Bryan C. Fleming

Last Post on this Blog (Please Read)

2006-10-30T12:10:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

I'm leaving blogger and continuing my blog on it's own site:

http://www.BryanCFleming.com

If you subscribe to my RSS Feed, you will automatically be updated.

Why am I leaving?

I don't think many people understand the long term value blogging. As these pages sit on the web they gain value in search engine placement and traffic. It would be a real sad day to log into your free blogger account and see they decided to cancel it.

Who would you call? Who would you email?

You can contact anyone.

I'd rather have a little more control over this blog since it is growing in popularity.

I do apologize in advance for any inconvience.

Sincerely,

Bryan C. Fleming

Million Dollar Savings club Update: Day 65

2006-10-26T12:25:00.000-07:00

This post is an update to the Million Dollar Savings Club. If you are not familiar with this club, you can learn more by reading my post describing it.

Wow. It's been 65 Days already. So how's it comming? Have you been able to set your dollar away in each pile?

If you have, you'd be sitting on just a hair under $200. As I look at my piles of money there are lot of 20's, 10's, 5's and ones. I haven't traded in some 20's for a 50 dollar bill. But you can bet I'll do that soon. As you may recall, I did give a big tip at a dinner but never took the money out of my giveaway pile. So I'm sitting at $195 as of today.

Would you feel a little different today if you had $195 in your back pocket? $195 to do anything you want with? That's the power of saving money. If you haven't tried saving a dollar per day, why not give it a try? It's a lot of fun and you can play along. I know a lot of you have been reading a long saying to yourself "I'll start on my next paycheck". Just start today and give it a try.

Today I want to focus on the Investment Pile. Is $65 a lot of money for investing? It's certainly enough to get started with.

Maybe you've always wanted to invest money in the stock market but were too afraid to try. Well, that's what that $65 is for. You see, you'll probably loose money in the begning as you're learning. That's OK. That's what investing is all about. Learning from your mistakes. Afterall, do you want to make a mistake with $65 or $65,000?

$65 can buy you a share of stock in a lot of companies. Here are a few you could be an owner in:

Ebay - $32
General Motors - $34
Costco - $53
Ford Motor Company - $8

Let's say you invested in one share of General Motors for $34. Everytime you see a commercial for one of their trucks or cars you can feel the pride of being on the owners side of the fence. It's a great feeling. Everytime they announce a big profit you'll be excited. Everytime they come out with a new flavor of their Hummer Truck, you'll watch for how many are on the road.

It's very empowering being an owner of a company rather than someone who just buys their stuff. If you haven't tried buying stock in a company here's your chance.

The funny thing is that it feeds on itself. Instead of buying a Hummer Truck, you'll start thinking "Maybe I could buy more ownership in the company and keep driving my used car". Now, that's millionaire thinking. But it won't happen until you start taking the first baby steps.

Personal Growth Carnival October 24th

2006-10-24T11:56:00.000-07:00

I really like the titles of the posts this week. We're not doing categories this week but the posts are broken up into groups for easier reading. I'm going to go back to categories next week. They just work better. Enjoy the articles.

Tracy Coenen presents 6 excuses why people don’t save money
Jane Chin presents Improv and Three Secrets to Success
Madeleine Begun Kane presents How To Disorganize Your Life
Mental Health Source Page presents Ten Years Ago and Ten Years From Now
Christine Kane presents Healing Bulimia and Addictive Eating (Part 5)
Peter Kua presents To CONsult or to be brilliant?
Travis Wright presents Let Your Children Be Children

Ravi Raman presents The Power of Affirmation
Jason Dutt presents "I'm just not that kind of person."
Aleksandr Kavokin, MD, PhD presents Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Quiz
Gleb Reys presents 3 Golden Rules of Goal Setting
Lynn DeVries presents Forgiveness
Andy Smith presents The 7 Biggest Mistakes In Goal Setting

Bob Carter presents How to Become an Extrovert in 4 Easy Steps
Patricia presents How To Know Who You Are In 20 Minutes
Hueina Su presents From Self Sacrifice to Self Love
oovs presents Lessons from The Dog Whisperer
David Maister presents Repairing Fences

Reb Chaim HaQoton presents The Fire Within
Tim King presents Why Leaders Never Assign Blame
John Buehler presents So, You’re Starting a Small Business
Jack Yoest presents Business Etiquette Between Manager and Employee
Mary Jo Manzanares presents Stop Concentrating on Concentrating

Victor Fam presents The Risk Of Missed Opportunities
Randy Yniguez presents Let's Not Burn Bridges
Erek Ostrowski presents Heroes and Role Models

Michael K. Dawson presents There Is a Certain SOMETHING Needed Before You Can Find Financial Freedom

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of personal
growth carnival using my carnival submission form.

Technorati tags:

personal
growth carnival,
blog carnival.

Why Get-Rich-Quick Rarely Works

2006-10-23T07:51:00.000-07:00

You've probably seen the late night infomercials pitching get-rich-quick schemes. These usually involve making money in RealEstate, Classified Ads, and recently even the Internet. Maybe you've even ordered one of these businesses in a box.

They all promise that with a little hard work, and by working "smart", you'll be able to retire in a few years time.

JD over at GetRichSlowly.org has a great article about Casey Serin. Casey is a kid who's trying to get rich quick in Real-Estate. Here's his story:

I'm a 24-year-old aspiring real estate investor from Sacramento CA. After going to few seminars I bought 8 houses in 8 months across 4 states with no money down. I fixed and sold 2 and then ran out of cash. I am now facing foreclosure on 6 5 houses. I'm learning my lessons, finding solutions and blogging about it.

Investing is different from buying-and-selling homes to make a buck. I suspected a lot of people would be hurting right now as the realestate boom is cooling off.

The best way to make money long term is save a little bit off the top. You do this each and everytime you make any money. Over time you'll amass a fortune. If you haven't been able to start saving money, why not try the Million Dollar Savings Club ? You can start with a dollar per day to build the habit. You can read more about it here .

Enjoy JD's article.

Personal Growth Carnival - A New Record!

2006-10-17T10:56:00.000-07:00

Well another record this week for the Personal Growth Carnival. We had 38 submissions which is almost twice what we've gotten in the past.

Some writers submit more than one article, so I left in the one that I feel is their best work. Also, I'm starting to see carnival Spam!

Truthfully, I'm not too surprised. How long did we think it would take for someone to figure out they could start spamming blog carnivals? I pulled the articles that I thought were spam. What you're left with now are the best articles of the bunch.

Enjoy this week's carnival!

Goal Settings
Alexander Becker presents WOW: How to Double Your Productivity
Hjalte presents Goal setting for beginners
Nelly Nandes presents Passion or Career?

Money
Michael K. Dawson presents Saying Goodbye to the Time for Money Swap
Steve Faber presents Are You Really Saving? You May Be Wasting Instead!

Personal Growth
Madeleine Begun Kane presents De-Stress Or Distress?
Beverly Keaton Smith presents Finding Peace Through Forgiveness
Jane Chin presents Many Dimensions of Money
Erek Ostrowski presents Facing the Unknown
Alexander Becker presents WOW: How to Avoid Misunderstandings
Wenchypoo presents Memo to Old-Line Feminists
Debra Moorhead presents The Power of a Smile
supermom_in_ny presents I Was Sinking
Jeff presents The Shaman in the Mirror
David Maister presents How Did You Lose Your Innocence?
Nelly Nandes presents The Strength of Weakness
Patricia presents Waiting on a Biopsy: How to Handle Uncertainty
Bill Losapio presents Drawing Inspiration in Uncertain Times
Patricia presents Car Accidents: Will You Make It Home Today?
Jack Yoest presents 9 Tips for Interviewers
Chris presents How to be Cooler Coping with Nervousness
Edward Mills presents Technology and Personal Growth - Holosync Solution
Nneka presents Positive Speaking
Peter Kua presents Why white elephants reign in office
Brandon Peele presents Why get an MBA?

Time Management
Gleb Reys presents Why I Always Have Time To Do Things
Jim Goss presents Looking Busy
Daniel Scocco presents Future-Storming

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of personal growth carnival using my carnival submission form.

Technorati tags: personal growth carnival, blog carnival .

Million Dollar Savings Club: The Give-away Pile Strikes!

2006-10-13T11:42:00.000-07:00

This post is an update to the Million Dollar Savings Club. If you are not familiar with this club, read my post describing it and play along.

Here we are at day 52 of the Million Dollar Savings Club. As I said before these piles of money are building up. With over $50 in the giveaway pile I decided to finally give some away.

Last Saturday, Sherry (my wife) and I were having dinner at a restaurant. The waitress looked stressed. She was having some back problems and shouldn't have been working. I felt bad for her. I don't know her, but she was probably working because she really needed the money. So, I thought why not unload some of the giveaway pile right now?

Our bill came to around $50. A "good" tip would have been 20% or $10. Why not use the giveaway pile to leave a 30% tip? So that's what I did.

It felt really good to leave a $15 tip for the meal. I'm sure it made her night to get a nice tip. All the waitresses I've known always judge their night by how much they're earning in tips. A "good" night means someone tipped them well.

Keep in mind it didn't cost me anything extra to leave a bigger tip. The giveaway pile paid for it. Could I have left her a $20 or $30 tip? Certainly. But I would have felt a little odd. I didn't want to draw too much attention to myself.

Being able to give is an incredible feeling. It's much different to give for the sake of giving rather than feeling obligated to give. That's why the giveaway pile is so important. You see, many times we look at our bill from a meal and think "What's the minimum I'd feel good about leaving". Have you ever done this? I know I have. I've even seen couples argue over leaving a $5 or $7 tip. I'm telling you, you're robbing yourself of the feeling of giving.

The giveaway pile will start teaching you the real power in giving. Because you already have the money to give, you'll give more.

You want to know the strangest thing of all?

It felt so good to leave that extra tip, I never paid myself back from the giveaway pile.

Day 51: Million Dollar Savings Club

2006-10-12T13:34:00.000-07:00

This post is an update to the Million Dollar Savings Club. If you are not familiar with this club, you can learn more by reading my post describing it.

Travis Wright writes:

So, I have now arrived at day 30. I put $1 in each of the three piles each
morning when I first wake up. One in a savings pile, one in an investing pile
and one in a charity/give away pile. I now have $90 dollars sitting on the
dresser. Each pile consists mostly of ones, with the savings pile and investing
pile having one five in it. The charity pile is all ones, and the stacks are
growing quite nicely.

I actually went to the bank this week and got $50
worth of ones from the teller so that I will have enough for 2 weeks worth of
savings. The power of this project is magnificent, each day, I start out on the
right foot by SAVING money. Not handing it to Starbucks for a glorified cup of
coffee, or giving it to a fast food joint. I’m starting my day by putting money
in three stacks and watching them grow.

I like how Travis starts his day out by saving money. It’s brilliant because no matter what happens during your day you’ll always know you have more money than you did yesterday. As I’ve been saying in a previous post, seeing these piles build up is truly amazing. You have to try it for yourself!

If you have not joined the Million Dollar Savings club, why not make that first commitment? Why not pay yourself first right when you get out of bed in the morning? It’s a great way to start the day!

Personal Growth Carnival - October 10th

2006-10-10T11:52:00.000-07:00

Hey gang - You know I can’t help but notice how many blog carnivals start up, probably with great intentions, only be to be abandoned. The carnival of Personal Growth has been around for a while and I don’t plan on bailing out anytime soon.

If you’ve been reading along, you’ll see a lot of the same authors submitting their articles every week. These guys (gals) are in it for the long haul. You may want to subscribe to their blogs because they’re certainly not the fly-by-night types and almost always have great stories.

Of course we get new talent added too. Time will tell. Hopefully they too will continue to submit articles and make it to the more elite group.

In any case, enjoy this week’s carnival…

Inspiration

Matt Hutter presents Swallow That Frog!
Gleb Reys presents Don’t Be Afraid To Be The First

Money

Peter Kua presents I’ll only expire at 91… Darn!

Personal Growth

oovs presents The Motivation Behind Our Behavior
Virtual Magic presents Stanford Prison Experiment
Karl Staib presents 10,000 Swimming Pools Inside Our Minds
Donald Latumahina presents How to Have a Joyful Day
michelle presents 10 Valuable Life Lessons ..
David Maister presents It's THEIR fault
Emmanuel presents Learn What You Need to Learn
Rick Cockrum presents Don’t Look For the Easy Life
Erek Ostrowski presents Heroes and Role Models
Jeff presents Personal Development Starter Kit
Basil Vandegriend presents Personal Learning by Doing

Time Management

Peter Kua presents Mental sickness behind email swamp
Alexandra Levit presents Procrastination Addiction?
My Bubble Life presents Words Are Containers for What We Believe

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
personal growth carnival
using my carnival submission form.
Technorati tags:

personal growth carnival, blog carnival.

Piles of Money!

2006-10-06T07:28:00.000-07:00

This post is an update to the Million Dollar Savings Club. If you are not familiar with this club, you can learn more by reading my post describing it.

Until you are a few weeks into the Million Dollar Savings Club you won’t really know what I’m talking about in this post. If you haven’t made the commitment yet to save a dollar a day you can read my posts from the beginning and play along. I’m telling you; even at a dollar a day the money builds up fast.

