Two masters pt1

A couple of times, I have mentioned that I see myself as a highly spiritual being. For the past decade or two, though, I haven't been a very religious person. But, from time to time, things bubble up from the past when I was.

Sometimes it is ethics or ideals ingrained at a young age. Other times it is a few words of common wisdom from the long remembered past. This particular thing that I want to talk about is a biblical quote from when I was a practicing Jehovah's Witness(No, I did not ever get it right)

According to Matthew 6:24 "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money."

While this verse is specifically talking about God and money, it is true with all things. I don't think that the love and hate part are really true. I think you could love one and be kind of neutral towards the other or love both, just one a little more than the other, like Ruffles vs Fritos. However, there can not be two number ones. You can work towards two separate goals, but when a conflict of interest occurs you must pick one over the other. And when forced to choose, you show others which is more important to you based on which one you pick.  

Within ourselves, we can want one thing in our heart and another with our minds, but if the two things are in different directions we need to decide which one matters more to us or we will never, can never be happy. For example, if in your heart you really want to settle down and start a family, and in your mind you decide that you are better off alone, how do you make both happen? You really can't. Only one or the other is possible. You can't have both and need to choose between them and then dedicate yourself to whichever goal you choose.

At your place of work, you can do things your way or you can do things your boss's way. Unless the two ways are the same you cannot do both. Choosing which way to do things at work should be easy. You are being paid to do what it is that the boss says regardless of what you think is right or how you think things should be done. It is sort of the definition of having a job. You get paid to do what it is that your supervisor tells you to do.

At home, in a lot of homes, there is a clear person in charge, the patriarch, matriarch or alpha. In such places one person's word is law and in order to maintain harmony all others must comply with that law. While everyone follows along and does as they are told things run smoothly. When people decide to go against the established rules punishment and or discipline are meted out until everyone gets with the program again. 

Money creates boredom

I was having this conversation with someone online the other day and he said something that I found pretty difficult to believe. Somehow the conversation turned to wealth. The gentleman that I was talking to asserted very strongly that if the average person became rich, they would become bored after only a few months if they didn't have to work. He made it very clear that he would feel that way personally, but that he wasn't talking about just himself. It was his belief that pretty much everyone would want to go back to work within a year or two.

So, I thought about what an "average" person's life is like. You are startled out of a sound sleep by the clanging and clamoring of an alarm clock, cursing the person who set up this cruel torture device, only to remember that it was you. Still bleary eyed, you stumble into the shower cursing alternately as it starts out too cold and then gets too hot for comfort.

After the ritual dowsing of water and whatever other super secret things you do in the bathroom, you emerge covered in different, clean scents and dress for the day. You pour yourself a "cup of ambition", as Dolly Parton would say, and head out into gridlock on your way to the cubicle farm.

There are a few close calls, but you arrive safely at work. Then a whole new set of trials and tribulations awaits you, customer complaints, bosses demanding impossible things by the day before yesterday and other such pleasantries. Eventually, the work day ends and you head back out into the concrete jungle for your homeward journey.

When you do finally arrive home, frustrated and exhausted, often you find that you really just want to call it a day and hope tomorrow is better. Before that though there is some time in front of the television and maybe even some dinner.

If you are single, it ends there. However, if you are married, have children or both, there is so much more in between each other little detail of your day and so much less time to do it. You love your family and desperately want to spend more time with them but the focus and attention that you give to them takes away from other things that are nearly, if not just as important as they are and you find yourself being stretched too thin with no relief in sight.

Well, there is that one to two weeks a year that you shut out work and all the frustrating exhausting things that drive you nuts the rest of the time. That two percent of the year you relax and unwind. You let it all go and recharge your batteries so to speak.

And that is where my side of the discussion comes in. What if you could afford to stretch that two week vacation into a lifetime of no more alarm clocks? What would it be like,  if you could wake up whenever and wherever you wanted to, refreshed because you actually got enough sleep?

