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3 Simple Claude Skills Any Physician Can Build in Minutes

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3 Simple Claude Skills Any Physician Can Build in Minutes


If you use Claude, you’re probably re-explaining yourself every single time you open it.

Same background. Same tone preferences. Same formatting requests. Typed out fresh into every new conversation, over and over.

There’s a way around that, and it’s honestly pretty straightforward.

Claude has a feature called Skills. A skill is a saved instruction set. You teach Claude something once, and it remembers and applies it automatically the next time a similar task shows up. Instead of writing the same long prompt every time, you build the preference once and reuse it for good.

Here’s the part most people don’t expect: you don’t have to touch a file, a folder, or a line of code. You do the whole thing through conversation. You describe what you want, and Claude builds the skill for you.

Here are three that are simple, safe, and actually useful for the work you do every week.

Disclaimer: While these are general suggestions, it’s important to conduct thorough research and due diligence when selecting AI tools. We do not endorse or promote any specific AI tools mentioned here. This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended to provide legal, financial, or clinical advice. Always comply with HIPAA and institutional policies. For any decisions that impact patient care or finances, consult a qualified professional.

It’s not just the talks. Or the speakers. Or the strategies.

PIMDCON, the #1 Real Estate & Entrepreneurship Conference for Physicians, works because of what happens between the sessions.

The conversations. The clarity. The shift.

LEARN MORE ABOUT PIMDCON

Know What a Skill Actually Is

Think about training a new assistant. The first week, you explain everything. How you like things to sound. What format you want. What matters and what doesn’t. After that, they just know.

A Claude Skill works the same way. It’s not a plugin and it’s not a separate app. It’s a description of how you want a certain kind of task handled, saved so Claude can spot the pattern and apply it without being told again.

Anthropic built a conversational way to create these, meant for exactly this kind of beginner use. You don’t need to write anything in a technical format. You say “Create a skill that does X,” and Claude builds it and tells you when it’s ready.

Set This Up Before You Start

Skills are available on Free, Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans, but one setting has to be flipped first.

Click your Account name on the bottom right, go to Settings, then Capabilities, and turn on “Code execution and file creation.” Skills won’t run without it.

Then go to Customize, then Skills. That’s where everything you build lives, and where you toggle each one on and off. If you’re on Enterprise, an owner has to confirm that both Code execution and Skills are switched on at the organization level before any of this appears for you. On Team plans, it’s on by default.

How to use it?

Claude reads the descriptions of the skills you have turned on, matches them against what you’re asking for, and fires the right one on its own. You just describe your task normally.

Built a summarizing skill? Paste in a long document, say “summarize this,” and it usually goes.

When Claude misses it, name the skill directly. “Use my Quick Summary skill on this.” That’s the fix Anthropic points to when a skill isn’t firing, and a vague description is almost always the reason. Worth going back and sharpening it.

There is a slash menu, just not everywhere. In Claude Code, and in the Claude add-ins for Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Outlook, you type / and pick a skill from the list. Handy if you spend your day in Word or Outlook.

In regular chat, you’re just asking for what you want.

Skill #1: Rewrite Anything in Your Voice

You’ve probably run into this one. You write a draft, a note to a colleague, something for your newsletter, a message to your team, and it comes out stiff. It doesn’t sound like you.

This fixes that permanently.

How to build it:

Open a new conversation and paste in a few things you’ve written that already sound right. A couple of old emails, a message, anything that reflects how you actually talk.

Then say something like:

“I want you to create a skill called ‘My Voice‘ that rewrites anything I paste into a style that matches these examples. Study the tone, sentence length, and word choices in what I’m about to share, and use that as the model. Here are some samples of my writing: [paste examples].”

Claude will ask you a couple of questions. How formal you want it, whether you use contractions, stuff like that. Then it builds the skill.

From there, you paste in a rough draft, say “run this through My Voice,” and get back something that sounds like you wrote it. No re-explaining your tone every time.

Use it for anything you write repeatedly. Internal notes, newsletter drafts, social captions, adjusted to whatever voice fits that context. Keep it to your own writing and generic templates, nothing with patient information in it. More on that below.

Skill #2: Summarize the Way You Want

Everybody condenses information differently. Maybe you want three bullets. Maybe you want a short paragraph with no headers. Maybe you want the bottom line first and the details after.

Right now you’re probably typing that preference out every single time. Build it once instead.

How to build it:

“Create a skill called ‘Quick Summary‘ that summarizes anything I give you in this exact format: a two-sentence overview first, then three to five bullet points of the most important details, and nothing else. Keep it under 150 words unless I ask for more detail.”

After that, you paste in an article, a long email thread, or a document, say “summarize this with Quick Summary,” and get the same format every time.

One thing to keep in mind. Treat any summary of factual material, especially clinical or scientific content, as a starting point you still need to verify. This skill controls format and structure. It doesn’t replace checking your sources.

Skill #3: Brainstorm With You, Not At You

You ask an AI for ideas and get back a flat list of ten generic suggestions with no depth to any of them. Sound familiar?

This one turns brainstorming into an actual back and forth.

How to build it:

“Create a skill called ‘Real Brainstorm‘ that, whenever I ask you to help me brainstorm something, doesn’t just give me a list. Ask me one or two clarifying questions first about what I’m actually trying to solve. Then give me three to five ideas, but for each one, briefly explain why it might work and what the downside or risk is. Push back if an idea seems weak instead of being agreeable about everything.”

Use it for naming a new offering, thinking through a scheduling change, working out how to handle a difficult conversation.

The value isn’t in how many ideas you get. It’s in getting an honest response instead of a shallow list.

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Check These Things Before You Build Anything

None of these three skills require patient data, and that’s deliberate. They’re built around voice, formatting, and thinking, not clinical content, which means you can build and use all three without a compliance conversation.

That boundary only holds if you keep it. Claude’s Free, Pro, Max, and Team plans aren’t covered under Anthropic’s Business Associate Agreement, and PHI shouldn’t go into any AI tool without the right compliance setup in place. BAA coverage requires a HIPAA-ready Enterprise plan or the API. So don’t paste a real patient message into your voice skill to “make it sound better.”

Build the template, run the template through the skill, and fill in the specifics yourself afterward.

Also worth remembering: a skill is only as good as the examples and instructions you give it. If yours starts producing results that feel off, that’s an easy fix. Open a new conversation and say “adjust my [skill name] skill so it does X differently instead.” Claude will update it.

Give It Fifteen Minutes This Week

All three of these take about fifteen minutes total to build, and most of that is you digging up a few writing samples for the first one. There’s no technical setup involved. You just type into a normal Claude conversation.

The physicians getting the most out of AI right now usually aren’t the ones with the most complicated setups. They’re the ones who spent ten or fifteen minutes once building a few simple skills and have been reusing them ever since.

So what’s the one thing you keep re-explaining to Claude over and over? That’s your first skill. We’d love to hear what you build.

Download The Physician’s Starter Guide to AI – a free, easy-to-digest resource that walks you through smart ways to integrate tools like ChatGPT into your professional and personal life. Whether you’re AI-curious or already experimenting, this guide will save you time, stress, and maybe even a little sanity.

Want more tips to sharpen your AI skills? Subscribe to our newsletter for exclusive insights and practical advice. You’ll also get access to our free AI resource page, packed with AI tools and tutorials to help you have more in life outside of medicine. Let’s make life easier, one prompt at a time. Make it happen!