These piles of money are getting heavy. The paperclips I’m using are hardly working anymore. The piles are too big. The paperclips are pushed apart. I don’t know how I’m going to keep all this money together. Each pile is filled with singles, fives, tens and some twenties. But where did it all come from?

We’re at day 45. That’s $45 in each pile for a total of $135. If you’ve ever seen $135 in singles (mostly) then you’ll know it’s a lot of bills. You couldn’t fit all the money in your wallet even if you wanted to.

Saving works by taking a little money off the top of what you earn and putting it away over long periods of time. That’s the idea of the Million Dollar Savings Club – To teach you how to save money. We’re starting at a dollar a day because anybody can commit to it.

Will you have a million dollars from being in the club? Yes, you will. But this is the first step. You see we need to see all that cash build up so we really learn first hand what were doing. As we get further along, we’ll make bigger commitments. But a dollar a day is all you need for now.

Start thinking about unloading some of the give away pile. A $45 gift to someone who doesn’t expect it would be almost outrageous. Personally, I’m thinking of giving $10 or $20 to one of the homeless people I see on the side of the road here in Detroit. I wonder how many people give them that kind of money?

Keep saving each and every day. Keep saving and you’ll see the money build up. Keep saving and your money problems will soon be behind you.

Personal Growth Carnival

2006-10-03T09:51:00.000-07:00

Here's this week's carnival with a lot of good submissions. Enjoy....

General Personal Growth

Phil B. presents Phil for Humanity: Greed is Good and Bad
Peter Kua presents The best PDA in town – the Hipster PDA
David Maister presents Us and Them
Patricia presents Eating Disorder Recovery, 14 Years Free
Hieu Doan presents How to Expand Consciousness
Che Jaafar Che Man presents How To Accept Mistakes and Dont Blame Others
Peter Kua presents 50 strategies for making yourself write, work, or do anything

Goal Setting

Thom Singer presents Don't Lock The Doors, Even Though You Can

Money Management

Michelle presents A finance website can’t say that!

Personal Growth

Peter Kua presents The FASTEST way to be put off by yoga

Time Management

muse presents Another "fine line"
Patricia presents 4 Secrets to Time Management That Define You
oovs presents What Level of Time Management are You At?

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
personal growth carnival
using my carnival submission form.
Technorati tags:

personal growth carnival, blog carnival.

Joining the Club

2006-09-29T08:23:00.000-07:00

This post is an update to the Million Dollar Savings Club. If you are not familiar with this club, you can learn more by reading my post describing it.

Melissa recently joined the Million Dollar Savings club and writes:

"The concept of the Latte Factor is that if we invested the $3.50 or more a day
that we spend at Starbucks we could all retire in 10 years. Its true add it up.
I found out that I was spending almost $75 a month on frappacinos! No wonder I
cant pay my credit card bill. I was also spending $5-$9 a day on food. That's
about $100 bucks a month. Yes I know I have to eat but that sandwich that I
spent five bucks on, I could have made it at home for $.25! Probably would taste
better too."

That’s the trick. Finding a few simple ways to cut back on what you spend is how you save money. Melissa took a quick inventory of her spending habits and can now start saving money. Too many people are focused on the offense (making money) rather than the defense (not spending everything we earn). Try cutting back on a few of your daily extras. Make a sandwich instead of going out to lunch and you’re in the club. Then you’ll turn around one day and have piles of money.

Counting Cold Hard Cash

2006-09-27T08:13:00.000-07:00

This post is an update to the Million Dollar Savings Club. If you are not familiar with this club, you can learn more by reading my post describing it.

Last night I decided to count each pile of money. You know what? There was much more there than I thought. Yes, you can sit there and say, “Bryan it’s day 36, you should have $36 in each pile”. This is true, but to actually see that much money sitting in front of your face is different.

You have to think about it. This money seemingly came from nowhere. True we had to build the habit of saving a dollar a day. But honestly it really should be something you’re doing now without thinking about.

Then you turn around one day and start counting all that cash. Twenties, tens, and fives all start appearing from your pile. You probably won’t even remember putting them in there. Seriously, you should have over $100 among the 3 piles now. That’s a lot of money for skipping a few StarBucks coffees.

Remember what we’re learning here: You really need to see the money build up first hand before you can talk yourself into bigger commitments. We will get into that soon I promise. We will have a plan to really have a million dollars. We’re taking baby steps now.

Here are some pictures of my money piles:

Investing

Savings

Give-away

Even if you’re just starting out, you can read my previous posts and play along. The first few days are the hardest. I promise you that. Drop me an email with how much you have in each pile. Include a picture if you want and I’ll post it on this blog.

Enjoy counting your cash. You’re doing the right thing. Your life will only improve as these piles of money get larger and larger each and every day.

Personal Growth Carnival September 26th

2006-09-26T11:43:00.000-07:00

Last week I told you we'd be doing something different with this carnival and here it is - Categories. Maybe you're interested in money or goal setting or your health? Well it's much easier to find these articles. Enjoy.

Goal Setting

Jonathon Bates presents Goal Setting – Why do it?

Alexander Becker presents WOW: Leap Forward and Benefit from Nonlinear Growth

Health

Aleksandr Kavokin, MD, PhD presents How do they use you as guinea pig? Part3

Money

oovs presents The Courage to Live Debt Free - the Principles of Economic Security

David Lorenzo presents The Five Habits that Make You More Money

Steve Faber presents Money – What Matters is How Much You Keep

Personal Growth

Phil B. presents Phil for Humanity: Overcoming Laziness

Gleb Reys presents Knowing Where You Want To Be

Brandon Peele presents The Evolutionary Role of Ethnocentricism

Peter Kua presents Wanna be more productive? Trash that bloody PDA!

Chris presents How to be Cooler How to get a Social Life

David Maister presents How to Get Ahead: Lie and Cheat?

Hieu Doan presents Imagination - The Way to Empowerment

Alexander Becker presents WOW: Acceptance vs. Resistance?

Rollo presents How to get out of life alive

Milo Paulo milo G. Riano presents How to Let Go and Move On

Matt Hutter presents The four-year-old optimist

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
personal growth carnival
using my carnival submission form.

Technorati tags:

personal growth carnival, blog carnival.

Who’s Winning? Million Dollar Savings Club

2006-09-21T10:31:00.000-07:00

This post is an update to the Million Dollar Savings Club. If you are not familiar with this club, you can learn more by reading my post describing it.

While going through the comments in the Million Dollar Savings Club it occurred to me, “Why not list the top savers at the end of each month?” That’s what I intend to do. I will start posting a leader-board at the beginning of each month. If you’re playing along, email me. Include how much you have in each pile (savings, investing, giveaway). For extra-proof, include a photo of your money (I will put it on the leader-board). By making it fun and having a little competition we’ll all save more money.

Million Dollar Savings Club Leader-Board for September:

1.Alex Williams $84
2. Bryan Fleming $29
3. Travis Wright $16
4. Mom2Fur $14

Obviously, don’t make any outrageous claims. If you do, I will email you back requiring proof (Pictures).

Yes, you can add more money to your piles than $1/day. We’re using $1/day as a starting point so people can get started. $1/day is the minimum to be “in the club”.

Congratulations Alex. Right now you’re the winner. But look out. There are probably some serious savers reading this blog right now.

How to Get Through a Cash Pinch

2006-09-20T10:48:00.000-07:00

This post is an update to the Million Dollar Savings Club. If you are not familiar with this club, you can learn more by reading my post describing it.

Here we are at day 29 of the Million Dollar Savings Club. Today I want to talk about the savings pile.

Obviously, the savings pile is for saving money. But what should you use this money for? Specifically the savings pile is to protect you from yourself.

For each of us there are times in life when you come up a short on money. Maybe it’s the end of the month. Your house payment is due and you’re stretching every dollar. You suddenly find you pushed your checking account a little too far and you have no money until your next paycheck. If you don’t think this happens a lot, look at how many pay-day-advance services have appeared in recent years.

Most people have a quick fix. They turn to credit cards to buy a tank of gas, or charge the groceries (Yes, there are people that finance food).

Your savings pile will protect you against turning to the credit card trap. It will also protect you from dipping into your investing pile. Do you see the difference? The investing pile is for investing money. For making your money work hard for you because you’ve worked hard for it. Saving money is for a rainy day. You don’t need to gain high returns on your savings; you need it for a financial cushion.

So here we are at $29 in our savings pile today. You have a small cushion for probably a tank of gas and a few meals. It’s not much, but it’s a start. The next major hurdle will be having enough in savings for a utility bill, then an unexpected car repair and ultimately a few months of living expenses.

Of course that’s a ways off. In the meantime, You can sleep better knowing the savings pile will protect you from life’s unexpected twists and turns. Best of all it’s growing every single day because you’re adding money to it.

Personal Growth Carnival - A New Record!

2006-09-19T18:44:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the September 19, 2006 edition of the personal growth carnival. I'm happy to say this week is a new record! We've had 23 submissions, which is more than any week in the past. The carnival is certainly growing, and it shows how much talent is out there.

Next week, I have something very exciting to announce. It will be durning the carnival of September 26th. Until that time "Stay tuned". Enjoy this week's submissions.

Christine Kane presents How to Live a Life of Quiet Desperation posted at Christine Kane.

Peter Kua presents 7 strategic reasons to take on corporate philanthropy posted at RadicalHop.com.

Praveen presents Financial and Branding Lessons from Tyra Banks posted at My Simple Trading System.

Daniel Scocco presents Choosing a Profession posted at Innovation Zen.

Violeta presents Top 10 things successful people have in common posted at All Tips and Tricks.

Erich Jaeckel presents How to strengthen your decision making skills posted at Life Training - Online.

Shuchetana presents Happiness and Health posted at Life PBS.

Patricia presents Dream Your Dreams to Achieve Greatness and Inspire the World posted at Patricia.

Steve presents Light Up And Live posted at Poetic Pilgrimage.

David Trager presents Life Is Like A Road Trip…To Texas posted at Dave Trager.com.

Matt Hutter presents The Story of Two Bank Tellers posted at A year's salary under the mattress?, saying, "Making daily deposits in your mind can amount to the apex of your achievement....or continued disaster."

David Maister presents The Secret of a Great Marriage Is posted at Passion, People and Principles.

Gleb Reys presents Are You Interested? posted at Personal Development Ideas Blog.

John Buehler presents The 3rd Channel » It seems so far away posted at Rebuilding Eden.

Werner Boersch presents What is spirituality? posted at Werner Boersch, saying, "Discover Your Higher Self, Your Spirituality, Live in the Flow of Your Nature"

Violeta presents Give me something to do posted at Questallia.

Wenchypoo presents The Wages of Expediency (L-O-N-G) posted at Frugal Wisdom from Wenchypoo's Warehouse.

Dave Cheong presents How to Overcome Distractions Anytime posted at Dave Cheong Engineer to Entrepreneur.

michelle presents 10 Easy Ways to Not Get Dumped posted at AmericanInventorSpot.com, saying, "Funny article on how not to grow."

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
personal growth carnival
using my carnival submission form.

Technorati tags:

personal growth carnival, blog carnival.

How to Instantly Determine Your Future

2006-09-18T10:20:00.000-07:00

Want to know where you’ll be five years from now? You don’t have to go any further than the words coming out of your mouth!

I read a good article today called “Words are Containers for What We Believe”. It struck a cord with me, so I thought I'd pass it along. Bill drives this point home and even gives some action steps towards the end.

Enjoy!

Why You Can’t Depend on Social Security

2006-09-14T10:31:00.000-07:00

I get letters from the Social Security office here in the United States, just as everyone else does. These letters tell you how much money you’ll get when you reach retirement age. What’s funny is how they keep changing the ‘retirement age’.

Below is a photocopied section of the letter I got from them yesterday

In telemarketing there is a term called ‘spiffing’ your phone operators. It means to give them a big incentive to close one more sale. Looking at the picture above, I’d say the government is trying to ‘spiff’ everyone into working longer. Consider that they will pay me almost twice as much if I hang in and work another 7 years.

You also can’t help but read the bold print on the bottom that this could change at any moment. So none of this is guaranteed.

You simply can’t depend on the government to take care of you. That’s why you need to save money. Even by saving a modest amount of money regularly you’ll gain more interest from your retirement account than Social Security will pay you. That is, if they can even pay you at all.

If you have not been able to save money, start today. Join the Million Dollar Savings club and build the habit of saving money. You won’t need to rely on the government. In fact by the time YOU decide to retire (not when they tell you to) you’ll probably have too much money and they will disqualify you. Personally, I’m OK with that.

This Week's Reading List

2006-09-12T16:23:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the September 12, 2006 edition of The Personal Growth Carnival.

We've been spending a lot of time saving money. But you should always take time out and read something that will make your life better. I've done the work of erasing some of the submissions that came in this week. I just didn't feel you would benefit from them. The articles below are the best of the bunch. Bookmark this page and come back to it throughout the week. You'll find it makes for great reading.

Brian Kim presents How to Believe You Can Do Anything posted at Brian Kim.