Imagine with me. If you wanted to, you could hang out with the kids watching television and playing video games all day. You could go anywhere or do anything that you want. Go water skiing, travel around the world, backpack through the Appalachians, visit every theme park on the planet. Take your spouse to Rome, Paris, or Tahiti. Why pick one? Do them all. Turn that once per month hobby into a once per day thing. Pick up some new hobbies.

In my personal life, I have quite a bit of free time and I don't ever get bored. What limits me from doing a great many more things is not having the funds to do so. If there was more money available there would be more options, more things to do. Unless one is limited in imagination how can more options lead to less fun?

What would you give up?

We all have an idea of how we'd like things to be. Maybe you aren't happy with the car you drive. Perhaps its where you live, the clothes you wear or who you live with. It may be something different for each person. But, all of us would like our lives to be different. Or so we say.

If it is true, as I have said recently, that we do exactly what we want to do and don't do what we don't want to do, then we must not want that "thing" that we say we do. Or at least not enough to make it happen. Maybe we don't think it is possible, so we don't try. Maybe we tell ourselves its just not worth the effort. Maybe we simply procrastinate saying, there's plenty of time. But, do you still want to be telling yourself that when you are sitting in a retirement home lamenting the fact that you didn't get what you wanted out of life?

Every moment of life is precious, because our lives are finite.  Why start to get your life on track at 70 if you can do it at 40. Why wait till forty if you can do it at 20? Why put it off for even a single moment?

If it weren't possible there wouldn't be people accomplishing the things that you want out of life right now. Nobody on this planet is any better than you are. There are opportunities everywhere. Successful people take advantage of the opportunities that are already there and create new opportunities out of adversity. Is there a lack of adversity in your life?

While I do indeed believe that, the love of money is the root of nearly all evil. Money is simply a tool. Now, having said that,  it is a very powerful tool, one which can change our lives for the better. In fact, nearly all of the problems that plague the average person can be solved by increasing the amount of money that one has.

As far as whether or not its worth it, well that all depends on you. What are your motivations? Who loves and depends on you? Even if you wouldn't strive for success just for yourself, are the happiness of your friends and family worth a little sacrifice on your part?

Some people, like motivational speaker Les Brown have this inner fire driving them to succeed. He was born in and abandoned building and given up for adoption. His adopted mother was single. She worked as a cafeteria attendant and domestic assistant. While still in grade school he was declared educable mentally retarded.  A combination of love and gratitude drove him to succeed. He wanted to become something, so that his adopted mother's sacrifice would be worth it. He gave up his free time and effectively most of his childhood to make that dream come true. When he was first starting out he would often be out knocking on people's doors after nine at night, still trying to get a sale for the day, so he could go home and say he accomplished something. Now he is a multimillionaire and one of the world's best motivational speakers.

How about your favorite athlete, musician or movie star? Do you think success just fell into their laps? For most of them success came at a price, one that other people weren't willing to pay. You might say that they just capitalized on innate talent, but that's really not true. Yes, talent in some area is required in order to be successful.

But, practicing that talent, honing it to a razor sharp edge and then sharing that talent to the world are all necessary steps. How many hours do celebrities spend improving their game or working on new material? Rehearsal or practice time isn't just measured in minutes. Strategy meetings don't run themselves. How much time do they spend away from their loved ones? How much sleep do they lose due to someone mismanaging their time? Because that's the key. For the most part, what we give up is time. Time doing the things that we enjoy right now, so that we can enjoy our future even more.

Is it worth it? Of course it is. They make millions of dollars and have tons of adoring fans. Plus, at the end of the day, they can be proud of what they have accomplished, of the life they have been able to provide for themselves as well as those they care about.

What would you do, what would you give up to be able to say the same? And...why haven't you started already?