Disclaimer: This article is for general informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute medical, legal, compliance, or professional advice. The information provided here is based on available public data and may not be entirely accurate or up-to-date. It’s recommended to contact the respective companies/individuals for detailed information on features, pricing, and availability. All screenshots, if any, are used under the principles of fair use for editorial, educational, or commentary purposes. All trademarks and copyrights belong to their respective owners.

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Further Reading



$9.999 and maxed out: California diesel prices overwhelm pump displays as supply crunch worsens

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$9.999 and maxed out: California diesel prices overwhelm pump displays as supply crunch worsens



As U.S. prices for diesel fuel surge to all-time highs, some California pumps literally can’t price their diesel any higher—maxing out the display at $9.999 per gallon.

Fuel-tracking firm GasBuddy reported Thursday that a small handful of California fueling stations hiked their retail diesel up to the maximum display pricing as the state’s overall diesel average hit $7.91 per gallon.

GasBuddy said it had confirmed that the $9.999 price was on displays at pumps in the San Diego suburb of Serra Mesa on Wednesday, and that it was investigating reports in other locations. Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, cautioned that some pumps could simply be out of fuel. He noted that it is practice for some fueling stations to list “$9.999” to warn drivers away when diesel has run dry temporarily.

But what is clear is that several stations in California are pricing well above $9 per gallon.

On a national level, the U.S. average for diesel surpassed $6 a gallon this week for the first time ever. De Haan said the national diesel average could realistically rise to $7 per gallon in the weeks ahead. “There are really no signs of any improvement,” he told Fortune. “There are more signs of escalation. We’re headed in the wrong direction.”

De Haan said the first $9.999 reports gave him “chills”—for the first time ever, it’s a realistic pricing option.

De Haan said further clarification is needed if stations could legally be allowed to adjust the digital software and move the decimal place to charge over $10 per gallon, or to instead start charging by the half gallon or some other measure.

The California news comes as crude oil and fuel prices continue to spike worldwide amid military escalations in the Middle East and the effective closure again of the Strait of Hormuz bottleneck. While diesel prices are hitting record highs in the U.S., the situation is worse in the rest of the world where pockets of fuel shortages are projected, prices are higher, and inflationary pressures are growing on everything from groceries to other goods and services.

The global benchmark for oil spiked almost 8% on Sept. 10 from $101 per barrel up to $109—the highest since May. The average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline in the U.S. was $4.27 on Sept. 10 and still projected to spike further. That’s the highest September price ever.

Eyes on the Middle East

OPEC reported that, for instance, Middle East energy leader Saudi Arabia’s oil production in August fell to its lowest output since 1990 at 6.2 million barrels per day—down from pre-war levels of 10 million barrels daily—as Yemeni Houthi attacks disrupted volumes through the Red Sea, according to OPEC stats. Houthi attacks have again escalated this week, including targeting critical Saudi oil pipelines. And more tankers are being targeted in the Strait of Hormuz.

But, while oil volumes continue to be drawn down from strategic reserves worldwide—the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is down to 44-year lows—no such reserves exist for fuel, especially diesel, which fuels the global economy for trucking fleets and more. The timing is particularly bad for the agricultural sector, which relies heavily on diesel, with its harvest season typically beginning in September.

“It’s going to be trickling down the [inflationary] supply chain in the weeks ahead,” De Haan said.

The highest gasoline and diesel prices are cumulatively costing Americans over $700 million more per day versus last year. De Haan said he would not be surprised if it rises to a $1 billion daily impact. Gasoline prices are painful, he said, “but diesel is really going to be the troublesome child.”

President Donald Trump said this week he is resigned that the Iran war will continue at least into November, although he argued it will be solved shortly after the midterm elections.

Apart from a peaceful truce in the Strait of Hormuz, the only solution is that prices rise more to force further “demand destruction” of oil and fuels, said Susan Bell, senior vice president for the Rystad Energy research firm. “I hate to say it, but we need prices at the pump to go up higher to encourage consumers to make choices on their energy consumption. We need more (global) austerity measures,” Bell told Fortune.

Everyone focuses on the price of oil spiking above $100 per barrel, but diesel costs are much more concerning right now, said oil forecaster Dan Pickering, founder of Pickering Energy Partners consulting and research firm.

“The [global] market is competing for a limited supply of diesel. So, at what point do we worry? We worry now,” Pickering told Fortune. “Prices are quite high and there’s no easy relief valve. Nobody is building new oil refineries.”

Why a record buyer’s market still isn’t helping buyers qualify

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There were an estimated 1.53 million home sellers active in the market nationwide in August, the most since the start of 2020, while the number of active buyers barely moved from July’s record low. Nashville alone saw an estimated 139.3% more sellers than buyers, the widest gap of any metro Redfin tracks.

On paper, that kind of imbalance should hand buyers real leverage. Home price growth has already cooled to 1.6% year over year across the nation’s buyer’s markets, compared with 5.5% in the five remaining seller’s markets, according to Redfin.

Having more room to negotiate does not help a buyer who cannot qualify for the loan in the first place, and elevated rates and prices are still keeping plenty of would-be buyers on the sidelines, particularly those sitting just above conforming loan limits.

Kyle Schoenmaker (pictured top), SVP of sales at Rocket Pro, said navigating a market like this requires brokers to think outside the box.

“In a challenging market, it really requires a lot of the lenders to be creative with the solutions that they’re providing,” Schoenmaker told Mortgage Professional America. “If I had to offer one piece of advice for all of the brokers out there, it would be to stay curious. Now is the best time to ask questions, find the best competitive advantage for them, and make sure that they’re doing truly what’s right by their clients and by their business.”

How Business Storytelling Builds Trust and Drives Results

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How Business Storytelling Builds Trust and Drives Results


How Business Storytelling Builds Trust and Drives Results written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Catch the Full Episode:

Overview

Don Yaeger joins the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast to talk about his new book, The Business of Storytelling: Inspire Action, Build Trust, and Drive Results Through Story, and what it takes to turn storytelling into a working business habit rather than a skill reserved for the keynote stage. Yaeger and John Jantsch dig into why the book’s ten storytelling elements aren’t a formula, why artificial intelligence can’t write a business’s story for it, and how a founder with no communications team can still do the kind of research that produces a genuinely personal connection.

The conversation moves into the practical side of business storytelling: which three stories every company should have ready to tell, why the strongest ones often center on a customer or employee instead of the owner, and what the numbers say about storytelling’s effect on revenue. Yaeger also addresses the founders who believe their business is too ordinary to have a story worth telling.

This episode is built for small business owners, marketers, agencies, and consultants who want to use storytelling for trust and brand building but haven’t had a research team, book deal, or decades of interview experience behind them.

Guest Bio

Don Yaeger is a National Speakers Hall of Fame inductee, 13-time New York Times bestselling author, and longtime associate editor at Sports Illustrated. Over more than 1,000 interviews with athletes and executives, he has co-written books with Walter Payton, John Wooden, and Deion Sanders, selling more than 7 million copies. He returns to the podcast as a repeat guest to share what 3 decades of pulling stories out of people has taught him about making storytelling an operating habit inside any business.