Peter Kua presents Not another cholesterol lowering drug! Innovation vs. blockbusters posted at RadicalHop.com.

Peter Kua presents Building a successful business: 8 qualities of an expert posted at RadicalHop.com.

Christine Kane presents Are You A Quitter? posted at Christine Kane.

This is Jeff's first post, make sure to stop by his blog and say HI!
Jeff presents How to Overcome Guilt posted at Jeff

Gleb Reys presents Don’t Be Afraid To Be The First posted at Personal Development Ideas Blog.

Joseph presents help with everything: Goal setting and your destiny posted at help with everything.

Mary Jo Manzanares presents Diffusing Anger posted at Leadership Turn, saying, "No matter how we try to avoid it, anger is a part of our business life. We can't eliminate it, so we may as well learn to deal with it."

Shuchetana presents 10 questions to ask before you join a new job posted at Life PBS.

Andrew Leahey presents Overcoming fear posted at Leahey.org.

Kevin Chu presents Don’t wait until it hurts posted at Smart Living 4 Smart People.

Building the Habit - Day 20

2006-09-11T12:13:00.000-07:00

This post is an update to the Million Dollar Savings Club. If you are not familiar with this club, you can learn more by reading my post describing it.

If you’ve been playing along in the Million Dollar Savings club, then today is a big day for you. It’s day 20. Why is today so important?

First and foremost, you’ve probably noticed it’s easier to get $20 bills for your fund than anything else. Since you have $20 in each pile of money you can make change for yourself. I’ve talked about this before, but it becomes really important since $20 bills are probably the most common amount of money you have on hand to put into your fund.

Secondly, it takes about 20 days to form a new habit. Do you notice this new habit? Probably not. You see that’s the funny thing with habits. You don’t know you form them. On a side note this works for bad habits too. So always keep an eye on yourself. We fall into bad habits and have to work to develop good ones. Saving money in the Million Dollar Savings club is a good habit to form. Congratulations.

So pat yourself on the back. You deserve it. You should have a total of $60 today. That’s more money than most people have in their back pocket right now. It’s significant. To drive the point home, count your money. As the singles, fives, tens, and twenties slide through your fingers you’ll be amazed at where this money came from. It will seemingly have appeared out of thin air!

Why Cash is King!

2006-09-07T10:49:00.000-07:00

This post is an update to the Million Dollar Savings Club. If you are not familiar with this club, you can learn more by reading my post describing it.

If you don’t have any money you can’t seize opportunities when they come your way. That’s why it’s important to save money. The more cash you have, the more opportunities you can seize.

Even at day 15 of the million dollar savings club you can seize opportunities. Let me share with you my story:

Yesterday I looked out my window and saw a couple of guys standing around with an earth-moving machine. For weeks, I’ve procrastinated about moving a large pile of dirt from one end of my yard to the other. I knew these guys could move the dirt in 5 minutes with that machine. It would take me a full weekend to move by hand. I suspected if I offered them $20 they’d jump at the chance and move the dirt.

But there was a problem. I didn’t have the cash on me.

A light bulb went off in my head. I thought, “Why not borrow $20 from my savings and investing pile to pay these guys? Then I’ll put the money back when I have time to get to the bank.”

I approached the young man and he jumped at the opportunity. He moved the dirt. I paid him $20. I saved a tremendous amount of time and effort because I was able to come up with the cash immediately.

So there it is. Even with a modest savings account you’ll see opportunities open up to you. That’s why it’s so important to begin saving money today.

If you’ve not tried the million dollar savings club, what’s been stopping you? It’s only a dollar per day and as you’ve seen, the money will start adding up. I guarantee it will change your life. Get started today.

Million Dollar Savings Club Day 14

2006-09-06T11:21:00.000-07:00

This post is an update to the Million Dollar Savings Club. If you are not familiar with this club, you can learn more by reading my post describing it.

By now you should start feeling comfortable with your new habit for saving money every day. Congratulations. You’re almost there. It’s been said that it takes about 20 days to form a habit. We’re one week away.

Personally, I can tell you that the habit has finally taken root. Having cash on hand to put into separate piles of money is almost an afterthought. I do it without much thinking now. It’s painless. It’s much different than my problems a week ago.

Today we’re fourteen days into the club. You now should see a fairly sizeable amount of money in 3 piles – Savings, Investing, and Giveaway.

Today, I’d like to focus on the third pile, the giveaway pile. You should have $14 in the giveaway pile. Fourteen dollars is not a lot of money is it? But let me ask you, when was the last time you gave away fourteen dollars? If you don’t think it’s a big deal, add it to your waitress’s tip the next time you dine out. How will she react? I’m willing to bet it will make her night.

What about homeless people? I don’t know about your town, but in Detroit Michigan they’re everywhere. You can’t go into the city without being approached from someone with his or her hand out. Most of us just walk by and give these people the cold shoulder. Some may give them pocket change, but most only give them an excuse why they can’t give.

I wonder what their reaction would be to getting $14. I wonder how you would feel giving that money away.

Don’t discount the giveaway pile. I think you’ll find it the most important pile of all. Even though it’s only $14 today.

Personal Growth Carnival - September 5, 2006

2006-09-05T18:23:00.000-07:00

This week we're back with a lot of new and upcomming talent as well as some of my favorite writers who've been with the carnival from the begining. If you have an article on personal growth, why not add it to next week's carnival? It's easy to do. Just follow the instructions at the bottom of this post.

Enjoy!

J Clegg presents How to Create a New Identity – Part 1: Letting Go of the Past posted at A Life Journey

David Trager presents Freedom and Powerlessness posted at Dave Trager.com.

Dave Cheong presents 13 Problem Solving Nuggets Everyone Should Know posted at Dave Cheong | Engineer to Entrepreneur.

Brandon Peele presents Politics is Philosophy for the Intellectually Lazy posted at GT.

Alexander Becker presents WOW: How to Deal with Principles vs. Results posted at WOW, saying, "Stick to principles or focus on results?"

Rick Cockrum presents Nine Obstacles to Completing Your Goals and Four Ways to Overcome Them posted at Shards of Consciousness.

Edward Mills presents Caution: Singing Driver, or, Tears of Joy Ahead posted at Edward Mills

David Maister presents You Gotta Go First posted at Passion, People and Principles.

Alexander Becker presents They Call You Crazy? You're on the Right Track posted at WOW, saying, "Remove yourself from everything average."

Kevin Chu presents Statistics – Its irrelevance in most of life’s decisions, for “If it is to be it is up to me” posted at Smart Living 4 Smart People.

Phil B. presents Phil for Humanity: Speaking Carefully and Correctly posted at Phil for Humanity.

Alexandra Levit presents The State of Laziness posted at Water Cooler Wisdom.

Peter Kua presents 21 secrets to becoming a millionaire posted at RadicalHop.com.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
personal growth carnival using my
carnival submission form.

Technorati tags:

personal growth carnival, blog carnival.

How to be Your Own Bank

2006-08-31T12:32:00.000-07:00

This post is an update to the Million Dollar Savings Club. If you are not familiar with this club, you can learn more by reading my post describing it.

For those of you saving along, you’ve probably come into some challenges with trying to save $1 per day. The biggest problem of course is having only 5 or 10-dollar bills on hand to put into your fund, but no singles.

By now, on day 8 you should have $8 in each pile of money (savings, investing, and giveaway). If you only have a 5-dollar bill on hand to put into your fund, you can now make change for yourself. You are in effect being your own bank!

Let’s look at how this can idea can grow as we continue to regularly add money to our savings.

On the 20th day you’ll have $20 in each pile. Then you can break $20 bills. For those of you actually in the club you’ll know this is a big deal.

Perhaps further down the road, you may need to take a small loan from a bank. If your savings were large enough you could borrow the money from yourself and pay yourself the interest. The interest would go back to you and not to the bank.

Maybe a co-worker needs to use a payday advance service because they’re low on money. Could you not loan them the money and collect a small fee for providing the service? You certainly could.

We’ll talk more about this, but I wanted to get you thinking of the world of opportunities that begin to open up because you’re starting to save money.

Being your own bank to change a 5-dollar bill into singles may not seem like a big deal today, but it’s a window into the opportunities that will follow.

Keep saving. Keep putting $1 per day into your 3 funds and your life will change in amazing ways.

Million Dollar Savings Club Update: Day 7

2006-08-30T10:35:00.000-07:00

This post is an update to the Million Dollar Savings Club. If you are not familiar with this club, you can learn more by reading my post describing it.

Day 7:

How have your saving efforts been coming? Have you been able to save one dollar per day in each pile (Savings, Investing, Give-Away)?

By now you should have $7 in each pile for a total of $21. Today, I will share with you some of my challenges and rewards:

Building the habit is difficult. I won’t kid you. Keeping the money in a place where you can see it, perhaps next to your bed is key. Without having the money in plain view I would have surely forgotten to add to it daily.

Another challenge is keeping cash on hand-- single dollar bills to be exact. I regularly have to keep a pipeline of singles in my wallet and not spend them.

So that’s the hard part. Here are some rewards:

It’s amazing to see how quickly these piles of money build up. Again, seeing the money is key. Let’s be honest $21 is nothing special. But seeing it build up is powerful. It seems like yesterday this club started and already there is a pile of money on the side of my bed.

Here’s something else: Because I’m setting money aside everyday, I find myself thinking more about saving money. Again, seeing the money makes me think more about saving.

Also, I’m much more conscious about spending money. For example, do I really want to pull $20 out of an ATM machine and pay a $3 fee? After all, that’s a days worth of savings!

Hopefully you’re experiencing the same challenges and rewards. If you forgot to add to your pile for a day, don’t quit. Just do the best you can.

Remember it’s a marathon. Not a sprint race!

August 29th Blog Carnival

2006-08-29T07:23:00.000-07:00

Hey Gang. We're back again this week with a lot of good submissions. Keep them comming. I find myself going back to this page throughout the week to read these articles. It's like having a personal growth book each week for free!

Enjoy...

Brian Kim presents The Myth of Thinking Big posted at Brian Kim.net - Invest in Yourself and Make It Happen.

Katie presents Financial bloggers losing focus posted at Aridni, saying, "Thanks for hosting--"

Milo Riano presents You Ought to Know that Career is a Marathon not a Sprint Race posted at Milo Riano, saying, "You have been working the whole year like there’s no tomorrow. You sacrificed a lot of things including your loved ones for the sake of work explaining to them that it is for their future. You were a very good soldier diligently following your manager and putting up through all his shortcomings and mistakes."

Brandon Peele presents New Life Course I posted at GT.

Brandon Peele presents Gestalt Therapy posted at GT.

Peter Kua presents Only 10 reasons needed for venture capitalists to fund your idea posted at RadicalHop.com.

David Trager presents The Key To Freedom posted at Dave Trager.com.

Steve Faber presents The Three Strategies to Maximize Your Financial Success posted at DebtBlog.

Peter Kua presents 21 plain sailing habits toward creativity posted at RadicalHop.com.

Beverly Keaton Smith presents Jumpstart Your Life Through Affirmations posted at Embrace Your Gifts and Soar!.

David Maister presents Integrity Impugned posted at Passion, People and Principles.

Matt Inglot presents Go Ahead and Check Your E-mail First Thing in the Morning posted at Matt Inglot.

Jeannie Bauer presents 7 Tip Offs that Politics Run Rampant in Your Company posted at Bouncing Back.

Alexander Becker presents Subjective Reality: How Desire Always Overrides Methods posted at WOW, saying, "Get rid of limiting beliefs and start receiving directly."

Simran Gill presents Personal Finance and Simulation Modelling posted at Simran Gill –> Article and URL Archive, saying, "Article on personal finance and modelling - hope it works"

J Clegg presents 10 Ways to Change Your Life This Weekend posted at A Life Journey.

Conn Stell presents Genuine Desires – how to use them to Succeed posted at Personal Growth - achieve excellence in your life.

If you have an article you'd like to see posted on next week's carnival, post it using my carnival submission form.

Technorati tags:

personal growth carnival, blog carnival.

Day Two of the Million-Dollar Savings Club

2006-08-24T11:30:00.000-07:00

This post is an update to the Million Dollar Savings Club. If you are not familiar with this club, you can learn more by reading my post describing it.

I thought I’d write this post saying how easy it is save $1 per day in 3 separate piles. But that’s already not proving to be the case. Here we are at day two and I already ran into a problem.

Last night, before I went to bed I saw (on my night-stand) my 3 piles of money: Savings, Investing, and Giveaway. I thought to myself “Oh yeah, I have to put another $1 in each pile”. Can you imagine my surprise when I looked in my wallet to find only 2 $1 bills? That’s right. I somehow spent all of my singles in the last two days! I had a $5 bill so I put that in the investing pile.

I will use it as ‘collateral’ with myself when I get some more singles today.

Saving $3 per day seems so easy to do. But, if you don’t keep a steady supply of singles in your wallet, being in ‘the club’ gets really hard.

TIP: Remember to keep a lot of singles on hand. By putting $3 daily into your savings fund, they’ll disappear quickly.

As of today I have:

Savings $2
Investing $6 ($4 will be returned tonight)
Give-Away: $2

The Million Dollar Savings Club Kick Off!

