Archive for the ‘Advice’ Category

Above the need for good credit is the need for personal security.  While paying off credit cards improves your credit AND provides that financial cushion (since the credit could be counted on to be available if you need it), “pay off my credit cards” has been the first steps in a strategy towards financial independence.  However… Read the rest of this entry »

Everybody wants to know how to stay motivated.  Whether you’re currently focused on getting out of debt, saving for a home, self-financing a business, or guiding your company through recessions and downturns – All of us sometimes need to find some new ideas on how to stay motivated.

Here is a quicklist on how to stay motivated:

1. Motivate someone else
   When you give openly and freely you are letting the Universe know that you have in abundance what you are giving away.  The Universe responds in kind by providing you with more of what you give a away.  This theme of reciprocity is seen in religious, business, and self-help teaching repeatedly.  It works for all things – money, time, love, and – as applied here – motivation.  On Friday night, before leaving work for the weekend, talk to some of your coworkers about finances.  They may not want to talk about specifics, but bring up the topic of savings, paychecks, and secondary incomes.  Find out what they do to build their nest-egg, and how they budget time and money.  Tell them about the steps YOU take to balance time and money, to build for the future, and to encourage them to do all they can during their time off to increase their income.  You will immediately feel charged up yourself, and when the 5 o’clock bell rings, you’ll feel like you’re heading TO work instead of coming HOME FROM WORK.
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When you start creating something great - a life, a strategy, a business – you plot your path.

You need a place to get to – and to get THERE, you’ve got to leave the place you’re at now.

It’s hard to soar with the eagles when you’re surrounded by a bunch of turkeys. 
     – I have no idea where this came from

Don’t be afraid of your life and your path.  You never know what you’re going to find along the way, and there’s no way of knowing what (or whom) will be with you when you get to your destination.  This can be far-reaching.  The fear of loss can be a powerful motivating factor, and a powerfully de-motivating one, as well. Read the rest of this entry »

A Seven-Board is task list that focuses on getting you moving instead of focusing on being complete or comprehensive.  It is essentially the first 7 tasks you can think of for the first 7 projects you can think of.

I got the idea from “The Rule of Seven“, which was adapted from a really great book The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (Which doesn’t contain any info about Speed Tasking or Seven-Boards – it’s just about marketing) and found that applying some “Speed Tasking” techniques to it quickly outlined tasks and projects which need to be done.

Consider this:
It’s Friday night.  You know you’ve got a lot to do (generally speaking), but you can’t think of anything specific that you have to do “now”, and you can’t think of what things have priority and need to be done quickly versus items which can wait.

You are in trouble.  Without some quick direction, you’re going to get a glass of wine, turn on the television, and shut off your brain for the rest of the night.  Bad idea.  If you don’t get some direction and some tasks to complete you risk losing your momentum for the night, and having a slow morning the next day while you figure out what to do.  Until you get your workload broken down into some manageable chunks, you will lose valuable time idling in frustration.

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This is the foundation of the "Richest Man in Babylon" by George S Clason. This has been such a success for me over the last 2 years, as I moved from being controlled by debt to getting out of debt (at least out of bad debt) and began saving. If you’ve heard that before you should save money, you should get out of debt I will challenge you to think otherwise. Get yourself out of debt WHILE you are saving money. Start today. I was working with a friend of mine that was telling me just exactly that – he was saving some money out of every paycheck. He related that when he first started thinking about saving, he found it difficult because he could not see the value in small deposits. But believe me, they add up.

So here is my advice to everybody that wants to become rich – The first thing you should do (and my money IS where my mouth is) is deposit 10% of every paycheck into a savings account. Stock markets are fine for some investing, but this is not your investment account (yet!) Before you get out of debt, start your savings account.

Already have a savings account? Nice! Make sure you’re using it. Make your deposits regularly, and you will begin the process of accumulating wealth.

Debt got you down? Don’t let that stop you. First things first – you have to show the world that you can get $100 together and keep it safe.  Strangely enough, the law of attraction can start working immediately, and $100 becomes $1000 before you know it.  You can pay off your debts AND start your savings account at the same time.  It’s a necessity.