Key Takeaways

  • Artificial intelligence can produce words, but not the human “heart” that makes a story land. It also tends to invent details, so it can’t be trusted to build a company’s story.
  • Public sources most people overlook, like old yearbooks and charity board bios, often hold small personal details that create fast, authentic connection before an interview even starts.
  • Every business should have 3 stories ready at any time: an origin story built around why the business started, not just what it does, a customer story, and an employee story.
  • The strongest business stories often aren’t about the owner. Customer and employee stories tend to build more trust and give a company a real edge over competitors telling generic claims.
  • Storytelling has a measurable effect on value. A documented experiment turned $193.50 worth of ordinary objects into $8,000 in 4 days simply by attaching a personal story to each one.

Great Moments

  • [01:22] – Yaeger explains why the book’s claim that “no formula governs a great story” doesn’t contradict its 10 specific storytelling elements.
  • [08:21] – Yaeger traces storytelling back through human history, from cave paintings to the modern sales call.
  • [10:34] – Yaeger recalls asking people if they’d be better salespeople, leaders, or parents if they told better stories, and how the answer is never no.
  • [15:21] – Jantsch and Yaeger debate whether a good story has to be entirely true, and where embellishment crosses a line.
  • [17:52] – Yaeger points out that the struggle behind every “overnight success” is usually the part nobody hears about.

Memorable Quotes

  • “If I can build the story around people instead of statistics, the story always remains more memorable.” — Don Yaeger
  • “I don’t want the story everybody else gets. I’m looking for something I can pull from you that you may not have wanted to say when the conversation began.” — Don Yaeger
  • “Commerce occurs when connection is built.” — Don Yaeger
  • “People like people who are like them, so you have to understand who they are and then draw out that point of connection.” — Don Yaeger
  • “There are plenty of ways to let the world know how special you are without pumping yourself up.” — Don Yaeger

Resources

  • The Business of Storytelling: Inspire Action, Build Trust, and Drive Results Through Story (Book on Amazon)
  • Don Yaeger’s Website

Email

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John Jantsch (00:01.038)

So some people walk into a room with more credentials, more data, more experience maybe, than anyone else there and still get ignored. Somebody else with less of all three changes minds instead. And the difference always comes down to who knew how to tell a better story. Hello and welcome to the Ductape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch, and my guest today is Don Yeager, a repeat guest, National Speaker’s Hall of Fame inductee, 13 time New York Times.

Best selling author and longtime associate editor at Sports Illustrated. And I can go on and on about all books about some of our famous sports sport sports stars. But well for for the purpose of this show, we’re gonna talk about his latest book, The Business of Storytelling, Inspire Action, Build Trust, and Drive Results Through Stories. So welcome back, Don.

Don Yaeger (00:38.984)

Just makes me sound old. Yeah.

Don Yaeger (00:53.778)

Hey, thanks, John. I always appreciate the opportunity to spend a little time with you.

John Jantsch (00:56.782)

Well, so let’s dive right into the book. you have some universal truths in this book. it’s kind of four f based al around that or structured around that. and this is the one that I this is the one I wanted to test. It says no formula governs a great story, but then you give us like 10 elements to build a great story. So how do you square those two things?

Don Yaeger (01:22.814)

But but the ten elements are not a formula. The formula is plus dot you know, you know, insert hero here, insert challenge there, and out comes transformation. these are elements that amount that allow a great story to come together. And I just I just know these elements to be true and they and you cannot really tell a great story without without covering that waterfront.

John Jantsch (01:30.37)

Yeah, yeah.

Right, right, right. Yeah.

John Jantsch (01:49.805)

Now you, occupational hazard, let’s call it that, you know, have interviewed thousands of people. you’ve heard thousands of stories, and some of your the people that you’ve chronicled books are amazing storytellers. so how do you translate that to the person that maybe, you know, certainly doesn’t have that background, but but maybe, you know, doesn’t have a communications team, you know, is really just kind of trying to

Be more authentic in a world of AI. I mean, how do you translate that to them?

Don Yaeger (02:23.069)

Well, first off, thanks for saying those words because I think that’s a real driver in all of it, right? I mean, I think there are so many people that think I’m gonna seed that s I’m gonna I’m gonna ask AI to tell my story for me. and the one thing I will promise you is that the one is that AI cannot tell your story for you. in fact if you lean into it, y you may or may not have any control about what your story shows up to be when when you’re when you’re suddenly introduced. AI

John Jantsch (02:25.358)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (02:33.869)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (02:49.422)

Sure.

Don Yaeger (02:53.179)

as we know, likes to make things up. But on top of that, it also has it has weaknesses that that remain and will probably always remain. The one thing AI can’t do is is is bring heart to the to the equation, right? obviously it’s very, very not very insightful of me to say, but that a computer can’t bring heart to the equation. But that’s what a great story does, right? A great story takes statistics and numbers and everything else and it and it and it wraps them

John Jantsch (02:56.27)

Yeah.

Don Yaeger (03:22.959)

in a heart and that ability to kind of humanize a good story belongs to us.

John Jantsch (03:32.633)

So you know, I think there are two ends of this because I have listeners that need to pull a story out of somebody. and certainly I have people that have a story they need to tell. particularly thinking about the person that needs to pull a story. when you start when you start interviewing somebody, you know

I’m I’m guessing there are some people that just get right to the heart of it. I’m sure there are also some people that put up a mask and it’s like here’s the story I w Okay Here’s the story I want you to hear. I mean, how do you actually get to the real story when when you or or do you just realize, hey, they’re not gonna tell me anything, I’m done.

Don Yaeger (03:58.942)

Most most put at the mask. Yeah. Right.

Don Yaeger (04:10.963)

So I don’t give up on it. one thing I one thing you know, if you do the right prep work, right? You’re listening to somebody, or you’re reading stories with someone’s interview involved. one thing that happens is you become really clear, like these are the stories they’re just used to telling, right? These are the ones that it’s like, you know, they they pull up pull a little cord and then you know, it just spews out. and at the end of the day, what I’m always trying to do is,

John Jantsch (04:12.323)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (04:27.66)

Yeah, right, right.

Yeah.

Don Yaeger (04:38.375)

be aware of those stories so that if they start going there, I can immediately kind of start to shift it in another direction. I do not want the story everybody else gets when they’re in conversation with John Jatch, right? I’m I’m looking for something that I can pull from you that that you may not have wanted to say when this conversation began. I have lots of experience doing that, but I think the real key is you have to know what you don’t want.

John Jantsch (04:57.975)

Mm.

Don Yaeger (05:06.619)

in order to really start beginning to drive people to where you hope to get. And so research is an enormous part of what I do when I’m trying to pull a good story from someone. I’ve

John Jantsch (05:20.492)

You you you are you gonna try to get me to cry, Don? Is that the is that the goal? So so let me push back just a moment because I mean you’re interviewing, you know, Deion Sanders, Walter Payton. there’s a lot out there about them. I mean, you can find all the stuff, but what about the CEO of a small, you know, private company? there’s not a lot maybe out there.

Don Yaeger (05:23.411)

I I i it will not be long, brother. I’m gonna have I’m gonna make that happen. So get ready. Get the tissues out. I will make it happen.

John Jantsch (05:49.154)

How do you do that research and prepare when there’s not much to know?