2006-08-23T11:46:00.000-07:00

This post is an update to the Million Dollar Savings Club. If you are not familiar with this club, you can learn more by reading my post describing it.

Welcome to the beginning of the Million Dollar Savings club. I’ve been talking about this club for a while and today is the kick off. Now, you might be asking, what is it? Let me explain.

Savings in today’s age is at an all time low. People complain they don’t have enough money. Most people redline their finances, spending everything they have as soon as they get it. Then when something unexpected happens they turn to credit to ‘fix’ the problem. They incur more debt. Saving money becomes harder.

That’s why I created the Million Dollar Savings club. It’s an easy way we can all learn to save money together. Once you learn the habit of saving money your money problems will slowly disappear. When an emergency happens you’ll have money to fix the problem. You won’t turn to using credit cards. You’ll be able (maybe for the first time) to start investing money. You’ll grow richer each year. Ask yourself; do you have more money in the bank than you did a year ago? If not, you need to be in the club.

How the club works:

Well there are certainly no fees. It’s all based on the honor system. Here’s how to play:

At the beginning of each day place $1 in each of 3 piles:

- Savings
- Investing
- Give-Away

So to be in the club you must commit to $3 a day. I chose that amount because anyone can do this. Remember, you’re trying to build a habit. This new habit will feed on itself. You’ll have much more than $365 in each pile at this time next year. Just wait and see.

The picture above shows my 3 piles. Each pile today has $1 in it for a total of $3. Each pile is labeled, Savings, Investing, and Give-Away. I keep them right next to my bed so I can remember to add to them every day.

So welcome to your first day in being in the club. I put my $3 in, how about you?

Carnival Of Personal Growth August 22nd

2006-08-22T07:16:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone and welcome to this edition of the Carnival of Personal Growth. We're gaining a lot of submissions from new writers as well as old ones. There is a just a lot of good reading in here. This week you can learn everything from how to quit to smoking to how to make your dreams come true!

I would like to tell you about the Million Dollar Savings Club that I'll be kicking off tomorrow. It's my latest endevor to get us all to start saving some money. If you want to join the club there is no fee, it only requires that you follow along with the rest of us. Check back tomorrow (August 23rd) as we kick this off! It will be loads of fun and probably life changing for many of us.

A Quick Note About Blog Carnivals:

If you have a blog you should write an article and submit it my carnival. You will gain a link back to your site. It will give you new readers and help you get better search engine placement. It's simply one of the best ways to grow your blog. The only thing I ask is that you write an article about Personal Development. Don't Spam the carnival!

Everyone who submits an article should link to this page. It will raise the search engine positioning of the page and drive more traffic to everyone's site. This is why Blog Carnivals are wonderful for everyone envolved!

Enjoy this week's submissions:

Peter Kua is back again this week with Becoming a consultant in 5 easy steps. We have a new writer by the name of Joseph presenting his blog self help and personal development. Welcome to carnival Joe!

Jerry Lopper is a long time writer to this carnival. This week he is talking about Acceptance and the Easy Life. David Maister is also back again this week with Life Could Be Better. Dave always has good articles and this one is no exception.

Jack Yoest has a very interesting article called Three Duties of a Mentor. Jack offers this tip: "A mentor, like a good Board of Directors, offers the CEO (that would be you, the mentee) three talents: Contacts, Consulting, Capital"

Pamela Stewart has an excellent blog. In fact she's in my list of RSS Feeds. I keep on it regularly. I'm very proud to see her article in the carnival this week entitled: A special boost for wannabe entrepreneurs: My Declaration of Independence . A special note from Pam: "I thought this post might resonate with your readers. It does refer to a "movie" I put together to help inspire and unstick people who feel trapped in corporate jobs. So far more than 13,000 people have viewed it ... I hope you enjoy it! All the best,-Pam"

J Clegg is new to the carnival. Stop by and check out his article: 7 Ways to Overcome a Personal Development Slump. Thanks for the submission Jason..

Paul Newbury has a good post you or a friend may want to read if they've lost their job. It's entitled: How to deal with losing your job. Paul is going to be hosting the U.K. version of the Million Dollar Savings club. His is called 'The Million Pound Savings Club'. It's obviously for everyone in the U.K.

RMic is new to the carnival this week with an article called: How to make your dreams come true ?. Rmic says, "This is my first participation. My Blog is brand new. I hope you'll like my post :)". Let's all support him and stop by his new blog.

Christine Kane Always submits great articles. This week's is: The One Thing We Almost Always Forget to Do(And Why To Start Doing It) - Christine Kane - Blog » Blog Archive

Violeta is also a new contributor. She has an article that's bound to get some attention. It's called: How I quit smoking. Voileta adds, "I consider getting rid of bad habits as personal growth, this is why I thought my submission would fit in here." Congratulations on breaking the habit Violeta!

Tyler McKinna has a very intersting article this week called: Motivation for SuccessAchievementSuccessful. I have not read it, but I'll certainly be stopping by.

Lyrois is new to the carnival this week with an article WOW: Learn to Trust Your Inner Voice. Lyrois adds, "Do not suppress your instincts even when they suggest taking a day off." Welcome to Carnival Lyrois!

David Lorenzo has been with us a long time. This week he's back with the Promise of the Present Day

Emmanuel is talking about passion. Do you have it? Find out at: Emmanuel Oluwatosin: What is your Passion?

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
personal growth carnival
using My carnival submission form.
Technorati tags:

personal growth carnival, blog carnival.

The Million Dollar Savings Club: How to Prepare

2006-08-21T10:33:00.000-07:00

This post is an update to the Million Dollar Savings Club. If you are not familiar with this club, you can learn more by reading my post describing it.

Wednesday we’ll be kicking off the Million Dollar Savings Club. That’s the first day we’ll begin actually saving money. Here are a couple of tips you should do to prepare (I’m doing these myself):

First, take $20 out of the bank so you have about one week’s worth of savings ready to go. Truthfully, most people don’t carry much cash around anymore. You don’t want to get in a pinch where you don’t have money to put into the savings fund each day.

Second, take the $20 bill and break it into singles. You might need to buy something small like a coke and get $18-$19 back in change. Ask to get the change in all singles. If your bank will give you $20 in singles that will work even better.

Finally, get 3 paper clips to hold the money. Then get 3 slips of paper and label each: Savings, Investing, Give-Away. This way you can track each pile of money.

You might also think about where you’re going to place your piles of money. Try to pick a place where you’ll see it everyday. That way you won’t forget to add money to it.

Wednesday will be the day we all start, so be ready!

For those of you in the U.K – Paul Newby over at http://improvingmylife.blogspot.com/ will be starting a U.K. based version called the Million Pound Savings Club.

The Rules for the Million Dollar Savings Club are here.

The Million Dollar Savings Club: Begins August 23rd

2006-08-17T07:47:00.000-07:00

“Every Fortune begins with $1”. What a true saying. I know a lot of readers simply are unable to start saving money. I suspect it’s because saving 10% of your income is too daunting a task. So we’re going to have some fun.

I’d personally like you to join my “Million Dollar Savings Club”. What is the club? It’s a way for us to learn to save money together. Here are the rules:

- You will save $3 dollars per day in cash.
- Each dollar will be placed equally in three piles: One for saving, One for Investing, and One for giving away.
- There are no membership fees or anything like that. To be a member of the club simply set your $3 into each pile every day. We’re working on the honor system.

Certainly anyone can be a member of the club. Anyone can save $3 per day.

You might be thinking, “If I’m saving $3 per day, why is it called the Million Dollar Savings Club? ” That’s a good question and here’s the answer: The habits we learn from saving $3 per day will grow. Countless millionaires will be created from the club because some people will simply start to save more. Some people will wisely invest the investing pile. Some people will love the incredible feeling of giving money away and want to give more. The truth is, that first $3 will grow into an incredible fortune for you. It will be an amazing and exciting experience for everyone in the club.

So let’s get ready for August 23rd. That’s the kick off date. Have your $3 ready, and welcome to the club!

More Posts:
How To Prepare
Kick Off
Day Two
Day 7
Day 8: How to Be Your Own Bank
Day 14
Day 15: Why Cash Is King
Day 20: Building the Habit
Day 29: How to Get Through a Cash Pinch
Day 30: Who's Winning? (September Leader-Board)
Day 36: Counting Cold Hard Cash
Day 38: Joining the Club
Day 45: Piles of Money!
Day 51: Travis Wright Joins the Club
Day 52 - 114: I moved the blog

Special Note: I have moved this blog, you can read more entires for the Million Dollar Savings club HERE. Enjoy - Bryan.

AOL’s Best POP Up Ever!

2006-08-16T12:04:00.000-07:00

Let’s face it. America Online is notorious for continuously billing people monthly service fees when they want to cancel their service. In fact, you nearly have to cancel your credit card to stop the billing process.

A few weeks ago AOL announced a massive round of layoffs. They also announced AOL would be free.

You can imagine my surprise when my wife fired up her trusty AOL Software and saw a pop-up ad asking her to convert her paying membership to a new one. Which program? The free one!

Hats off to AOL. I think they did it right here and truthfully I’m impressed. They could have easily hit my wife’s credit card for $10 a month for years. Instead they did the right thing and won her as a patron for long long time.

The Lesson: If you want to win customers. Do the right thing. Nickel and dimming them to death won’t grow your business. It will only build ill will. I suspect AOL will be much better off from the path they’ve chosen.

Carnival Of Personal Growth August 15th

2006-08-15T12:07:00.000-07:00

We're back again this week with a lot of new writers. So, I'd like to welcome all of the new writers this week to the carnival. If you have an article that you feel we'd like, certainly take the time to submit it (below).

David Trager has a nice article about something very important-- Leadership. My Experience Of Good Leadership

David Maister hits this week on an important topic. One that will bring success to anyone who uses it. It's about mentors, entitled: Can We Copy Our Heroes?

Marcus Markou has a nice article on marketing: Talk The Talk. Marketing Without a Budget

Gleb Reys presents an good read on self-discovery: Discover Your True Self

Tyler McKinna is talking movtivation this week with Motivation for Success|Achievement|Successful

Edward Mills has an interesting article on Finding Money: Oh What Fun!. Something we all love to do from time to time.

Michael presents What Happens When You Mess up?. Here it is straight from Mike "This article talks about what to do when we do something wrong or make a mistake in our lives."

Emmanuel presents What do you carry inside?. In Emanuel's own words "A ballon with surely fly in the air as long as it contains air irrespective of its color or shape. It does not matter what color the balloon is nor does it matter the size or shape. What matters is the strength within it. A balloon with black color will even fly higher than one with white color if the black one contains more air that the white one."

Brian Kim is talking Focus this week with The Unstoppable Power of Focus

Jeannie Bauer has an article that I really liked. It's entitled Plant Seedlings for Tomorrow's Harvest of Success

Jen is new writer to our carnival. Let's all stop by her blog and say HI. Her article is : I'm Hearing Voices "I have a blog on parenting and recovery from alcoholism."

Joanne Hay has a good piece called The Wealth of the Heart.

Peter Kua is a long time writer to this carnival. This week he's back with A simple question stumping the physics grandmaster

Paul Newbury has a GREAT article on Intention Manifestation

And finally karen alonge brings us a sweet delivery

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
personal growth carnival
using my carnival submission form.

Technorati tags:

personal growth carnival, blog carnival.

Why You Must Learn How to Save Money

2006-08-14T12:08:00.000-07:00

If you’re worrying about money it’s because you don’t feel you have enough. Every fortune begins with only a few dollars and grows from there. That’s why it’s so important to learn to save money. It’s a habit you must learn to develop.

You might feel like you can’t save money because you don’t have enough. This is because you’re a victim of today’s advertising. Advertisers have gotten very good at making you feel like you need things that you simply don’t need. We’re bombarded by advertisements from morning to night. It’s no wonder we’ve all bought a bunch of things we don’t really need.

Throw credit card companies into the mix and you’ve got a cocktail for financial hardships. Easy credit and fancy advertising can lead anyone into a pit of credit card debt that can be very hard to get out from. So how do you save money when you don’t have enough?

In that question is the answer. You see you really do have enough money. What you’re doing is paying your bills and spending the rest on things you think you need. People rarely have a money-making problem, they almost always have a money-spending problem. You must understand this. You already make enough money. You only have to play a better defense and learn to spend less. Why? Because until you discipline yourself to control your spending you’ll continue to have money problems—No matter how much money you make.

Learning to save money is actually pretty easy. You should set up an automatic system to save money before you get a chance to spend it. Trying to save it afterwards rarely works. The saying “Pay yourself First” is famous for a reason. Life seems to have a way of taking it before we can sock it away. If you’ve never saved money before do this:

Take 10 cents for every dollar you earn and get it out of our bank account immediately. It doesn’t matter how many bills or creditors you have screaming to be paid. Just get 10% out of your bank account. Pay yourself first. Pay yourself before anyone else gets paid. That’s how you save money. You’ll naturally adjust to the new spending level and everything will take care of itself.