The truth behind the excuse pt2

The truth is you always have a choice.You have a choice or even multiple choices, in every single circumstance. If a man holds you up at gunpoint and gives you the option of losing your gp or your hp(gamer humor), he isn't forcing you to give him your money. You are free to ignore him, his threat and his gun. If you do, you stand a very good chance of getting shot. Perhaps you could struggle with him, get the gun and shoot him instead, chase him off or tell him to give up his money.

Most people, being intimidated by the person wielding the gun, choose to give the thief their money. They do not want to deal with the potential consequences of defying the person with the gun. It is easier to lie to themselves and everyone else and say that they were forced to give up their money.

Back to the examples above. You did forget to take the trash out. But it was only because you didn't want to do it in the first place. It was not important to you. Regarding the audition, you kept the agreement because you didn't want to anger your spouse or disappoint your child. Plus if you hadn't kept it, it would be your fault if your kid didn't make it into that prestigious school. Unlike the first example, there were real consequences here.

You made a conscious choice. You wanted your friends upset at you more than you wanted your immediate family displeased with you. If that were not true, you would have blown them off instead of your friends. Or course, you didn't really "want" your friends mad at you, but you decided one or the other was happening and picked which one it would be.

Just because we are not pleased with the consequences that a choice we could make are likely to cause, it does not mean that we do not have a choice, that that choices is not an option. It is a choice, just one we are not likely to take. Acknowledging this is an enormous part of being a mature responsible adult and removes the possibility of you being a victim.

We, as people, tend  to make the choices that will impact us in the least negative way possible.

The responsible person will state that there are no other good options. The difference is the victim will state that there are no other options.

Most people go to work every day that they do because they want to. Though it sounds funny that is the real truth. But, if you ask them if they want to go to work, the majority of them will, in fact, tell you that they do not. They would rather stay home and sleep in, play video games or spend time with their kids. When faced with the opportunity to go to work or do one of those other things, given the choice of just one over the other, very few would choose to go to work.

If that is true, why aren't there more empty chairs at the office every day? Because things are never that simple. Without money coming in we would lose our homes our cars and perhaps even our families. We work because we would rather have the results of working than the results of not working. In other words we work because we want to.

There is a consequence for everything we do or don't do. When deciding whether or not to do something we fit all the variables we are aware of into an equation and decide whether doing or not doing that thing will produce the result we want or will avoid the result we don't want. Then we act accordingly.

What it all boils down to is, every single thing that we do, we do because we want to. Every single thing that we do not do, we do not do because we do not want to. Any other explanation is a lie.

The end of the tunnel. pt2

Over the last few months, I have actually been able to list all of our monthly bills, which are current monthly expenses, which are revolving credit and which are old debt. Where possible I have been getting rid of the old debt so that our overall monthly expenses go down and more money is available each month to make even more payments with.

Currently we are at the point where less than half of the money that comes in each month goes to current bills. More than half is going to old debt. The reason that I say I can see the light at the end of the tunnel is because, in the next twelve to eighteen months, all the debt that I am aware of will be gone. Then every month afterwards the extra free money, really will be free money.
After that, the plan is to get copies of credit reports, one more time, and this time eliminate every bill on them. And then...

The serious work of planning our financial future can really begin. The idea here is to take the amount needed for our monthly bills off the top, open six new bank accounts and begin splitting the left over money each month into those accounts. The accounts needed will be vacation, savings, investing, charity, blow, maintenance.

The vacation account is where money for such things as trips to Disney World will go. In the savings account we will keep money for a rainy day, extreme emergencies and future home purchases. The investing account will be for things such as stocks, bonds, forex and mutual funds. For all the world has done for us, we would like to be able to give back and that is what the charity account will be for. The maintenance account is where money will go that is earmarked for fixing things up around the house and maintaining others before they break.

The blow account will be a special account that is set aside specifically as a fun account for us. We will be diligent in making the other accounts continue to have more and more money in them each month whenever possible. This last account is our reward for being disciplined with the rest of our money. It will begin every month as close to zero as possible and it is our goal to spend every last cent in this account on ourselves. This account is designed as a celebration and enjoyment of our success. It is our alcohol fund, our extra movie fund, our splurge account.