Don Yaeger (05:54.43)

So first off, I I would I would disagree with you that in today’s day and age, there is almost in today’s day and age, there are so many places you can go. I did I did an interview this morning or I I I was on with someone this morning in which I actually I shared with her, hey, you know, I saw in classmates, and you may not even know what classmates actually shows you the yearbooks of people you know, dating back a hundred years.

John Jantsch (05:56.866)

Okay. Well that’s true. You know what they ate for lunch, right? Yeah.

Right.

John Jantsch (06:17.452)

Mm-hmm. Sure.

Don Yaeger (06:24.407)

And I said, hey, I I was looking at Georgia Christian co Georgia Christian High School, where you graduated in 2005. I saw the the the yearbook and I noticed that you were not just a three-sport athlete, you were also a homecoming queen. And like she was blown away. It was an but it was a simple website. you know, that that’s not a difficult one to get to, not a difficult one to track. It wasn’t stalking. It’s a yearbook. The yearbooks are available in libraries.

John Jantsch (06:43.054)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (06:47.375)

Yeah.

Don Yaeger (06:52.639)

so she just understood that I had taken time to learn something about her, that sh that that she wasn’t she wasn’t even aware other people might know. And and it gave me an opportunity to talk about being a three sport athlete myself. And, you know, I was not homecoming queen, but I, you know, and then between that, suddenly we go from I know something about her, I’ve now connected to her because we both have something in common, and then it allows me to go into different places.

John Jantsch (07:09.113)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (07:14.521)

Yeah.

Don Yaeger (07:21.807)

in the interview process. So the idea of actually finding there are unique websites out there. Almost any one of these CEOs is on a charity board. There’s amazing things you’ll find about them in the charity board website that most people won’t go to look.

John Jantsch (07:31.533)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (07:36.333)

Yeah, they put per personal details down there sometimes, right? Yeah.

Don Yaeger (07:39.666)

Right. And about the things that they’ve done for the charity that might be really inspirational. And if I can know that, again, it’s very public knowledge. I’m not finding stuff that isn’t available to everyone else. I’m just doing it well enough that at the end of the day they they realize I’ve cared for them by check by learning about them.

John Jantsch (07:43.512)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (08:00.633)

So let’s get back to the to the to the book, but but one one more stop. Let’s unpack a little bit in your mind why storytelling is so effective. you know, the neuroscience actually even you know, behind it, not just as a tool, but but really as a as a you know, I mean just part of our human nature.

Don Yaeger (08:21.191)

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, think about it. It is the it is the the the one thing that’s been true over the history of mankind is that we relay knowledge through story. We relay history through story. We relay we build relationship through story. And I mean, you you go to the caves, you know, you you you walk into the crypts.

John Jantsch (08:32.857)

Yeah.

Don Yaeger (08:45.805)

And you you see things that that will blow your mind because you’ll understand that this was the way history was recorded. It’s just as true today. the way that I want you to to to understand me is through story. The way I hope I can relate to you is through story. And some people might argue that they don’t need to know how to do this, that it’s just a nice to have. I argue that it’s a it’s a it’s an imperative. In today’s day and age,

Revenue changes hand money changes hands over storytelling.

John Jantsch (09:23.449)

Well and j and just just the human connection. I mean, you know, obviously storytelling in the boardroom, storytelling, you know, on a on a you know, reporting, you know, call of the numbers and whatnot are factor, but just even like making a connection in a sales call. You know, my my dad you know, was an old kind of bag carrying salesperson and he’d walk in the office, first thing he did is like

There’s Walter Payton’s jersey, you got three kids, you got, you know, there’s Muhammad Ali. It’s like I know how to connect with you now because I’ll f I find that common thing and you know, it’s corny as it and contrived, maybe as it can sound, you know, it just it speeds up the process of connection so much. Yeah.

Don Yaeger (10:04.665)

Absolutely. And what happens? So, you know, sometimes we love to say people like to buy from people, you know, like them. People like people like them, right? So how do you make sure that they know that you’re like them? You understand who they are, and then you try to draw that point of connection. So it’s not just again, this it’s it’s funny. I started several years ago as I was really I I had been working for years to become known as a good storyteller.

John Jantsch (10:16.588)

Yeah, right, right, right.

John Jantsch (10:20.973)

Mm-hmm.

Don Yaeger (10:34.013)

Great storyteller. I’ve been fortunate. The likes of Simon Sinek, the likes of John Maxwell, people that I value greatly refer to me in that way, and that’s awesome. But one of the things I started asking people is: would you be better as a salesperson if you could tell better stories? Would you be a better leader if you could tell better stories? would you be a better parent if you could tell better stories? And the truth is.

John Jantsch (10:54.223)

Mm-hmm.

Don Yaeger (11:01.277)

There almost is there’s not a question I could ask you where you would say no. There is this is a skill that if mastered makes you better across the board.

John Jantsch (11:04.879)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (11:16.419)

So let’s get to I we we kind of flirted with them a little bit, but maybe you could pack, unpack, you don’t have to do do them all, but just the book is based on these universal truths. So maybe kind of cover the range of those and maybe you can pick I always like to to to ask authors to pick their favorite.

Don Yaeger (11:37.568)

well, the universal truths, there are four of them, and there are 10 elements. But four the four universal truths, the first one’s extra. I mean, it’s just the first one we would have to agree on between each other because I know it, I know you know it to be true. That’s that the best stories are always human. I could tell you a story about our productivity. I could tell you a story about how many more widgets we are producing today than we’ve ever produced before. But if I tell you

John Jantsch (11:41.177)

Right.

Don Yaeger (12:05.447)

How those widgets are changing lives for one family or for for for a for a user of our product or or how producing more widgets is making more of our employees wealthy enough to be able to rise to pull themselves out of poverty. If I can use if I can build the story around people, it always remains more memorable.

John Jantsch (12:31.555)

Well, I you know, just just go look at a dozen Google reviews of say like a I don’t know, a furnace company or something. And I will tell you that none of the five star reviews will say this is the best company. They will say rusty fixed our boiler. And he was, you know, he closed the door and he was so kind to my children. I mean, that’s I mean that that that proves your point, doesn’t it? I mean, that’s what people connected with.

Don Yaeger (12:46.536)

Yes.

Don Yaeger (12:50.803)

Right.

Right. And and it it is. It’s the every s every great story is human, right? That’s so that’s that’s first and foremost. The second of the universal truths is that it is the story behind the story that is the story. You know, many people think, I can I’m gonna tell you my story about my life and and often it’s very linear, but it’s the things that made that happen that that absolutely that’s the real story. The story is what what is what’s

John Jantsch (12:57.295)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (13:06.031)

Mm-hmm.

Don Yaeger (13:23.217)

behind the curtain. And so you have to start asking you the questions of, you know, why, what, how, who was involved in the, in the, in, in the, and as you’re telling the story and you start bringing some of those questions to the fore, you start finding the deeper story, the deeper story about why what you’re doing matters and who it matters to. the third of the universal truths is that we argue all the time that that there’s money in storytelling.

John Jantsch (13:52.322)

This is

Don Yaeger (13:52.926)

That is not and and there’s and and we use a number of examples, but one that I love is a couple of journalists, a couple of researchers several years ago decided to take on a project and they took, they bought a hundred items off eBay, right? Hundred chotkis, little things worth nothing. never paid more than never paid more than three dollars for a single item. then they distributed those hundred items to guys like you and me, right? Storytellers.