So what do you do with the money if it’s not in your bank account? Well, for the first couple months I’d strongly suggest you keep the cold hard cash somewhere safe. Somewhere where you can see it regularly and here’s why:

Seeing a pile of money is so much more powerful than seeing a number on bank statement. A giant stack of 20’s or 100’s really drives home what you’re doing.

I started doing this a few years ago. I can vividly remember how quickly, I had a pile of money. By saving 10% of my $60,000 per year salary, I quickly had almost $500. Then a short while later it was $2,000. There’s something powerful about sitting on the couch counting out $2,000 in cold hard cash. No matter what financial problems I was having, I felt like I had a lot of money. Eventually that money made its way into a bank account and gets some interest now, but if you really want to save money you need to see the cash!

So let’s save 10 cents for every dollar we earn. Let’s pay ourselves first, and let’s do it in a way where we can see the cold hard cash.

How to Instantly Spot a Lazy Person

2006-08-10T11:50:00.000-07:00

“If you want something done, ask someone who’s already busy”. That’s a popular saying and it’s true. Lazy people are all around us. They’ve been around since the beginning of time. Trying to work with these people will not only frustrate you, it will zap your energy.

Ask a diligent person to do something and you’ll find it will be done. Ask a lazy person to do the same thing and you’ll get something too. What will you get?

An Excuse!

That’s right. A lazy person will never tell you they are lazy. They’ll give you a reason why they couldn’t do it. You’ll find they do this with everything. Ask them why they don’t have a job? They’ll have an excuse ready for you. Ask them why they didn’t uphold their commitment to a dinner party? You’ll get yet another excuse.

We all run into unforeseen circumstances. Times when we can’t uphold our commitments. You can’t hold that against anyone. It’s in the excuse itself where you can find the lazy person. Are their excuses outlandish? Do they make sense? Would you use the same excuse? This is how you find the lazy person.

We need to understand that people who are always making excuses. People who never seem to get anything done are in fact people that will only slow you down. You will simply waste too much time and too much energy trying to get them to do anything. It’s much better to find someone else to simply do it. By working with diligent people. People, who won’t make an excuse, will save you a lot time and wasted effort.

Personal Growth Carnival for August 8th

2006-08-08T10:46:00.000-07:00

Great articles keep comming in every week. If you have a blog of your own, I highly encourage you to post your best article in next week's carnival. It's a great way to get your work out there on the web.

Karen Alonge has a great article this week entitled knowing no-thing it's posted at postcards from nowhere.

David Maister is talking this week about how start your day. His article is entitled Start the Day Off Right! it's posted at David Maister's Passion, People and Principles.

Steve Faber has a nice piece on business, talking about The Business Adventure. It's posted at DebtBlog.

David Trager is writing about fear this week. A great topic indeed with his article entitled Fear- something to get rid of, or guidance to listen to? It's posted at Dreaming Of Reality—Adventures on the grid, saying, "a healthier way to look at the subject of fear."

Mike Myatt talks about personal branding. I believe you'll hear more about this in the comming years. His article The Power of Personal Branding is a must read. It's posted at N2 Growth Blog.

Peter Kuais back this week, this time with It is IMPOSSIBLE to Find Inner Peace posted at RadicalHop.com.

Matt Inglot asks a good question with Is It Wrong to be an Employee? posted at Matt Inglot.

Jerry Lopper has an interesting insight on connections: Connections Make Life Easier. I tend to believe they do!

Dave Cheong submitted an article entitled:5 Steps to Accomplishing your Goals. I'm going to be covering this topic soon. A good read. Thanks Dave.

Lyrois brings us 11 Ways to Improve Clarity and Start Getting Results with this advice: "Be clear about your goals and reap the rewards." Oh how true this is!

Jeannie Bauer has an interesting idea: Never Make Major Decisions at Night. Thanks, Jeannie, I'll try that one.

Milo Paulo milo G. Riano presents The Secret of Achieving Your Goals. I enjoyed this one too. Thanks for the submission.

Tim King is covering a very important topic. As you start making more money, you'll be fighting this more and more.... Overcoming Your Fear of Poverty posted at J. Timothy Kingâ€™s Blog.

And finally....

Wondering which jobs pay the most? Kevin Kneupper answers this with What are the highest paying jobs in the U.S

This carnival is growing every week. It's truely exciting to see all the wonderful articles that are submitted. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
personal growth carnival
using my carnival submission form.

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How to Overcome Adversity? Look to the Caterpillar

2006-08-04T07:34:00.000-07:00

Caterpillar’s are interesting creatures. They start their life as fuzzy seemingly insignificant bugs that transform themselves into beautiful butterflies. But how can a caterpillar teach you and I about life and adversity?

When you start anything new expect to struggle. In fact you should welcome it. Without struggle and adversity you’ll never become stronger. You simply won’t grow until you gain enough strength to get promoted to the next level of achievement. Many times we naturally want avoid the pain and disappointments struggle brings along. Struggle hurts. We want things easy and we want them now. So let’s look at our friend the caterpillar.

Consider the Caterpillar, a simple creature crawling around the earth perhaps with other bugs. One day the caterpillar gets a dream and decides to do something different. Climbing into a tree, it spends long hours building itself into a cocoon. Then the struggle begins.

Have you ever seen a caterpillar try to fight its way out of the cocoon? It’s a painful long struggle for this creature. Watching it, you and I might be tempted to help it and tear the cocoon. Thereby, making it easier for the caterpillar to get out. If we make this mistake we’d ruin the caterpillar. It would in fact never gain the needed strength to transform itself as a butterfly.

The caterpillar would never be able to fly. It would never be able to see the world through the eyes of the wonderful butterfly. No, that caterpillar would simply remain a caterpillar. It would never be promoted to a higher calling in life. It would spend the rest of its life crawling around the ground with the other bugs and eventually die.

That my friend is what we can learn from the caterpillar.

If we want to achieve great heights in life. If we want to enjoy prosperity and the abundance life can truly give us, we must learn to welcome the struggles life brings. It’s the only way we’ll gain the strength it takes to soar through this world at great heights.

Let’s welcome struggles as they come. Although they seem so incredibly painful we’ll always end up better because them.

How to Work Less and Get More Done

2006-08-02T08:14:00.000-07:00

We live in an interesting time. Television and advertising dominate our lives. They lead us to believe things happen quickly. Watch an hour of television tonight. During that time you may see a crime committed and solved, or someone become a millionaire. In between these shows, you’ll see commercials.

Television advertising thrives on getting you to experience climatic moments. A couple is whisked away to a tropical beach. A newly married couple buys a new house. An overweight woman instantly has a thin muscular body.

The problem you and I run into is we expect life to work that way. We are impatient that we didn’t loose 10 pounds the first week we tried that diet. We expect our new business to be successful after only a few short months. We expect to fall in love within a few days.

These unrealistic expectations cause us to simply work too hard. You see, nothing in nature works that way because nature never acts in haste. If you want to know how you should be working, grow a garden. Why? You’ll see very small seemly insignificant changes everyday. Take a picture of that tomato plant. Look back a month later and you’ll see the growth. But you’ll never see it day to day. Everything in life works this way.

If you want to get more done you simply have to learn to work in rhythm with nature. Do you need more proof? Let’s turn our attention to rowing. A great sport indeed. Which team wins the race? Is it the strongest team, or the team that seemingly isn’t working at all? Isn’t it the team that effortlessly works in harmony with each stroke that wins the race? We must learn to act this way in everything we do.

You have to learn to pay attention to your environment and work in harmony with what’s around you. Even your computer has a natural speed. Learn to work in harmony with this machine and you’ll find yourself not feeling so worn out. This is not an easy skill to learn. It takes practice. You see, when you try to outpace nature you end up working too hard. Rarely do you get more done. You’ll only end up wearing yourself out. Let’s make it a point to pay more attention to nature and slow down a little. We’re all probably working just a little too hard.

Personal Growth Carnival August 1st 2006

2006-08-01T06:41:00.000-07:00

Every week, I get more and more submissions for the personal growth carnival. I decided this week to list out the submissions and let you pick which ones to read. Personally they all look good.

This has been a record week for the carnival with a lot of new talent showing up. If you have a blog and want to be featured in the carnival it's a great way to let us all know about your site. Submitting an article is easy, just use this form. The only thing I ask is that you stay on topic and do not submit more than one article per week.

Keep 'em comming everyone. Great work!

So here you go, I proudly present the August 1st Carnival of Personal Growth:

Brandon Peele presents Spirituality is Integral to Humanity posted at GT.

David Maister presents You Gotta Serve Someone posted at David Maister's Passion, People and Principles.

Peter Kua presents Walk the talk: Experience of a first-time distributor posted at RadicalHop.com.

Kevin Kneupper presents What's the highest paying college major? posted at Free the Drones, saying, "A post on which college major students should select to make the most income vs. personal enjoyment."

Paul Newbury presents Motivation and Inspiration posted at Improving My Life.

Neville Ridley-Smith presents Oi You! Here's how to stay focussed! posted at Nev's Blog.

David Trager presents Dreaming Of Reality—Adventures on the grid posted at Dreaming Of Reality—Adventures on the grid, saying, "On the leading edge of thought.."

Keith presents How to Learn to Write and Achieve Greater Success posted at skillzdesign.com.

Christine Kane presents 21 Ways to Be More Creative posted at Christine Kane, saying, "Thanks!"

David Lorenzo presents Beyond the Call of Duty posted at The Career Intensity Blog.

Lyrois presents How to Motivate Yourself with One Word posted at WOW, saying, "Motivation through honor."

Tammy Lenski presents Stepping Up to Difficult Conversations: What My Grad Students Would Tell You posted at I Can't Say That!.

Steve Faber presents You're Already a Millionaire! posted at DebtBlog.

Brian Kim presents How to Find What You Love to Do posted at Brian Kim.

That's all for this week. Keep the posts comming, we all enjoy reading them and finding new blogs on the 'web.

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Why People Fail

2006-07-28T11:52:00.000-07:00

A good friend of mine just started a website design business a few months ago. I asked him how things are going, he said, “great”. He went on to tell me about all the wonderful things he’s going to be doing. All the plans he has for his new company.

You know what he didn’t tell me?

Anything that he’s actually done.

He’s a planner. A real big thinker. But he’s not a doer. How many people do you know like this?

The best idea in the world won’t get you anywhere without action. The truth is an idea is just that, an idea. You and I don’t know if it’s good until something gets done. We won’t know until the real world responds to it.

It’s better to do something, anything, rather than sit around planning what might happen. This catches us all from time to time. The trick is recognizing this failure disease and to move on. Think about it. When was the last time you got something done? How did you feel? Were you energized? Did you want to do more?

Getting something out the door, or trying something new is action. Action builds momentum. Momentum will get you to your goal faster. It feeds on itself.

I suspect my friend will still be planning his Internet business this time next year. He’ll probably have a lot more ideas, but nothing will have been done. Had he done anything at all he’d be a lot better off. Would it have been perfect? Most likely not. But he could have improved on it.

Human beings are remarkable creatures. We are very good at responding to our environment. If something’s wrong we’ll naturally fix it. That’s why it’s not very important to get it right the first time. You’ll respond to any problems just fine. It will get better with time.

Let’s all work on getting things done sooner. Let’s not spend so much time sitting around planning what might or might not happen. That type of thinking only slows us down and buries our ambition. Remember:

“It’s better to do something than to sit around worrying about nothing”

How to Follow the Right People and Get the Results You Want

2006-07-26T10:29:00.000-07:00

One of the quickest sure-fire ways to get anything you want is to find someone who has already done it and do what they did. It’s easy to emulate their success provided they’re willing to tell you.

Today many successful people write books telling you what they did and how they did it. They drop nuggets of wisdom that can make your journey easier. There are two ways to gain experience at anything. Make your own mistakes or learn from someone else’s. The latter of course will cost you a lot less money.

So we should be following people, but how do you know whom you should follow? Might I suggest it would be the people who’ve actually done something?

This month’s issue of Fortune Magazine illustrates this principle right on the cover. If you walk by a magazine stand you’ll it with Jack Welch’s face right on the cover. In big letters it says his rules don’t apply anymore. You can read this article here:

http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/10/magazines/fortune/rules.fortune/index.htm

Let’s examine this closer. We have a journalist Betsy Morris telling us that one of the greatest business leaders of our time is wrong. I ask you, did Betsy turn around a multi-billion dollar corporation? How many companies has she been the CEO of? In short, what is her track record? I believe you’ll find she’s a journalist working a job for a paycheck. There’s nothing wrong with that of course, but the point is, she’s not a business leader. If you want to know how to get on the cover of Fortune magazine, I’m sure she has the best advice for you.

So who’s advice should you follow?

If you’re running a business you should certainly follow the leader who’s done it. Look for his principles, why he does things. Don’t get too caught up in techniques, because those change all the time. Principles never do.

Follow the right people, the people who’ve already done what you want, and you’ll short cut your path to success.

July 25th Person Growth Carnival

2006-07-25T10:50:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the July 25th edition of the Personal Growth Carnival. Drum roll please...

Here we go...

