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June 2025 The Contractor’s Advantage
HarrisonLawGroup.com (410) 832-0000 jwyatt@harrisonlawgroup.com
The Price of Constant Connection WHY YOU MAY BENEFIT FROM A BREAK
I read recently that June 7 is National VCR Day. While I certainly reflect on growing up in the tape and record era, it more strongly reminded me of the time I spent growing up without a cellphone — when leaving the house meant being out of touch and having freedom without being shackled to constant notifications. Being connected at all times has become ubiquitous these days. While staying connected has its benefits, like maintaining friendships or having a method of communication with loved ones no matter where they are, it works against our body’s natural chemistry. Studies have shown the impact of technology on our dopamine habits, specifically how it warps them. Essentially, your brain rewards you with a dopamine hit every time you access your email, text messages, the news, or social media. This feels fantastic to your body at first, and you may even believe it’s making you happy or productive. Over time, however, you become dependent on those dopamine rewards and start checking your emails more often or spending hours on social media. Slowly and surely, your attention span whittles away. Sometimes, we can’t shut off the stimuli. At work, we often must constantly check and react to a seemingly endless number of inputs. If you take my computer screen, for example, I have an email, a time tracker software, my general Outlook inbox, a task list, and our team’s internal app open on my screen, all while having a
phone call. But the issue is when this seeps into our personal lives, and the constant connection to these inputs damages our relationships, focus, and ability to be productive humans. I’ve begun an initiative to combat this endless barrage of stimuli so I can be more present in my life. The idea came to me when I bought a new Apple Watch and chose to connect it to my cell service. Now, I can leave my phone and all its apps behind and still enjoy a hike (or any other task) without worrying about missing an important call from my wife. Only certain notifications can come through the watch, so in a lot of ways, it acts as a filter for what I need to know and what’s just a distraction. However, I understand smartwatches aren’t for everyone, and using my watch isn’t the only thing I’ve been doing to limit my screen time recently. Here are a few other tricks I’ve used to help me disconnect. Put the phone down — realistically. If you Google “how to limit your screen time,” the first thing many sites tell you is, “Just put your phone down!” But this isn’t realistic for many people, especially if you have children or rely on your phone for work. What I do is leave my phone on the corner of my desk or in another room where I can’t reach it. Then, I allow myself to look at the phone after I complete certain tasks on my list or meet specific conditions I’ve set for myself.
Make ‘no electronics’ promises. Again, it’s not realistic to completely eliminate your smartphone. That’s why I promise myself that no electronics will be allowed during certain hours of the day. In my house, that’s every Sunday morning, and the same rule applies to everyone, kids and all. When everyone wakes up, we spend time together reading, playing games, or just talking as a family. Since implementing these strategies, I’ve had less anxiety, better sleep, more focus, and the ability to simply enjoy the present moment without looking for what’s coming next. Life isn’t always comfortable, and the temptation to self- soothe with feel-good brain chemicals from our devices is understandable. But allowing yourself to take a break from the constant stream of stimuli will feel even better — I guarantee it.
-Jeremy Wyatt
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To Protect Your Credit Score BUILD YOUR BUSINESS MUSCLES
Slow-Paying Your Bills The clock runs faster on business credit than on personal loans. While consumer debt typically isn’t treated as late until 30 days after invoicing, business debt payments are considered “late” if only one day overdue. If your uniform vendor’s payment terms are net 15 days and you pay on Day 16, your payment is late — and dings your credit score. Your payment history determines Dun & Bradstreet’s Paydex score and is vendors’ primary information source. If you pay your bills on their due date, you will earn a Paydex score of 80 on a scale of 100. To get closer to 100, you must pay before the due date! Failing to Establish a Business Credit Score Maxing out your personal credit card is a common but ill-advised strategy when starting a business. Not only will you dent your personal credit score, but your business will launch on a weak financial footing. When you launch, open a business credit card, and pay attention to the factors that determine your score. On average, a company uses 10 times more credit than a consumer and can typically access at least that much additional credit. Even if you don’t need a large credit line at the outset, you might need more capital in the future to accelerate your growth. To establish business credit, register for a Dun & Bradstreet Data University Numbering System or D-U-N-S number, a unique nine-digit identification number. You will receive your number within 30 days free of
Building a business can mean long hours spent growing sales, putting out fires, and driving ideas to fruition. Checking your business credit score might not be the first thing that comes to mind as you start your work day, but it can make a significant difference in your ability to accomplish all those other goals. A lack of proven creditworthiness will inflate your borrowing costs and insurance premiums and harm your ability to attract strong business partners and vendors. Here are three common oversights that can put a serious dent in your business credit score and tips on avoiding them. Failing to Monitor Your Credit Check your score frequently with each of the three business credit rating agencies — Dun & Bradstreet, Equifax, and Experian. Look at what is included in your score, whether your business information is up to date, and whether your creditworthiness is weak in any areas. These agencies and other credit reporting agencies can monitor your score and ping you if it changes, alerting you to identity theft or other fraud before your losses mount. Free credit monitoring is available, but you’ll pay a small fee to get a complete look at your score. Every time you check, verify your business’s revenue figures and industry classification. Errors in these areas can hurt your ability to borrow. If your credit report misclassifies you as a “real estate investment firm”
rather than a real estate broker, for example, lenders and other businesses will deem you a riskier business partner. Additionally, mixups happen more easily with business credit scores than personal ones because identifying information is indexed only to your business name and address. If your DBA is similar to another company’s, your business might be confused with theirs, and their financial management mistakes may end up on your report. Build a regular credit report review into your monthly routine to avoid these risks.