And so but they they they picked some really great ones. And and in the distribution, they asked each person to take their tchotchke and create a story about its significance to them as the seller. And then they put them back on the on on eBay, and while they spent $193.50 to start, they put them back on eBay, and the second go round, they they earned $8,000.

John Jantsch (14:52.354)

Yeah.

Don Yaeger (14:52.935)

Hundred ninety three turned into eight thousand dollars in four days because stories suddenly made this no longer was it a you know, a car key. It was the key to the most amazing vehicle I’ve ever owned in my life. And I had to sell the vehicle. I kept the key because it meant something to me. Now it’s now it’s at a place in my life where I I’d I’d love if you happen to be a fan of Maserati, I’d love for you to own this key so that you too anyway.

John Jantsch (15:21.744)

Well wait a minute though. That that made made me my first bubble, thought bubble that went off in my head is did the stories have to be true? Yeah, yeah.

Don Yaeger (15:21.863)

You get it, right? And if

Don Yaeger (15:30.449)

No, they did in this particular case, they actually note in each story this story was created for this item by author Doug Dorst or you know, whoever it is. And but they make it clear. Now, I argue that the good stories we want to tell have to be true. Right. Now, could there occasionally be some embellishment for the terms for the for the value of speeding something along? Yes. but you know, we’re not.

John Jantsch (15:37.168)

How funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (15:48.42)

Well of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (15:57.52)

Yeah.

Don Yaeger (16:00.146)

We’re we we are in the we’re in the process of developing true stories.

John Jantsch (16:05.785)

So I I’m not sure we got through all four truths, but I I I want to circle back to one thing. all the best stories, like you said, are human, but also they’re probably personal for some people. and I some people are it’s hard for them to tell them. They don’t think anybody wants to know that part. they’re afraid it’ll make them look bad. but but but my guess is sort of the deeper or the more deeply personal, the more

Probably engagement. Yeah.

Don Yaeger (16:37.649)

Without question, because well, a couple of things happen. Number one, there’s probably as you’re telling the story, there’s some piece of it that they have lived too, right? So in some way they are on the journey with you as you’re telling your story. But secondly, they get a chance to know they know something about you that they didn’t know when the conversation began. And in the process, a connection is built, right? And we and we’ve already discussed it a couple different times. commerce occurs when connection is built.

John Jantsch (16:52.75)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (17:06.265)

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Don Yaeger (17:07.313)

Right. And so if we can make sure that we are we’re finding ways to to become in relationship and sometimes my my ability to share my cancer journey, especially if I know that you’ve been on if you’ve had dealt with cancer, right? it will allow the two of us to w we we have that moment together. And and yes, a pr every great story has to have you in it in some way.

John Jantsch (17:37.391)

Yeah, and I think from a business standpoint too, you know, a lot of times when somebody encounters a business, all they see is, wow, this is a great business. but the story behind it is the struggle that actually made it. So I think has real value, doesn’t it? Yeah.

Don Yaeger (17:52.07)

Absolutely. It’s never you know, there are a lot of people like to look at you, me, people and say, wow, what how how incredible that success is. But that grinding that occurred 20 years ago when we were struggling to try to figure out how we were gonna pay that week’s that week’s grocery bill, that’s a that’s that’s it’s lost on most because we’re so busy assuming that everything has always been that way for John Jance or Don Yeager, right?

John Jantsch (18:11.471)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (18:21.199)

Right. So for particularly for a small business, do do you and I know you don’t necessarily consult on, you know, with small business owners in that way, but certainly the book covers information for them. do you is are there like three or four core stories that every business needs to have and be able to tell kind of at the drop of a hat?

Don Yaeger (18:43.603)

Completely. I would say number one, you know, we all would agree the origin story. You came together to solve, to, to, to, to cre to patch a hole in the universe. What was the whole? And what made you understand the whole? Like what was so so when I say the story behind the story, don’t tell me what you came along to solve. Tell me why you came along to solve it. what was it that made that happen? Number one. Number two,

John Jantsch (18:55.971)

Yeah.

Don Yaeger (19:11.789)

there’s always a great story about some customer whose life you changed by doing really well at what you do. Tell me the story about one of your customers. Number three, tell me the story about one of your employees, right? It this so many of these stories they don’t have to, they don’t have to be about you, the owner. They’re they’re often more effective if they’re about the people that you have been that have been part of the journey with you.

John Jantsch (19:16.345)

Mm.

John Jantsch (19:26.829)

Right.

Don Yaeger (19:39.752)

And if you could tell me the story about one of your employees and how one of the things I mean, I I did some work the other day for a company that regularly they do call centers, they’re working with people in life insurance, and they were so taken by trying to deal with a man who was struggling with the with the loss of his wife, and he was just trying to figure out what the policy looked like. the person on the on the phone just realized, you know what, I want to send something extra to this guy. And so went online to Harry and David, sent some pairs.

To the man. The man writes a note to the CEO of the insurance company and says, there’s no way she could have known this, but pears were my wife’s favorite fruit. And that your employee was able to do something like that. That’s a story the CEO now gets to tell. And it what it says is this is how we care for the people that we consider our policy holders, right? The people that are our stakeholders. And this is the freedom I give my employees to care for them.

John Jantsch (20:18.892)

Mm.

John Jantsch (20:26.008)

Yeah.

Don Yaeger (20:37.863)

There’s so much in that story that will make you attracted to his company, more so than one of the others, that it gives him a competitive advantage when he tells it.

John Jantsch (20:49.293)

Well and and certainly goes way beyond any kind of words on a website, you know, of we we care, we’re the carrying company, right? Trust us.

Don Yaeger (20:57.437)

We’re the carrying company. Let me give you our slogan and in fact let me show you the per the posters which which explain all of our core values, all twenty eight of our core values, right? none of which your employees can re can recite.

John Jantsch (21:10.925)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So a lot of small business owners, I I and and I wonder if you could just we could wrap this up with you just kind of giving them advice. don’t like to talk about themselves, don’t think they have a story. so how does if you were going to advise somebody whose job it was to create those core stories that the company should have, what do you think is the best way for them to get at that when there’s really not any ready access to it?

Don Yaeger (21:40.538)

So, I mean one of the things you might want to do is just literally there are lots of right now, there are lots of unemployed writers in the world, right? There are a lot of writers looking for jobs because newspapers are closing, magazines are closing. There are a lot of people who understand how to how to take stories and help them. So there’s plenty probably of access to talent. You can go to Fiverr and you can find all kinds of people. But more importantly, understand the story doesn’t have to be about you. If that’s your if that’s your place of discomfort, make the story about your customers.

John Jantsch (21:48.377)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (22:04.397)

Yeah.

Don Yaeger (22:09.809)

Make that story about your employees. As I said, make that story about the moment that this that it became apparent that this company needed to exist. And yes, you might be included in the story, but it’s not about you. And if that’s a point of discomfort for you, there are plenty of ways to let the world know how special you are without pumping yourself up.

John Jantsch (22:34.637)

Well Don, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by is there some place you’d invite people to find out more about your work and certainly pick up a copy of the business of storytelling?