July 25th. Let's see. If I really wanted to draw attention to myself, I'd read up on David Maister's article of Writers and Performers. But then again, I might not be getting enough out of my day. So I'd follow the advice of Paul Newbury and start Getting up earlier. If I got up earlier. I'd probably feel better, but I'd always go back and forth between Passion or cash? Heaven? or hell?? Thank you Peter Kua for your thoughts on that one!

I might at this point, be a little confused so I'd want to know The Secret to Breaking Out of the Box. After doing that, I might not feel very motivated, so I listen to Jeannie Bauer and follow
her advice of 10 Fabulous Thoughts on Motivation and I think just then I'd be Bouncing Back. Life presents many challenges today. So I'd ask myself do I take the Simple or Complex Approach? Eventually, I'd find myself at work and David Lorenzo would help me out with his advice on Workplace woes and their solutions.

I do have a friend in the realestate business. Times are slow here in the state of Michigan. Consider yourself lucky if you can sell you house! I might share with my RealEstate friends Greg Swann's advice on Seven essential skills of the 21st century real estate agent...

Like always, thank you for all the submissions and keep them comming. That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of personal growth carnival using my carnival submission form.

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Lebanon Bombings - A First Hand Look

2006-07-22T08:26:00.000-07:00

I'm sure everyone's seen what's going on in Lebanon right now. It's truely fascinating to see a real-life perspective of it. Consider these videos I found with a quick search on You Tube. It amazes me how much television waters down the reality:

Video of Girl in Isreal

Video of Bombing (adult language)

Video of Apartment Building Bombing (adult language)

How to Beat the Stock Market and Make More Money

2006-07-21T06:28:00.000-07:00

Look at the stock market after May 11th. It’s been backsliding horribly. Ask anyone how to make more money in the stock market and the answer’s obvious.

“Buy low and sell high”

Yet, nobody does that. People are so afraid of loosing their money that they sell low. Many people are selling right now. Why do they sell? For the same reason I stated above. The stock market has been going down since May 11th.

Now ask yourself. Does this make any sense at all?

Of course not.

If you follow my rule of saving 10% of what you earn. You’ll soon have a lot of money sitting around. After you have a few thousand dollars sitting in your night dresser, you starting thinking about how to invest it. That’s why it’s so important to see what’s happening even if you’re not in the stock market yet.

If you’ve been saving 10% of what you earn, you would have money to invest in the stock market right now. You’d be getting a good buy and your money would have great returns.

That’s the problem with people who are worried about their money in the market. They’re not putting more in. If they were, they’d be happy about what a great buy they’re getting.

Today is July 20th, 2006. The S&P 500 Index closed at 1249.13

I will refer back to this post in the future.

Positive Thinking

2006-07-19T11:08:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time there was a servant and a king. The servant was known by the people for having an impossibly positive attitude. No matter what happened he would say ‘it is good’.

One day the servant and the king were hunting in a forbidden part of the forest. The king fell into a trap and cut off his thumb. Completely outraged, the king blamed the servant and sent him to prison. The servant kept his pleasant attitude and said, “It is good”.

A year went by. The king found himself lost in woods. He stumbled upon a tribe of cannibals. They captured the king and planned to eat him. Once they noticed he didn’t have a thumb they let him ago. It was against their religion to eat a person who was missing a part of their body.

The king returned thankful for his life. He enthusiastically released the servant from prison saying, “If it hadn’t been for you, I’d be dead. I’m sorry for sending you to prison. Please accept my apology”.

The servant simply replied, “It is Good”. The king asked, “Why is it good you spent the last year in prison?” The servant simply replied, “If I was with you, who do think the cannibals would have eaten?”

How to Dress? Try this trick

2006-07-18T10:21:00.000-07:00

The clothes we wear speak volumes about us. It indicates our social status, makes statements about our likes, dislikes, and tastes. Consider this the next time you have a business meeting, job interview, or show up to work. What do you want to get out of these events? A promotion? A job? A new Client?

The next time you’re getting dressed for such an event, try this trick:

As you read the words below your mind will form a mental picture of that word. Focus on the picture your mind creates:

Apple

Tree

Rolls Royce

Mansion

Successful Business Person

When you read “Successful Business Person” what did you picture? That’s exactly how you should dress.

July 17th Personal Growth Blog Carnival

2006-07-17T14:57:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the July 17, 2006 edition of personal growth carnival.

It's been a busy week with lots of submissions. There's a lot of great writing going on out there. So here we go!

First I'd like to introduce Jerry Lopper with Believe in an Easy Life. This is a quick read on positive thinking. Next up is Peter Kua who has an interesting perspective on Innovation. Dave Cheong has a nice piece on 8 simple things you can do to encourage others.

Christine Kane has an excellent idea that I may beging trying myself. You should her read her article called Have an Adventure Day. I won't spoil her surprise but it's an extraordinary plan.
Joanne Hay has been up writing late into the night with her post on Bev's rave. From her writing style you can tell she's deep thinker.Jeannie Bauer brings up a good point about how we look at failing. I found her article on A Defeat is Not a Failure a very good read.
If you've read David Allen's book "Getting Things Done", then My Bubble Life has some interesting thoughts about his system.

Finally we can't forget David Lorenzo presenting an article on 10 traits of achievers. Do you have them? Find out at the Career Intensity Blog - David V. Lorenzo

That concludes this edition. Keep the submissions comming, they're a great resource for all my readers. Submit your blog article to the next edition of personal growth carnival using my carnival submission form.

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He Didn’t Say Television

2006-07-11T10:54:00.000-07:00

I had a conversation with a 14 old boy named Max the other day. He’s a pretty typical kid. He has two brothers and sister. He rides dirt bikes.

He told me if could do a no handed dirt jump it would be really cool. He thinks it would make him famous. “I’d be famous and end up on the Internet”, he said. His brothers and sister nodded in agreement.

Look at his words. Read them carefully. If you want to know where the world is headed listen to kids. They are the future. Sites like http://www.youtube.com will forever change entertainment once these kids grow up.

Carnival Of Personal Growth

2006-07-10T08:12:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the July 10, 2006 edition of personal growth carnival. This is the first of Many Personal Growth Carnivals. What's a Carnival you ask? It's a collection of what's hot from around the web in Personal Growth.

Jerry Lopper presents Ten Steps to an Easy Life posted at Purposeful Growth.
Brandon Peele presents Is Cosmology for Quacks? posted at GT.

Pete presents How to Avoid Greed? posted at My Financial Awareness, saying, "Greed is not about money, yet the desire to overcome a sense of lack. Learn the secret to overcome greed."

Kavit Haria presents Your Inner Critic posted at Awareness and Consciousness.

lecentre presents Why I love Canada: An Immigrant Family's Story posted at Centrerion, saying, "A story about one family's evolution and something that affected my personal development."

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
personal growth carnival using our carnival submission form.Past posts and future hosts can be found on our
blog carnival index page.

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Internet Marketing

2006-07-10T07:50:00.000-07:00

A lot of you who read this blog are business owners or working on becoming one. One problem you can run into is being a victim of your own success. As your business grows you can find yourself doing more and more work. You end up with more money but less time.

There is a GREAT E-Book floating around that’s really driving the point home and hints at how to fix it. It’s published by http://www.strategicprofits.com/ but I’ve posted on my blog if you want to download it:

Part One
Part Two

I’d recommend it as a MUST read. Best of all, it’s free.

The Power of Your Confession

2006-07-06T10:16:00.000-07:00

There is a little known fact that has tremendous power over our lives. If you are acutely aware of it, you can change your life drastically. However, most people don’t give it much attention and make things much harder on themselves. So what is this powerful tool?

It’s your words

Yes, the words you speak out of your mouth have an amazing power. Why? Because your ears hear what you say. Since you mind can never believe you could say anything false, it believes whatever you say to be true. It sounds crazy doesn’t it?

Successful people are well aware of this. They know that you can actually create the results you want by speaking them over and over before they happen. You mind hears these instructions and will actually make them come true.

If you want to be Rich, speak about yourself as already being Rich. Speak about how you’re just getting started. Speak about all of the wonderful things that will be happening in your life. Make a conscious effort to speak positively about situations even if you don’t believe them to be true. Your mind will begin to believe them. You’ll actually feel better about the situation itself.

Think of the worst thing going on in your life right now. Now begin to speak about it positively. If you’re sick, talk about how much better you feel all the sudden. If you have money problems, talk about how you’re getting your finances in order and the problems will pass. If you have marriage problems, talk about how you’ll be a better spouse and how much your marriage is about to improve. Magically, the problems will begin to fix themselves.

Words work the other way too. Watch someone talking poorly about his or her spouse and I’ll show you a divorce about to happen. A good friend of mine told me about his second wife. Ever since she was 20 years old, she said she would die of cancer one day. She died of cancer at age 37.

Words are truly magic. Make sure that you think long and hard before you speak. It can literally change the direction of your life.

Recreation

2006-06-30T10:30:00.000-07:00

No matter how much you love your work, you need to take some time to recharge yourself. You simply can’t work all the time. You become too inefficient. You need to remove yourself from the day-to-day grind too see things from a new perspective. By taking time away from your work, you’ll actually work smarter and get more done.

Consider the word Recreation and break it down:

Re – Creation – Recreation will really allow you to re-create.

So, give yourself some well-deserved recreation this weekend and enjoy the 4th of July Holiday.

When to Blow Some Cash!

2006-06-28T12:20:00.000-07:00

Discipline is hard to come by today. Particularly when it comes to finances. We all want everything right now. We buy it on easy to get credit. We tell ourselves we’ll pay for it down the road when we get some extra money. Of course, those days never come.

But when it is OK to go get that new Big Screen TV or that swimming pool for the family?

Your first rule should be to always pay cash for these extras. Never put them on credit. That’s just immature and shows a lack of self-discipline. Plus, when the newness wears off, you just have another bill to pay.

So first pay cash, and second, set a goal to get it.

You know, why not use that burning desire to pull you forward. Set a goal! Let’s look at a big screen TV. Here’s how you could set a goal to get it:

“I will get the Sony 62-inch TV once I get my first landscaping customer”

Or

“I will get a new Computer after I have invested $1,000 into the stock market”

Or even…

“I will get a new Mercedes Benz E320 when I buy and sell my first investment property”

Do you see the power in these? The desire will give you the reason to do something you don't want to do. Now, it goes without saying that your goal should be in line with your accomplishment. Start small and go from there.

I had a cell phone that I absolutely hated. I really wanted a new camera phone. I thought they were so cool. But I wouldn’t let myself get it until I sold my first copy of a shareware program I wrote. It forced me to pull some long nights to get that program out the door. It forced me to improve it. Then the first sale came in and I ran down to the Sprint store and buy my $50 phone. Of course, the software program paid for that cell phone many times over. It still makes money to this day.

Remember, being financially disciplined doesn’t mean you can’t have any fun. In the end you’ll have more fun. You’ll force yourself to make more money and you’ll be further ahead. Once you make the switch you’ll never look back!

20 Years Old

2006-06-27T10:55:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine, Alex is a young ambitious guy. He’s just getting started out with his first corporate job and he’s pretty fired up about it. I asked him today if he’s putting money into his company’s 401K plan. He said he thought about it, but didn’t because he wanted to buy a condo. We did some math and he could hardly believe that $100 a week could earn him $211,000 a month by the time he was 73 years old.

Let’s consider his $20 million dollar fortune. Did he have to out and invent the next Google? Did he have to struggle to become the CEO? Nope.

The only thing it required him to do was show up Monday morning and work his job. In fact, he doesn’t even have to try for a raise. He can blow his paycheck on anything he wants. He will still end up wildly rich.

If you can put money into a 401K at your job and don’t, you’re screwing up. It’s because you think you don’t have enough money. Might I suggest that you don’t have a money-making problem, you have a money-spending problem. Making money is easy. Not spending it is very hard. Especially in this day and age.

401K plans are great because they protect you from yourself. Your company’s payroll department takes the money before you go and spend it! It’s brilliant.

You must have the discipline to save 10% of everything you make if you want to get rich. That’s the magic pill you’re looking for. It’s a principle. When you finally decide to start saving, there will be two hard moments. Both are brief, but you’ll have to overcome them. First, is probably right now as you’re sitting here trying to justify all the reasons you can’t save 10 cents of every dollar. The next one will be your first pay-check after you decide to do it. Notice I said first check. After the second check you’ll never miss the money. The pain is over and you’re on track to being a millionaire.

Un-selling the Retirement Myth….

2006-06-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

Fortune Magazine has a great write-up this month about retirement. Now, I recently wrote about the Baby Boomers having on average $44,000 saved for retirement. But you can’t really get that mad at them. After all, they grew up when everyone believed in pensions and social security.

So how do you fix this mess?

Answer: Let the media ‘sell’ people on the idea that it’s far better to just keep working!

“Who needs retirement anyways?”

“It’s over-rated, statistically you won’t live as long if you retire”

On and on they’ll go…

Keep an eye on this. It will be interesting to watch how this gets played out more and more in the coming years.

Don’t EVER make this Mistake!

2006-06-23T05:49:00.000-07:00

Human beings are funny creatures. Rarely do we use logic to decide much of anything. We are all fueled by emotion.

Pride, ego, self-esteem, and judgment help form our beliefs. We hold on to them dearly. Let’s keep this in mind the next time we decide to tell someone he or she is wrong.

