least 12 months before it is sold.

However, if the trust distributes the discounted capital gain to its beneficiaries (or unit holders in the case of a unit trust), the beneficiaries are required to ‘gross up’ the capital gain by multiplying the discounted capital gain by two. Assuming that the relevant beneficiary is an individual, the grossed-up capital gain will first be offset by any capital loss the relevant beneficiary has before the remaining capital gain is subject to the 50% CGT discount in the hands of the beneficiary again.

For a unit trust where the E4 amount would give rise to a taxable capital gain in the hands of the unit holders, it is important to note that the capital gain will also be eligible for the 50% CGT discount, provided that the unit holder has owned the units in the trust for at least 12 months.

Recouping tax losses

Any negative gearing loss generated by a property owned by a trust is usually trapped in the trust, unless the trust has other income to offset the loss. While the trust can theoretically carry forward tax losses for an indefinite period, the losses can only be recouped if certain trust loss recoupment tests are satisfied under the ‘trust loss provisions’.

The same applies to any capital losses incurred by the trust.

For a discretionary trust, the trust loss recoupment tests may be simplified by way of the trust making a ‘Family Trust Election’, but once the election is made, and a trust distribution is made to an outsider who is not part of the family group for which the election is made, the Family Trust Distribution Tax will apply.

For a private closely held unit trust, the trust loss provisions generally allow a unit trust to recoup tax losses if the majority unit holders of the relevant trust continue to own the units of the trust from the start of the loss-making year to the end of the loss recoupment year. However, this test is only relevant if the unit trust is a ‘fixed trust’.

For quite some time, it was assumed that most unit trusts were fixed trusts until a number of relatively recent legal precedents suggested that it was extremely difficult from a technical point of view for any unit trust in Australia to qualify as a fixed trust.

As a consequence of these common law cases, there is now an increasing risk that unit trusts with carried-forward tax losses would not have been or will not be able to recoup tax losses (unless they make a Family Trust Election, which may not be appropriate if the unit holders are not part of the family group).

To that end, there is no need to be alarmed at this point, as the ATO, as an administrative practice, will still treat a unit trust as a  xed trust (provided that the trust deed includes certain provisions to ensure that dealings in the units of the trust are required to be effected at market value). Nevertheless, watch this space as the technical position of the law will need to be reconciled with commercial practice sooner or later.

Distributing income and capital gains

For taxation purposes, a discretionary trust provides maximum fl exibility in terms of the annual net rental income of the trust and/or any capital gain on the sale of an investment property. This is because the trustee has the discretion to distribute different amounts of income and capital gain to different beneficiaries, having regard to the respective tax position of each beneficiary from year to year.

However, a unit trust will not have the same flexibility as the unit holders are generally entitled to the income and/or capital gain of the trust that is proportionate to their unit holdings. In this regard, unit holders of a unit trust are like shareholders in a company, who are generally entitled to distributions based on their proportionate interest in the entity.

An important point to note about trust distributions is that, under the current tax law, a trust must have resolved to distribute its annual income to its beneficiaries on or before 30 June each year to avoid the trustee being taxed on any undistributed income at the highest marginal tax rate.

Therefore, it is critical for the trustee of a trust to have made a trust distribution resolution to distribute all of the income to beneficiaries on or before 30 June each year.

This is probably less critical for a unit trust as the trust deed of a unit trust would often include a provision that automatically distributes the income and/or capital gain of the trust to the unit holders. In that regard, it may be worthwhile to consider the inclusion of a ‘default beneficiary clause’ in the trust deed of a discretionary trust. This would ensure that the inadvertent failure to distribute the income of a discretionary trust by the end of the year would mean that the default beneficiary or beneficiaries will automatically become presently entitled to the trust income, which would avoid the trustee being taxed on any undistributed income at the highest marginal tax rate.

Conclusion

As illustrated above, while trusts can be useful investment vehicles, the tax issues associated with them can also be highly complex. In this regard, it is advisable to always engage professional advisors whenever trusts are involved to ensure that you do not inadvertently fall foul of any tax rules.

tldr, But have been to a seminar with Mr Chung.
I also think if your accountant is giving investment advice, e,g buy a property in this area, then i hope he has a financial planner licence now, or he could get into trouble there as well. And it pays to remember that he may also have a deal with the real estate agent who are selling the properties if his clients accept the deal.

Direct property (a house, a factory, a building) is okay with Accountants providing it’s not being bought within a SMSF. If it’s a property trust or within a SMSF then it falls to a Financial Planner. What an Accountant has to be careful of is then saying you should gear it cause of X, Y, Z. It becomes a fine line between ‘personal’ advice and ‘general’ advice.

If an Accountant is not willing to put their advice on paper (letter head, signature) then get a second opinion as they may be worried about crossing this line.

Financial planners and accountants should really fall under one banner to fix up red tape like this.

Geez i’m boring.

Stop liking the ‘geez i’m boring’ bit!

Stop liking the 'geez i'm a boring' git!
Direct property (a house, a factory, a building) is okay with Accountants providing it's not being bought within a SMSF. If it's a property trust or within a SMSF then it falls to a Financial Planner. What an Accountant has to be careful of is then saying you should gear it cause of X, Y, Z. It becomes a fine line between 'personal' advice and 'general' advice.

If an Accountant is not willing to put their advice on paper (letter head, signature) then get a second opinion as they may be worried about crossing this line.

Financial planners and accountants should really fall under one banner to fix up red tape like this.

Geez i’m boring.

if anyone in a professional capacity is unwilling to do this, run for the hills.

I am watching a great series on Netflix “Abstract: The Art of Design”. It profiles great designers from various fields. Architecture, photography, car design, interior design etc. These are all obviously people who have followed their passion and become world class (and hence, well compensated) in their personal obsession. Yet, they too show the same pressures and frustrations as the rest of us. For example, Tinker Hatfield who was chief Shoe Designer at Nike and responsible for the Jordan line got absolute burnout by the time Jordan 15s came out. And, he had to leave Nike. Really fascinating.

I have a book by Alain De Botton called The Pleasures and Sorrows of work. It’s a very humourous philosophical book that analyses several people and what drives people to do the work that they do, whether it be money, passion, personal interest . From Biscuit Salesmen to Rocket Scientists. It’s a very enjoyable read and I highly recommend it to anyone that might be questioning their career.