charge or within eight days if you pay a small fee. Your payment history, the age of your business credit accounts, and the size of your debt affect your score, ranging from 1 to 100. Trade credit, or the time- payment plans suppliers extend, also shows your creditworthiness. Following these basic rules can help you demonstrate your trustworthiness to prospective business partners and lenders, expanding your options as a business owner and opening more opportunities!
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says Clarke, who serves as CEO. In 2024, the company made the prestigious Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in the country.
skills. Clarke selected a company with five founders who were still working in the business as her mentor. Clarke says these entrepreneurs have already faced and surmounted many of her current challenges.
Clarke has tapped many Small Business Administration (SBA) loans and other programs to support and finance her company’s growth, including its 8A program, which funnels opportunities to businesses run by disadvantaged individuals.
She has an agreement with her mentors to pursue specific goals, and she hopes the agreement will be “a guidepost through all the bumps along the way.” For anyone who aspires to start
and expand a business, “growing is bumpy — you will grow as a person and a business, and that is messy. It’s a lot of work!” she says.
“The SBA resources across the country have been so helpful,”
Clarke says. SBA directors in Wyoming helped her find the resources she needed, and representatives in San Diego provided consulting and support during the pandemic. “That was a scary time, and they reached out to help me through it,” she says. She also is participating in an SBA Mentor-Protege program to learn entrepreneurship and management
Clarke also continues to serve her country as a major in the Army Reserves. In the future, she wants to give back to the community by working with colleges and universities to help determine what skills are needed and to build educational programs and training to instill those skills. “Right now, I train my own employees,” she says. In the future, she hopes we can all “work together on that.”
HAVE A Laugh Ancient Wisdom or Legume Lunacy?
The Philosopher Who Feared Beans
Pythagoras (yes, the one responsible for making high school geometry a nightmare) had a dark secret. He wasn’t just a mathematical genius; he was also utterly terrified of beans. Specifically, fava beans. And not just in an I-don’t-like-their- texture kind of way. He believed they were portals to the underworld and, perhaps most offensively, they caused distracting gases. So, why was Pythagoras so scared of legumes? One of the more eyebrow-raising explanations is that he believed fava beans bore an uncanny
resemblance to reproductive organs. Another theory suggests Pythagoras believed beans were doors to the underworld. He wasn’t alone in this, as the ancient Greeks were suspicious of fava beans, perhaps because they could cause a rare genetic reaction called favism, which makes them potentially deadly. So, weirdly, Pythagoras may have been onto something. This shows that even history’s greatest minds had odd quirks; some were just stranger than others.
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Jeremy Wyatt jwyatt@harrisonlawgroup.com HarrisonLawGroup.com (410) 832-0000
40 West Chesapeake Avenue, Ste. 600 Towson, MD 21204
Inside This Edition
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Life Beyond the Screen
3 Mistakes to Avoid When Building a Business Credit Score Why One of History’s Greatest Minds Refused to Eat Beans How a Marine Corps Spouse Built a Thriving Business
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How One Woman Mapped Her Own Path to Success From Military Spouse to CEO
Many people find it difficult to work a paying job while sustaining a marriage and family, but one group faces taller hurdles than most. According to The Wall Street Journal, an estimated 600,000 spouses of active- duty military members must move when their partners relocate every 2–3 years. They often leave behind their jobs, community resources, and networks of friends and professional contacts — and that makes finding meaningful employment next to impossible. Prospective employers are usually reluctant to hire someone who is likely to move away in a couple of years, leading to above-average unemployment rates among these spouses. The pressures on families are significant enough for some active-duty military members to resign from service.
Now and then, a success story like Yolanda Clarke comes along to serve as an example and a mentor for countless other military spouses. When Clarke left active duty as an intelligence officer for the U.S. Army, she wanted meaningful work that would enable her to continue serving the military and allow her flexibility to move wherever her husband, who was on active duty in the Marine Corps, was transferred. Her chief enlisted officer suggested she earn a degree in information technology, and she expanded her credentials with an MBA from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Self-employment seemed to offer the most flexible path to meaningful work, so in 2016, Clarke founded Powder River Industries, a Laramie, Wyoming, provider of information technology
products and services, including systems development, operations, and maintenance for government customers. Today, Powder River Industries has about 30 employees in 12 states and is a subcontractor for organizations as large as the Army Corps of Engineers. It provides the technology to connect and facilitate collaboration among hundreds of thousands of users nationwide. “My business allows me to continue to serve and connect to a greater purpose, to make an impact helping a lot of different agencies meet their missions,”
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