When we tell people they are wrong, that man or women will take it as a personal insult. They will dig in, fight, and argue to protect their belief. It’s an attack on their ego. It won’t do anyone any good.

Instead try this approach. Say nothing! That’s right just sit there and let that fellow boast on and on. Listen to what he’s really saying. You’ll find he’s only starving to have his precious ego fed.

Why is it that we all find it so gratifying to tell someone he or she is wrong? Why is it that we’re so quick to find fault with other people?

Yes, human nature is a funny thing. The next time we feel the urge to tell someone they’re wrong, let’s take a step back. Let them get the psychological sunshine they need. We might just find it makes our day a little nicer too.

Baby Boomers

2006-06-20T11:13:00.000-07:00

Here’s an article on CNN Money. We should be thinking about what will happen to economy when the baby boomers retire. Will we hear a giant sucking sound as they pull their life savings out of the stock market?

Then I read in this article:

“The median amount in a boomer's 401(k) is just over $44,000, according to Hewitt Associates, an employee-benefits consulting group”

It looks like the Baby Boomers aren’t going to retire any time soon.

Tags:Business, Career, Investing, Money

Don’t Quit Your Day Job!

2006-06-19T12:02:00.000-07:00

Perhaps you started a business or made some good investments. The money is starting to pour in. Now it’s time to quit your job right?

If this is you, follow this rule:

Go One Year without cashing a paycheck from your job

Why?

After having a year under your belt you’ll know if you can survive the ups and downs of your new venture. I’ve never seen one that produces the exact same amount of money every month like a job. They all fluctuate.

In that one-year’s time you’re not spending your paychecks. Put them in the bank. Then you’ll have money to fall back on if you need it.

Too many people I know leave their day jobs too early only to regret it a few months later. Don’t put yourself in this situation.

People Making it Happen!

2006-06-16T11:12:00.000-07:00

If you’re looking for a good read check out http://aprivateportfolio.blogspot.com. Here’s a guy that’s out there building passive income. He’s going VIA Real Estate. Not a bad route.

Ironically, I have friend who left his corporate job yesterday. Yes he walked out because he has enough passive income from property rentals to pay his bills. I’m very proud of him. He’s been talking about this for years. I’m sure there were times he wanted to quit. Times it was hard.

But he did it.

Now he has the freedom to do whatever he wants. The best part is he’s only in his 30’s.

Following Up...

2006-06-14T10:51:00.000-07:00

A few days ago we were discussing saving 10% of your money. That’s the only way you’ll get rich.

Let me ask you, have you started yet?

Perhaps this article might help from YourMoney2Keep.com

Do This And The Money Will Follow

2006-06-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

Doesn’t it amaze you how many people spend their day working a job (or business) they don’t like? Think about it. These people spend most of their time doing something they don’t even like to do.

Let me ask you, do you think these people will excel?

If there is one thing you must do to become successful it’s find something you like to do and do it well. Work should be enjoyable not a bore. You should enjoy getting out of bed in the morning and looking forward to each day.

We’ve been talking about getting rich and how you may need to change where you make your money. Might I suggest you start here. Find something you like to do and make a business out of it. If you like sports, sell sporting equipment. If you like music, build a business around that.

Why am I making such a big deal about this? Because whatever you do, it will take a lot of work for you to be successful in it. If you don’t like it, you’ll never put in the work.

Back in 2000, I started building a business that I didn’t like. It was a great opportunity, but I just found the work difficult and not enjoyable. Do you know what happened to that business? It didn’t go anywhere. My heart just wasn’t into it.

I like computers and building things. That’s what I do. I make about 60 times more money doing what I like, than I did in that other business. You know what else, it doesn’t even feel like work. I find it fun.

That’s what you should be doing; having fun. Life’s too short to live it any other way. So, let’s agree to do what we love and the money will follow.

So You Want to Be Rich (Part Five)

2006-06-12T06:32:00.000-07:00

We’ve been talking about some guiding principles that will make you rich. Of course, we’re covering them quickly, but I’m trying to open your mind to a different way of thinking. As you read this, bear in mind that we live in a world where 95% of the people out there don’t do what I’ve told you. They end up working hard with nothing to show for it at the end of their lives. You don’t want that do you? You want to end up rich right?

Now, there is one more principle that I want to cover in this series. Without following this you simply won’t ever get rich. As I said before, you might make a lot of money, but you won’t get rich.

Let me ask you, why do you want to get rich? Really think about it. Could it be to get some financial pressure off your back? Would you just like an extra $100,000 in a bank account? I’ll bet you would.

You see most people spend everything they make. No matter how much money they make, they spend it. That’s why they want to make more money. They think it will solve their problem. It won’t. I know, you’re thinking, “Come on Bryan, If I’m making an extra $5,000 a month I won’t have any money problems”. This will be true for a little while. But, your spending habits will catch with you. A downturn in your business or job and all the sudden you have money problems again.

The good news is, by using this one principle you’ll certainly be rich. Here it is:

“Save 10 percent of what you earn”

Engrain this into your thinking. Above all else do this. Start today. Open a free account with http://www.ingdirect.com/. It’s easy to do and they offer the best savings rates of any bank I’ve seen. Set it up to take 10% out of your pay automatically every week. Here’s why:

Why do you think the government takes taxes out of your paycheck? Why don’t they trust you to just pay them at the end of the year? What do they know that you don’t know?

I’ll tell you what they know: They know you’ll spend the money! They want to get paid before you spend it on a new big-screen TV.

Do yourself a favor. Pay yourself first. You’re more important than anyone else. You’re more important than Visa, Master Card, or a new computer. These things will take care of themselves. You’ll always find a way to pay them.

I can hear you now, “But Bryan I can’t save 10% I don’t even have enough money now”. You know something, everyone feels that way. But, I’ll give you a tip: You only have to get by for 4 weeks. After that you’ll never miss the money. I know you can’t believe this, but it’s true. That’s the magic of saving and paying yourself first.

Here’s another Tip: If you don’t build the habit now, it will be harder to build when you do start making more money. Do you really think it’s easier to save $1,000 a month out of $10,000? It’s not. It’s much easier to save $50 out of $500.

When you do this, the money will build up. Even just by working a regular job you’ll end up richer and richer as time passes. In fact anyone who simply did this, at any income level, would amass a fortune. If you think about it, it really seems silly that something so simple; something that takes 5 minutes to set up will make you rich. Nobody does it because they can let go of that 10%.

Start saving 10% of what you earn today. If you don’t do this, you’ll never get rich! When you do it, you’ll wonder how you lived your life any other way.

Go back and read Part Four

So You Want to Be Rich (Part Four)

2006-06-09T09:49:00.000-07:00

Over the last few days we’ve learned that you can’t just go out and work hard to get rich. You need to work smart too. You do this by putting effort into projects that will earn you passive-leveraged income.

The downside is that this kind of money is tricky to make because you’ll put in a lot of work up front before you ever make a dime. Hopefully, you’ve been thinking “What can I do today to start building passive income so I can get rich?”

As I alluded to, there are a lot of good opportunities out there. Here are a few to hopefully get your mind thinking:

Internet Businesses – This is single best place where you can start building a passive income stream. You can start looking online right now for business ideas. Many of them don’t require hardly any money to start, but they do take a lot of work. My only tip for you is to stay away from anything that sounds too good to be true.

Real-Estate – Buy a house and rent it out. Yes, those late night infomercials are on to something. Again, expect to do a lot of work. It’s not easy money like the late-night snake oil salesmen like to tell you.

Stocks – This one will take money. But if you start small you can build a fortune. Here you’re leveraging money.

Franchises – Again, this one will take some money, but franchises already have a proven system in place. You’ll most likely work like a dog for a few years before your business gets off the ground. Then you’ll begin to enjoy the passive income it can bring.

I’m sure there are more, but these come to mind pretty quickly.

The most important thing is that start looking. Keep your eyes open for opportunities; they are everywhere.

There is one final principle that you’ll need to become rich. Without it, you’ll just make a lot of money and I’ll talk about that in my next article. Please read the next article. It will make the single biggest difference in your life if everything else fails.

Go Back and read Part Three or continue reading Part Five

So you Want to Be Rich (Part Three)

2006-06-08T06:52:00.000-07:00

We’ve been looking at different incomes and hopefully you’re seeing that leveraged passive income will make you much richer than trading time for money.

So why don’t more people do this?

Partially, it’s because they don’t know. But society plays a big part too. Consider that most people spend way too many hours watching TV. On a TV show the crime is solved in a ½ hour. Someone instantly wins a million dollars. A home gets remodeled in 30 minutes. TV is teaching us to expect things to happen almost instantly. People expect life to work that way too.

Here’s the problem with leveraged passive income:

You will put a lot of work into earning passive income before you make any money. In the beginning, you do a lot of work for free without any proof that it will earn you any money down the road.

There it is. It’s just that simple. You see, at a job, you work 40 hours (or more) your first week. You wait about a week or two, and then you get paid. A passive income project could take years before you see your first dime. People just get impatient. How long would you show up to work if you didn’t get a paycheck? For most people I’d bet they wouldn’t work longer than a month for a company if they didn’t get paid right away.

If you were to graph most passive income projects they look like this:

In the beginning you don’t make hardly any money. But years down the road (read that again, I did say years), your passive income can exceed what you make at your job. Now you have time and money. By most standards you’re rich!

You now have free time to make more money if you want, or you can slow down and enjoy life a little more.

Hopefully I’ve sold you on the idea of working for a worthwhile passive income project and not simply working for money. In the next article we’ll look at few ways you can start generating this precious income. Some of them take more money than others, but I assure you that even with no money you can build a substantial passive income stream if you simply stick to it.

Go Back and Read Part Two or continue reading Part Four

Business

Career

So You Want to be Rich (Part Two)

2006-06-07T10:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we looked at a principle called Leverage. We learned that people who use leverage could get richer than those who don’t.

Today we’re going to learn about another concept. This one has to do with what type of money you are earning.

Essentially, there are two types of incomes you can earn. They are Active Income and Passive Income.

Active Income is money you get for doing something. It’s much like non-leveraged income. You work and hour, you get paid for an hour. Like we’ve already discussed, this type of income is very limited because you only have so many hours in a week.

Passive Income is money you earn today from something you’ve done in the past. This is also called residual income. You might be asking “How can I get paid today for something I’ve done a year ago?”

Think about Elvis Presley. He made a lot of money this year even though he’s been dead for some time. He (or his family) gets a small percentage of money from all his record, CD, and Tape sales. He made the original recordings decades ago.

Now, I know you’re sitting there thinking “Great. I can’t do what he did. He was a rock star!” This may be true, but the idea is to start thinking in these terms. In the next article you will learn about different ways of generating passive income that you or anybody could do. The good news is you live in a time where this type of income has never been easier to make. In fact it’s a heck of a lot easier for you than it was for Elvis! There are a lot of average Joes living some pretty amazing lifestyles and getting plenty rich off passive income.

At this point you should be thinking about how you make your money. You want to put all your work into building up income that is leveraged and passive. Of course you may need to feed your family right now and you may need to work a regular job for some non-leveraged active income. That’s fine. You just want to start putting more work into income that will pay off years from now rather than just making a quick buck.

Ask yourself: What Kind of Money do I make? What percentage is leveraged? What percentage is Passive? This will give you a big clue into how Rich you can become!

Back to reading Part One or continue reading Part Three

Business
Career

So You Want to be Rich?

2006-06-06T07:40:00.000-07:00

It seems everywhere you turn lately somebody’s got a plan to make you Rich. People seem to think money will take away their problems. Truthfully, it will not, but if money problems are keeping you up at night then something must be done. As the saying goes “Whatever you’re doing isn’t working”.

Let’s look at a big reason why some people become rich and most don’t.

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to get ahead so easily, while other struggle? Why do some people work so hard, but have so little to show for it? One of the big reasons is Leverage.

So what is Leverage?

When it comes to making a buck, leverage has to do with getting more out than you put in. It’s usually from using other people’s time or borrowing other people’s money. You can leverage someone’s money and make a good investment. You can sell a big job, pay someone else to do the work and keep the profit.

Without leverage you simply can’t get rich because there are only 168 hours in a week. Many people only know how to work more hours. Take a doctor for example; we’ll call him Dr. Bob. Perhaps Dr. Bob can charge $150 per hour for his time. He could make $25,000 per week if he worked every single hour, which of course is entirely impossible. But you get the point.

Hourly workers get stuck in another pinch. You end up trading time for money. Dr. Bob might have money, but he doesn’t have any free time. He’s money rich and time broke. We really want both don’t we?

Dr. Bob could hire three junior Doctors and pay them $100 per hour. He could keep the other $50 per hour for himself. Effectively he earns the same $150 per hour for doing nothing. Of course it’s not that easy, but you can see how leverage could let Dr. Bob enjoy the summer on his new Yacht. What would happen if he had five junior doctors working for him? How about 20 or 100?

If you want to get rich you need to think this way. This is a natural law just like gravity. When you drop a ball it always falls down, it never falls up!