Don Yaeger (22:42.855)

Well, business storytelling is, as I love to say, available anywhere that that good books are sold. so if you go there and it’s not there, it’s not a good bookstore. but yeah, Amazon is a is a big is a big part of our our strategy. but they can also I’d love if they’re if they’re a friend of yours, reach out to me. I’m at Don Yeager dot com. And and I and I own all spellings of my last name so you can butcher it.

John Jantsch (22:50.219)

Yeah, yeah.

Don Yaeger (23:12.135)

And you will probably still end up at my website, but it’s Don Y-A-E-G-E-R dot com.

John Jantsch (23:17.143)

Yeah. Probably a lot of E’s before the A. Certainly. Well, and I would Well just like I own D D U C K marketing, as po a as well, ’cause a lot of people you still use that erroneously, so it directs to the right place. But and I would also encourage folks you know, if especially if you’re a fan of of good sports writing, certainly Don’s entire catalog.

Don Yaeger (23:20.049)

There is a lot of that.

And I own that site. I own that site too, by the way.

Don Yaeger (23:36.669)

Right. That’s right.

John Jantsch (23:46.228)

of of books would would have something for you there too. So well Don, it was great for you taking a moment to stop by and hopefully we’ll run into you again soon out there on the road.

Don Yaeger (23:54.362)

Always. Thanks, John.

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OKB Price Prediction – Breakout Targets Revealed! 🚀📈 #trading #cryptocurrency

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OKB Price Prediction – Breakout Targets Revealed! 🚀📈 #trading #cryptocurrency



OKB is breaking out, and the momentum is heating up! 🔥
In this short, I reveal my breakout targets for OKB based on today’s technical analysis.
Find out the key price levels and what traders should watch next.

📌 Watch the full analysis for more insights: [link to full video]

#OKB #Crypto #PricePrediction #Breakout #TechnicalAnalysis #Trading #CryptoNews

source

What Rent Data From All 50 States Says Landlords Get Wrong

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My three long-term rentals sit in Conroe, Texas. New construction, boring on purpose, and they mostly leave me alone so I can go handle whatever broke at a glamping site two hours east.

That’s my entire long-term portfolio. So when Ed Barone opened an answer with the phrase “a landlord with three units,” I sat up.

Ed co-founded RentRedi in 2016 with his son Ryan and now runs marketing there. Close to 200,000 landlords and renters use the platform, so they watch rent move at a scale I never will. I see three doors. They see the pattern behind them.

I sent six questions. A few answers confirmed what I already believed. One sent me back to a spreadsheet, and one I’d argue with.

Your Late Rent Problem Might Be a ZIP Code Problem

Late-payment rates on the platform swing by as much as 4x from state to state, at around 5% in places like Utah and Hawaii and up to 20% in states like Mississippi.

Ed’s read: A landlord with a handful of units treats every late payment as a verdict on somebody. Either the tenant is a problem, or you’re too soft. Sometimes it’s neither, and some of that gap tracks to where the property sits.

I don’t take that as a permission slip. Late rent is still late rent, and it still wrecks your cash flow in month four. But it changes the fix. If one payment in five runs late in your market, you’re operating normally; what you need is a system, not a lecture.

The system is boring:

  • Autopay is set as the default at the lease signing.
  • Reminders that go off before the due date, not after. 
  • A late fee that appears in the written lease and is charged the same amount every single month. 

Small landlords lose on that last one, because the ones who get burned aren’t charging the fee; they’re charging it sometimes.

While you’re in the lease, go read your state’s rules, since most of us wrote that clause once and never looked at it again. Texas is my example because it’s where I operate. 

Under Property Code 92.019, you can’t collect a late fee at all unless it’s spelled out in writing and rent has gone unpaid two full days past the due date, and the fee is only presumed reasonable up to 12% of monthly rent in a building with four units or fewer, 10% in anything larger. Go past that, and the tenant can come after you for $100, three times whatever you wrongly collected, plus their attorney’s fees.

Then count your own 12-month late rate. Count it; don’t estimate it. Compare it to your state instead of to the guy on the podcast in Utah.

What Not Raising Rent on a Good Tenant Actually Costs

RentRedi’s rent-charge data shows the average unit climbing about 46% over roughly 6.8 years. On a $1,500 unit held flat for five years, Ed put the forgone rent around $6,000. Call it $18,000 across three doors like mine.

Then I ran it myself. I think $6,000 is low.

The arithmetic is simple enough to do on your own rent instead of mine. Each year, take market rent minus your frozen rent, multiply by 12, and stack five years of those gaps. At 3% annual growth on a $1,500 unit, you’re out about $8,400. At 4%, about $11,400. And 46% over 6.8 years works out to roughly 5.7% a year compounded, putting the five-year number closer to $16,600.

I’m not dunking on the man’s math. The direction is the point, and the size is bigger than most people assume, so get your own number before you decide the conversation isn’t worth having.

The better half of his answer wasn’t the number anyway. Ed said raising rent isn’t automatically right, because a tenant who pays on time and takes care of the place carries value that never shows up on a rent roll, and one move-out can hand you enough vacancy, cleaning, re-listing, and screening cost to eat a year or two of the increase you just won.

His line, which I’ve thought about more than the $6,000: “A high rent with a bad tenant can cost a landlord far more than a fair rent with a good one.”

So the question isn’t, Should I raise rent? It’s two questions, in order:

  1. Is my rent meaningfully below market, not a little below but meaningfully? 
  2. And is this specific tenant worth keeping for a discount?

Answer the first one with comps instead of feelings. Pull three or four actively listed units within a mile that match your bed and bath count, sanity-check them against BP Rental Estimator or RentCast, and write the number down with the date on it so next year you’re comparing against something real. 

Within a few percent of market, leave it alone. Fifteen percent under, and you’re not being generous; you’re subsidizing somebody. And when you do move it, small annual bumps beat one giant correction that ends with a vacant unit and a turnover bill.

The Cost of Doing Your Books in April

Most small landlords do their books the week before taxes are due. I’ve been that guy. I don’t recommend the genre.

The annual scramble costs you twice, Ed says. First come the deductions you can’t reconstruct nine months later—the March run to Home Depot or the mileage out to the property—and across a few doors, that can plausibly add up to hundreds or low thousands in overpaid taxes.

The second cost is the one nobody counts. A tenant who’s been five days late for eight straight months is a footnote when you spot it in January. In month two, it’s still a conversation you can have, a payment plan you can offer, and a problem with the room left in it.

Twenty minutes on the first of the month gets you both. Categorize the transactions, photograph any receipts still floating around, log the mileage, and check the dates rent hit the account. The same door’s rent drifting later every month? You just found it in month two.

The Feature List Isn’t the Product

I expected a graveyard of dead features when I asked what landlords request and then never touch. Ed gave me something better.

Ten years in, his position is that there’s no such thing as a typical landlord. Every feature came from somebody’s real request. Some get used by thousands of people and some by a much smaller group, and they ship them either way.

That’s an argument against the way most of us shop for software. You don’t need the longest feature list. You need the three things you touch every month, and for almost everybody, that’s rent collection, screening, and maintenance requests. Every demo is built to impress you, so check it against what you did last month.

Property Management Fees: The Math Changed, but Not at 300 Units

Old rule: Cross some magic door count, hire a manager, and pay 8% to 10% for the privilege.

Ed pushed on that hard. A 300-unit portfolio at $1,500 rent pays over $400,000 a year in management fees at 8%. That’s $450,000 of rent a month, $5.4 million a year, times 8%, landing at $432,000. I ran it because the number sounds fake until you do.