And last but certainly not least. I am not sure if we will need to set up another account for it or if it can share resources with one of the other accounts. But we need a pool of money set aside for personal growth. This would include movies, books, seminars and workshops designed to give people more tools to empower and improve themselves and the lives of others around them. Perhaps we could just set up an account labelled other and use it for whatever miscellaneous purposes we come up with.

It has taken a little longer than the seven years we originally planned to get to this point. But, unlike the first few years, progress can actually be measured now. We are getting to where we want to be. And each day we draw closer and closer.

What does the financial plan for your life look like? Are you swimming in debt? Could you use some advice?

Is money evil? Or are you?

After yesterday's words you might think that I feel as many do, that "money is the root of all evil". But that is not at all true. Let us say that I have a good understanding of and a healthy respect for money, even though it often seems like the source a great many bad things.  It is not the money itself which is evil.

Money is a tool that can be used to accomplish a great many things. Like other tools the danger comes from how it is used and the intent of the user. For example, fire is a tool which can be used to take raw ingredients and turn them into tasty food. It can also be used to boil water thus killing harmful bacteria and making otherwise dangerous water safe to drink. Fire can be used in both constructive and destructive ways. It can even be used to both heal and to kill. But fire is not evil. And neither is money.

Even a tool whose purpose is only violence such as a sword is not evil, for it can be wielded by one with the purest heart and good intentions who only wishes to protect others. Conversely it can be wielded for terrible dark purposes. But it is not the tool that is bad it is the person wielding it.

The purpose of money is so that we might have a standard system for valuing things. At first glance it may be rather difficult to find an acceptable comparable value between say a pickup truck and a pig, between an acre of land and a pair of rubber gloves, or between a hot meal and the cost of adding another bedroom to your home. By comparing everything to a single standard and placing a value on it based upon that standard it becomes a simple matter to see how any one item stacks up against any other.

As the saying goes, money may not be able to buy happiness. But, if you are willing to be honest, you kind of have to admit that money has created more happiness than poverty has. After all, it is through money that you are able to buy and do many of the things that are essential to living a happy successful life.

But, just as an obsession with fire is an unhealthy and dangerous thing, so is an obsession with money. There is nothing wrong with wanting great amounts of money so that you can properly take care of those that you love and to enjoy nice things. It is when one dreams of having money just for the power that it can bring and to use that power to rule over others that one gets brought over to the dark side.

Why do you desire money? What drives you to obtain it? And when you have it what do you do with it or what do you intend to do with it?

The right vehicle

The world is full of different ways to get from place to place. For every different type of circumstance there is a different type of vehicle. In places with no roads you can ride a horse or take a bicycle. To get to and from school you could take a bus or ride in a car. If you want to go from Seattle to Miami you could take a bus, train or airplane. Every different type of vehicle has its good and bad points.  The key here though, is how much time do you want to spend getting from point A to point B?

There are many different ways you can make money as well. You can have a 9-5 office job. You can do contract work. Or you could sell watermelons by the side of the road, hold bake sales, auction off your junk, charge fees for any personal services you want to provide, or even extort money from others.

In order to be successful you are going to have to have a goal. How much money are you trying to make?  Any of the job ideas listed above can probably bring you to your goal. But they each work in totally different ways and will have different degrees of speed and success. The question, with each method, is how long is it going to take you to get from where you are financially to where you want to be?

Now personally my goal is to set up a residual form of income, something that is going to pay me as long as I am alive. None of the methods above, except maybe extortion is going to have even the remotest possibility to make that happen.  So what options are there to get me where I want to be? There are a couple of professions that provide royalties such as being a musician or an actor but I am a pretty private guy and not all that happy in the spotlight.