Almost nobody reading this owns 300 units, so run the version you live in. 

Ten doors at $1,500 is $1,200 a month in fees. Software runs $20 to $40. A part-time person at 10 hours a week and $25 an hour is roughly $1,000 a month, and they work for you instead of being split across another 400 units. Right around there is where self-managing stops being a hobby and turns into a decision with a number attached.

Here’s the nuance Ed didn’t add: Self-managing isn’t free. You’re trading a fee for your own hours, and if those are the hours you’d otherwise spend finding the next deal, the manager might be the cheaper option. 

Paying 8% doesn’t guarantee better work either. I’ve watched managers earn every dollar, and I’ve watched managers operate as an expensive answering machine. The test is whether yours produces something you can’t produce with software and one good part-time person.

Where AI Earns Its Keep

Every rental platform is bolting AI onto something right now.

Ed’s framing is that it’s an assistant, not a replacement. Take the busywork off the landlord’s plate, surface the right information at the right moment, and leave the decision with the person who owns the asset.

Use that as your filter the next time you’re sitting in a demo. A tool that drafts the maintenance follow-up, summarizes six months of payment history, or flags the unit drifting later every month is handing you time back. A tool that wants to decide who gets approved or where your rent lands while you nod along is a vendor making calls on property they don’t own, and that’s a strange thing to pay for.

What I’m Doing This Month

Three things were added to my calendar after this conversation:

  1. I’m counting the 12-month-late rate on all three doors and comparing it to Texas, instead of to my mood.
  2. I’m running comps on each unit and writing down, in a document I’ll reread next year, whether that tenant is worth a discount to keep. 
  3. And the books got a recurring 20-minute invite on the first of every month, because a promise to myself has a much worse track record than a calendar alert.

None of it is exciting. It’s an afternoon of work I’ve been putting off since roughly March.

Chase Aeroplan Card Refresh: 115,000 Points Bonus, $195 Annual Fee, Keeps PYB, Adds Air Canada Benefits

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Chase Aeroplan Card Refresh: 115,000 Points Bonus, $195 Annual Fee, Keeps PYB, Adds Air Canada Benefits


Chase refreshed today the Aeroplan card, as expected. The new card increases the signup bonus to 115,000 points (from 100,000), increases the annual fee to $195 (from $95), maintains the Pay Yourself Back benefit, adds $100 in Air Canada credits and automatic Air Canada Aeroplan 25K elite status and 15% award discount. 

Also notable: existing cardholders get the new benefits starting today with some existing benefits going away after 12/31/26 (details below).

The Offer

Direct link to offer 

  • The refreshed Chase Aeroplan card is offering a signup bonus of up to 115,000 points. Bonus is broken down as follows:
    • Earn 75,000 points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months your account is open.
    • Plus 40,000 points after you spend $20,000 on purchases in the first 12 months your account is open.

Points Earnings

Card earns at the following rates:

  • 3x points on Travel purchases and on Air Canada purchases (Air Canada purchases will also get an additional 2X points from Air Canada on eligible flights when traveling as an Aeroplan 25K Member)
  • 2x points on Gas Stations, Dining, and Grocery purchases (until 12/31/26 you’ll get 3x on Grocery and Dining)
  • 1x on all other purchases

Card Details

  • Annual fee of $195
  • Pay Yourself Back On Travel Purchases (currently, 1.25¢ Per Point through 12/31/26; unknown what this will look like in terms of categories or rate in 2027)
  • Automatic Aeroplan 25K Status (no spend required) which includes Priority Check-In and Priority Boarding (Zone 2), and 5 eUpgrade Credits every year
  • $100 Air Canada credit: two $50 credits for direct Air Canada purchases, one from Jan-June and one from Jul-Dec.
  • Cardholders get 15% discount on eligible Air Canada flight award bookings. (FLY15OFF)
  • Free 1st checked bag with up to 8 companions on Air Canada.
  • Global Entry or TSA PreCheck® or NEXUS Fee Credit (up to $120 every four years)

Benefits ending on 12/31/26 for existing cardholders (not relevant for those signing up now):

  • 500 point bonus every 2k spend up to 1500 a month.
  • 10% bonus on 50,000+ Ultimate Rewards transfers to Aeroplan (max 25k/yr)
  • 3x points on grocery & dining

Our Verdict

The 3x on Travel, $100 Air Canada credit, automatic 25k elite status, and 15% award discount are nice parts of the refresh. The higher annual fee and the removal of the monthly bonuses and the 3x grocery/dining and the UR transfer bonus is a bummer. 

For those who actually travel Air Canada, there are some benefits here that can justify the annual fee ($100 in credits, 25k status, 15% discount). For others who are more interested in partners or PYB the $195 is painful.

In terms of signup bonus, it’s good to see the higher bonus for those meeting the $20k tier. Still not as good as the old 85k offer which just required $4k spend. Not sure if we’ll add this bonus to our List of Best Current Credit Card Bonuses.

Why Intel Stock Slumped Today

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Why Intel Stock Slumped Today


Intel (INTC -4.72%) stock slumped 4.8% through 2:22 p.m. ET Thursday after the semiconductor stock received only lukewarm endorsement from investment bank Piper Sandler.

Image source: Intel.

What Piper said about Intel

Piper Sandler analyst David O’Connor initiated coverage of Intel stock this morning. The big shift in the artificial intelligence industry away from “training” AIs and asking them questions (“inference”) to using AI agents to accomplish tasks (“agentic AI”) is a tailwind for Intel, “driving demand for its CPU server products,” says O’Connor.

Weak CPU supply and strong CPU demand are likely to boost prices for Intel’s products in this environment, boosting Intel to “high-teens revenue CAGR to 2030E.” Nevertheless, the even stronger performance of Intel shares, which have more than quadrupled over the past year, limits further upside. For this reason, the analyst gives Intel stock only a neutral rating and predicts Intel will gain less than 10% over the next year, hitting perhaps $110 per share, as StreetInsider.com reports.

Intel Stock Quote

Today’s Change

(-4.72%) $-5.02

Current Price

$101.22

What it means for Intel stock

That’s not enough to get investors excited. To the contrary, worries that 10% may be the most Intel investors can expect to gain appear to be discouraging investors from owning Intel today.

And here’s another thing to worry about:

O’Connor opines that about 45% of Intel’s current market capitalization assumes that the company’s foundry unit will gain a whopping 15 points of market share in CPUs globally. That’s possible — but far from guaranteed. Should Intel’s gains prove more muted than that, much of the last year’s gains could evaporate.

Caveat investor.

Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Intel. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Welcome Back 7% Mortgage Rates

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Welcome Back 7% Mortgage Rates


It seemed inevitable that mortgage rates would rise back to 7%.

Ever since the war broke out at the end of February, the pressure was on.

The saving grace was that some sort of peace deal would come, and that it’d all be short-lived.

Fast forward seven months and things appear to be worse than ever, with crude oil prices back above $100 per barrel.

Similarly, mortgage rates are the worst they’ve been since last June and could get even worse from here.

The 7% Mortgage Rates Are Here…Again

A huge move higher for the 10-year treasury yield, which hit a fresh 52-week high, will translate to 7% mortgage rates today.

It’s being driven by the worsening situation in the Middle East that’s driving oil prices higher, along with higher inflation (the PPI report the latest to come in high).

Mortgage News Daily, which tracks rates on a daily basis, already had the 30-year fixed on the cusp yesterday, at 6.97%.

Considering the bellwether 10-year yield is up a staggering eight basis points this morning, it’s a foregone conclusion we’ll be above 7% today.

MBS prices are significantly weaker today and that means the 30-year fixed will easily climb the three basis points needed to get at/above 7%.

Chances are we could make a move well into the 7s, perhaps 7.05% or higher.

And while it’s maybe only another $50 to $100 a month on a typical mortgage payment, it’s the sentiment that’s the problem.

When prospective home buyers see the headlines that mortgage rates are back to 7%, there’s a decent chance they’ll throw in the towel.

Again, even if the monthly payment is manageable, and only another $50 per month, they might say enough is enough.

Perhaps it’s better just to hold off and see how things shake out. Especially with all the other goings on in the world, whether it’s the uncertainty of the war in the Middle East or the fragility of the wider economy.

At the same time, prospective home sellers could also be more hesitant to list their properties knowing all this.

They might think now isn’t such a great time to test the market with affordability already poor and mortgage rates back to their recent highs.

That could all result in a housing market standstill, which mind you is already trudging along at 30-year lows for home sales annually.

Mortgage Lenders Continue to Advertise 6% Mortgage Rates

While mortgage rates are arguably back above 7%, you’re going to continue to see lenders advertise rates in the 6s.

The reason is simple; a 6 looks a lot better than a 7.

But there’s a major catch. If you read the fine print, you’ll see that they’re charging mortgage discount points.

This is essentially prepaid interest that you pay upfront to lower your mortgage rate long term.

And we’re talking some hefty points, often two points to get the 30-year fixed rate down to 6.75% or 6.625%.

For example, on a $400,000 loan, two points would equate to $8,000, which needs to paid at closing and is included in your cash-to-close.

That’s a lot of money just for the opportunity to avoid a 7% mortgage rate.

You might also see lenders get more creative and offer up adjustable-rate mortgages instead of the 30-year fixed.

This too allows them to present something more palatable to home buyers in light of this unfriendly rate environment.

Again, pay attention to what you’re actually getting here so you know if it’s the right choice and if it’s suitable.

On the one hand, this could simply be a bad spell for mortgage rates but maybe close to the top.

If that’s the case, paying a lot of money upfront for a lower rate might not make sense.

Instead, you could settle for a slightly higher rate or an ARM (or a temporary buydown) and wait for the trend to be our friend again.

Keep reading: Try my mortgage rate calculator to compare 6 and 7% mortgage rates.

Colin Robertson
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Trump’s $5,000 ‘dividend’ is really a $1.15 trillion hole in the deficit, top economist estimates

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Trump’s $5,000 ‘dividend’ is really a $1.15 trillion hole in the deficit, top economist estimates



President Donald Trump’s pledge to send every American adult a $5,000 check if Republicans hold Congress in November carries a price tag that economists say has no clear funding source — and would land on a federal balance sheet already strained by a nearly $2 trillion annual deficit.

Kent Smetters, faculty director of the Penn Wharton Budget Model and one of the country’s most respected fiscal economists, estimated the plan would cost about $1.35 trillion if paid to the full population of American adults, in a statement emailed to Fortune. Factor in Vice President JD Vance’s suggestion that the checks wouldn’t go to “the wealthy” — using a household income cap of $400,000, which Smetters called “a reasonable guess” since no threshold has been specified — and he calculated that the cost would still come in around $1.15 trillion.

Either figure would be financed the same way most of Washington’s recent spending has been: borrowed.

A promise without a payment plan

Trump made the pledge Wednesday night during a nearly two-hour speech at the Republican Party’s midterm convention, held in Dallas. “If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000,” Trump told the crowd, dubbing it the “Trump Dividend.”

The president offered no mechanism for authorizing the payments, no funding source, and no timeline. Any such payout would require congressional approval, and Trump has floated similar ideas before without following through — including a $2,000 “tariff dividend” check pitched in late 2025 that never materialized after the Supreme Court struck down key tariffs imposed under emergency powers.

An inflationary jolt, not just a fiscal one

Beyond the headline cost, Smetters’ modeling points to a second, faster-moving effect: inflation. Based on marginal propensities to consume for the population likely to receive the checks, Smetters estimated that about $400 billion would be spent within the first two quarters after the payments go out. That pace of spending would add an estimated 0.3 to 0.5 percentage points to headline and core inflation over the four quarters following disbursement.

That’s a meaningful jolt for a Federal Reserve wrestling with five years of inflation above its 2% target. Smetters declined to extend his analysis to a specific interest-rate forecast, saying that any claim about interest-rate impact, even over a defined time horizon, would be “too speculative” without knowing how the Treasury and Federal Reserve might adjust their open market operations in response to the payout.

The debt backdrop

The proposal lands soon after the national debt crossed $40 trillion for the first time in August, arriving months earlier than the Congressional Budget Office had projected, in part because revenue from Trump’s now-invalidated tariffs came in lower than expected. The cumulative deficit has already reached roughly $1.8 trillion to $2 trillion through the first eleven months of fiscal year 2026, according to Treasury and CBO figures — surpassing the full-year shortfall recorded in fiscal 2025.

Debt service alone is consuming enormous sums: the Treasury has spent about $1.05 trillion servicing the debt over the past eleven months, or roughly $95 billion a month. That means Trump’s proposed one-time payout would cost nearly as much as an entire year’s interest bill on money the government has already borrowed.

Tariff revenue, which the administration has repeatedly floated as a funding source for dividend-style checks, is nowhere near enough. The government collected about $200 billion in additional tariff revenue in 2025, and projections before the Supreme Court’s ruling put future annual collections at $300–350 billion at best — a small fraction of even the discounted $1.15 trillion price tag, and revenue that Trump has also promised to direct toward deficit reduction and defense spending simultaneously.

The missing threshold

Vance’s comment that the checks wouldn’t go to “the wealthy” is the only detail suggesting the administration might scale back the full $1.35 trillion cost — but it raises as many questions as it answers. The White House, Treasury, and any official proposal have not announced an income threshold. Smetters’ $400,000 household cap is his own working assumption for modeling purposes, not a disclosed policy parameter, so the $1.15 trillion figure is provisional and could shift substantially depending on where — or whether — a real cutoff is eventually set.

That ambiguity mirrors the pattern of Trump’s earlier dividend-style promises, including a 2025 pitch to route “20% of DOGE savings” to citizens, which similarly never advanced into legislative language or an appropriations request.

What comes next

For the payments to happen, Congress would need to pass an appropriation — an uphill climb given that some Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, have said they’d prefer directing any tariff revenue toward deficit reduction rather than new spending. Democrats have largely stayed quiet on the proposal so far, an unusual silence that suggests they may be content to let Republicans own the math.

Whether the $5,000 dividend becomes real policy or joins the list of unfulfilled Trump payment pledges, the estimates from Smetters and other economists point to the same conclusion: there is no existing revenue stream sized to cover it, and the most likely outcome is that it would show up not on a corporate-style dividend statement, but on the country’s growing debt ledger.

For this story, Fortune journalists used generative AI as a research tool. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.

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