Now let's take a look at network marketing. Most network marketing programs provide some form of residual income. And while you do need to sponsor people into your network you can still have a private life without being mobbed by adoring fans. You get the freedom of being your own boss and working when you decided to. You do not need to commute to work. Your office can be anywhere you decide to work.

So let's compare this idea with the transportation idea above. I have decided that network marketing is the vehicle that I want. It is the only vehicle that has the potential to meet my needs. But just as there are thousands of different makes and models of car, there are thousands of different network marketing companies as well. How do I know which one is the right one for me?

Well that has been my personal demon for the past twenty years. I have tried just about everything. There have been some with fees that were $1.99 per month to $500 per month. Some had great products that I loved and others had things that I could not stand. There were great compensation plans and terrible compensation plans. But in the end they were all the same. Several times I had great vehicles but still couldn't get anywhere.

I still get tons of emails everyday about great new programs that are gonna change the face of network marketing. And every day I send dozens of those emails to the trash folder. But recently I read one email that changed everything for me.  It pretty much blew my mind. This guy says he made over 700k in one month basically doing the opposite of what everyone else has been doing. And it drew me in. I had been spending all my time and energy trying to copy what the so called "gurus" were doing and getting nowhere.  This guy is so down to earth and real.  You have got to check it out for yourself. It might just be the most awesome thing on the internet today

http://bigideamastermind.com/secret/

This is not an affiliate link. I do not make any money when you click on it.  I just want to share this great video with you and have you share it with others.
See you next time

Now that that is outta the way

Yesterday, I kind of broke the ice by doing a little Hello World test post.  I am back today and looking around it seems like there haven't been any explosions. There's no broken glass and I don't hear any women screaming or children moaning softly in despair. Since the world does not seem to have come to an end, I figure it's safe to drop another post and then tomorrow I will again check for any apocalyptic results.

It has always been my opinion that the best way to make money is with some kind of program or system that pays out a residual over time, like the way musicians or movie stars do a task once and then get paid royalties forever. It has never been my way to work a "9-5" job. This is the way most of the world works. But it just doesn't make any sense to me.  And while I was growing up my stepdad always told me that I should work smarter and not harder. But even so, he was always pushing me to be part of the 9-5 grind.  For the past twenty years I have done a great number of different jobs, though I have never really stuck with any one position. Nothing really seems to fit. I just can't make myself commit to it.

The world is not the same place it was hundreds or even thousands of years ago. We, people, as a whole, do not need to get up at the crack of dawn and work tirelessly until sundown just to produce enough of whatever it is that we make to eke out a living anymore.  The general eight hour a day 5 day a week rat race is no longer necessary.

After a great deal of exhaustive research I have come to find that there are only really two ways to create a residual income. The first is to be the owner of a company and have a great product and awesome employees that take care of everything for you. There are a number of problems with this. It takes a lot of time to set up. It is very costly and there is no guarantee that you will ever find the quality of people that you need in order to make it work. The other way is network marketing.

There are thousands of network marketing companies both on and offline. Amongst them all they sell pretty much every product or service in the world, from advertising to mortgages to zinnias. The great thing about network marketing is that you get to be your own boss, you decide when to work and how much and you do not even need an office.  There are so many potential vehicles to get you where you want to be. The question is which one is gonna work for me? Over the last two decades, I have found a whole lot of them that are not the answer. I have spent nearly thirty thousand dollars and literally thousands of hours not being successful.  I've been a member of Streamline International, Amway, and Global Domains International just to name a few of the dozens of different programs that I have tried. I have tried many different health products used all the different online services and even clogged up my home with a bunch of stuff that I had to buy that I did not want or need.  And I very nearly gave up completely. I was becoming convinced that nothing out there would ever work for me. Until just the other day that is.

I finally found something that I am absolutely sure has the power and magnitude to get me where I want to be.

Check back with me tomorrow when I reveal just what this awesome vehicle is.