To you, leveraged income should be worth 10 times more than hourly income even if it’s only a few dollars a month to start with. Why? Because you can grow a few dollars into empire by using more leverage. It gets even better because as your leveraged income grows you get more free time. That’s something Dr. Bob will never have!

Read Part Two

Spam Theory: 101

2006-06-05T20:57:00.000-07:00

This is still a ‘work-in-progress’ but here it goes:

Bryan Fleming’s First Law of Spam: The amount of Spam an Internet System receives is in proportion to its popularity. It is also inversely proportional to the cost of sending a message through that system.

So let’s start testing this:

A big system that’s free will get a lot of Spam. Think about these:

- Email (Check)
- Search Engines (Check)
- Blogs (Check) – ever heard of comment Spam? How about Splogs (Spam-Blogs)?
- Instant Messaging (Check)
- Chat Rooms (Check)
- Hmm… I wonder how My-Space is doing??

Now let’s think of some big systems that cost money:

- Yahoo paid directory ($300 a year). No Spam there…
- Google Ad-sense. We’ll there’s certainly less Spam as the cost per keyword increases.

Of course the only reason little systems don’t get Spam is because they’re not popular yet.

I’m going to keep working on this one, but I think I’m on to something here. If anyone thinks I’m wrong. Tell me!

Word of the Day

2006-06-02T06:09:00.000-07:00

Net-Neutrality: Do you think it bothers your Internet provider when you make calls over the Internet free? Then you turn around and cancel their phone service?

Services like Vonage offer unlimited phone usage for about $25 a month. This is much cheaper than a home phone line. Ebay is doing the same thing with a service called Skype, which is completely free. It’s called VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) and it has the phone companies burning mad.

Net-Neutrality is the principle that if you’re paying your phone company for Internet access, they cannot block data because they don’t like the websites or Internet Services you’re using. You can learn more about it here.

This is a red-hot topic in Washington as phone companies pay off politicians to push through a law allowing them to block VOIP traffic.

Interestingly this practice was made illegal in Europe, but is still up in the air in the old U.S.A.

Why a Business Degree won’t help you start a Business

2006-06-01T07:02:00.000-07:00

Pam runs a great blog called Escape from Cubicle Nation. It talks about people wanting to leave their day job and start their own business. It’s a great read.

Today she has a post about weather or not a college degree matters in business.

My opinion is that a college degree is great for the job market, but has nothing to do with the business world. Consider this…..

When you go to college, think about who’s teaching you?

Are these people successful business owners themselves? If so, why are they working for $50K a year?

Here’s my point: If I’ve never done something myself, how can I teach you how to do it?

A better plan: Find someone who’s living the lifestyle you want, and offer to buy him or her a cup of coffee. They’ll tell you exactly how to do it! It costs a lot less than a college degree and you’ll gain so much more.

How to Land Your Dream Job

2006-05-31T10:30:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure the other day to speak with a top recruiter in the Detroit Area. I asked him what the 3 top skills are to determine if someone gets hired by a company. What he said shocked me:

Here they are in order of importance:

#1 Good Communication Skills

#2 Good Networking Skills (not computer networks, we’re talking people here)

#3 Technical Skills

Here’s the kicker. He places people in the computer industry.

How the Federal Reserve Affects Your Life…

2006-05-30T11:43:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine was asking about the stock market and why it’s been so lousy lately. A large part of it has to do with the Federal Reserve raising Interest Rates. So why does this make the stock market go down? Why should you care?

Basically the Federal Reserve is trying to keep people working, while keeping inflation low. It’s a sort of balancing act. They do this by raising and lowering Interest Rates.

When interest rates are low (think 2001-2004), money is easy to get. We (as a nation) typically go out and buy big homes, big screen TVs, and new cars. We spend the money. But, if this goes on too much, companies figure out they can start charging a lot more for that home or car. This happened in the housing market recently as interest rates were historically low. Home prices were rising at historical rates. This is called inflation. When it kicks in, soon you find your dollar doesn’t go very far. After all, who wants their paycheck to only buy ½ of what it did a year ago?

The Stock Market hates higher interest rates because let’s face it. If I can get a 6% rate of return in a savings account why would I risk investing in a company? The company has to pay me a much higher return on my money because there is risk, and money is more expensive for them to borrow. The Federal Reserve has one heck of a tool for putting the squeeze on Wall Street.

In the past year and half the Federal Reserve has been relentless on raising interest rates. They believe the economy is very strong and want to slow it down to stop inflation. That’s why when you turn on the TV, the stock market has been going down… down… down. As more ‘good news’ of the strong economy comes up in government reports, investors know it builds the case for another increase in Interest Rates. This creates stock market panic. We’re seeing a lot that today.

Beware: The Federal Reserve is far from perfect. Sometimes they over raise interest rates and things backfire sending the economy into a recession. Try this simple inflation test. Look at items at your local home depot or grocery store. Are their prices noticeably higher than they were a year ago? If so, you’re seeing inflation first hand.

The Truth About Starting Anything New…

2006-05-26T10:54:00.000-07:00

Last week we talked about the four ways people approach a new skill or project. We saw how most fail, and really only one type of person ultimately succeeds. We also looked at how the success curve is far from a straight line. Many times you’ll work long hours with no apparent progress. Only after long periods will you see a quick burst of progress, followed by another long plateau.

I didn’t make this stuff up. In fact, I read it in a book. Mastery by George Leonard (Aff) talks about this very subject. I read lots of books, but this is the best I’ve read in a long time. If you want a good read, pick up it up at your local bookstore. It will give you a stronger understanding of why success in anything takes such a long time. You’ll gain a stronger understanding of success as a journey. Not a climatic scene like TV is constantly portraying.

George gets deep into these ideas. On this blog I’ve only touched on them. From reading the book, you get the impression he is a very disciplined guy. I personally recommend this book.

Meet the Master

2006-05-25T05:40:00.000-07:00

Thursday we looked at the path to success and the four different ways people approach it. You can read this article here. Over the past few days, we’ve look at the Dabbler, the Obsessive, and the Hacker. Today we’ll look at the Master.

The Master approaches a new skill differently from the rest. They know up front that anything worth learning will take time. They see learning their new skill as a life long process. A journey. They expect there will be quick results at times, but most of the work is done in the valley. The mountain top experience is rare. There will be long periods of no growth followed by short growth spurts. They understand the growth curve looks like this:

As we have learned Mastering anything takes time. Lots of it. Tomorrow we’ll look at why more people don’t have a long-term attitude towards success. I’ll reveal where I’m getting this information too, since truthfully, I’m just not smart enough to have figured all this stuff out.

Meet the Hacker

2006-05-24T12:15:00.000-07:00

Thursday we looked at the path to success and the four different ways people approach it. You can read this article here. Over the past few days, we’ve looked at the Dabbler and the Obsessive. Today we’ll look at the Hacker.

The Hacker – The Hacker is unlike the Dabbler and Obsessive because they will stick with something over the long haul. Because they don’t quit, they do get some success. The Hacker’s biggest problem is complicacy.

They are happy at whatever level they’re at. They don’t want to excel any further. Hackers don’t do anything to improve their skills. If it’s a marriage, they’re happy sitting home watching TV every night. After all, they ARE married right? In their jobs they do enough to get by, but you won’t catch them in any improvement classes. Nor will you see them networking in professional development clubs.

The Hacker is certainly better than the Dabbler and the Obsessive. But, they won’t reach the echelon of success. To do that you must be a Master, which we will cover tomorrow.

Meet the Obsessive

2006-05-23T08:02:00.000-07:00

Thursday we looked at the path to success and the four different ways people approach it. You can read this article here. Today we’ll look at the second of these people – The Obsessive.

The Obsessive – This person starts out with much more enthusiasm than the Dabbler. If it’s a diet, they’re counting the calories. They’re putting in 5 hours a day at the gym. They get better results from the dabbler because of all their effort. Like the story of the rabbit and the turtle; they burn out. To find these people, look for the newbies that are overly enthusiastic. They won’t be around long.

What the Dabbler and the Obsessive have in common is they love the rush of starting projects. They lack the patience and self discipline too see thing through. The inevitable back slide that will occur in any venture gets the best of them and they’re off to something new again.

Tomorrow we’ll look at the third type of person – The Hacker. You’ll see they actually can persevere through the tuff times and don’t get derailed so easily.

It Sucks to be Bill Gates....

2006-05-22T14:09:00.000-07:00

Your company is doing OK, but the stock prices doesn't go up.

Your Development team is stuggling to get Windows Vista to market, and the world is criticizing you.

Everyone is screaming that your product is not secure. So you do something about it.

Now you get this.

Truthfully I HATE Symantec and I'm glad God has a sense of humor. It's too bad Microsoft has to put up with such cry babies....

Meet the Dabbler

2006-05-22T06:10:00.000-07:00

Thursday we looked at the path to success and the four different ways people approach it. You can read this article here. Today we’ll look at the first of these people – The Dabbler.

The Dabbler – They approach every new sport, relationship, or career with enormous excitement in the beginning. They really like the idea of the refresh start. They love learning, growing, and the quick results that come from starting anything new. They usually bail out early on when they start hitting their first obstacles.

They’ll usually say, “It wasn’t for me”. You can tell who these people are, because they’re always talking about their new venture. These people are eternal kids. They never make it through the pitfalls it takes to become a success at anything. They jump from each new thing like a frog on a lily pad.

Who Are You?

2006-05-18T10:34:00.000-07:00

Ahh… the path to ‘success’ is a long one indeed. Too many times we all get impatient. We want things on our time. Perhaps television is the cause. Perhaps it’s just human nature in general.

When we start new projects/endeavors we end up being one of four people….

The Dabbler, The Obsessive, The Hacker, and the Master.

Of course it’s only the master that ends up becoming the over-night success we hear about. Yes, that over-night success many times was years and years in the making.

Over the next four days I’ll be talking about our friends The Dabbler, The Obsessive, The Hacker, and the Master in more detail.

Which one are you?

Wall-Street Demystified Bear vs. Bull

2006-05-17T10:20:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered what these terms mean? Often you hear a reporter say, “We’re in a bear market”. What’s that all about anyways?

A bear market means the market is going down. A bull market means the market is going up. Great. So how did anybody come up with this?

It turns out that this has to do with how these animals attack!

A bear swipes down with its claws. A bull pushed up with its horns.

Here comes the RealEstate E-Boom!

2006-05-16T07:48:00.000-07:00

I’ve wrestled with this one for a while. It’s hard to get a grip around, but the numbers are certainly growing…

Just as the RealEstate boom is slowing in the U.S. another one is forming. The only problem is, it’s not here on earth…. This boom will be in online games or virtual worlds.

Consider this:

Jon Jacobs purchased a ‘Space Station’ for $100,000 (real U.S. dollars) in a game called Project Entropia back in October 2005. Everyone laughed at him. Now he earns $15,000/month in rent. Again in real U.S. Dollars.

Second Life, a game that’s dedicated to a virtual world was designed with a built-in virtual economy. It’s churning $5,000,000/month in real U.S. dollar transactions.

Anshe Chung, Second Life's most notable land baron, makes $175k per year flipping virtual real estate.

Here are some more stats to think about…

Why Public Schools Fail

2006-05-15T14:58:00.000-07:00

MerryOne has a great post talking about Public Schools vs. Private Scools. She's making the argument for Catholic Schools. Couldn't the same be true for private schools in General?

Now, it's been said that a state pays $10,000/year per child. Consider an average classroom has 30 children. Where's all the money going? Last time I checked a teacher didn't earn $300,000 per year.

What would happen if the state 'attached' $10,000 to the child? Then the parents could choose what school to send thier kids too. Free market competition would take over indeed.

Right now, there is simply no accountability. One more miserable example of why goverments fail.

Windows Updates

2006-05-12T10:40:00.000-07:00

Mitch brings up a good point here. You know, as a software developer having software on a ton of desktops, you see trends where Microsoft breaks software. I think the big problem here is the Windows Development team is under the gun to keep windows just as updated as a website. So there isn't enough testing.

Mitch is right we're all Beta Testers...

In case you all missed it. Microsoft pushed down their Windows Authentication tool to look for pirated copies of windows. hhmmm... didn't see that one in the news.

http://www.writingup.com/mitchell_allen/public_service_announcement_automatic_windows_updates

Haloscan TrackBack Added...

2006-05-12T10:29:00.000-07:00

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

This is pretty cool stuff. It will let me reference other blogz...

How to get your Child’s MySpace Password

2006-05-11T08:17:00.000-07:00

I thought I’d switch gears a little today….

There’s a lot in the press these days about kids on MySpace. If you keep an eye on shows like Dateline you’ll see it’s astounding the number of older men trying to pick up young teenage girls through MySpace.com. For parents this can be scary.

If you suspect your child is acting ‘strange’ you might want to get into their MySpace account to see who their ‘friends’ are. Doing this pretty easy.

Now, I have to tell you I’m promoting software that I wrote. It’s for sale on the Internet. However, I’m going to show you a trick to get their password without paying a dime. The reason I’m posting this is because we’re blown away at the number of people that email us with horror stories about MySpace and what they’ve found out.

Here are a few things you must know:

- You must have access to the child’s computer to do this. You can’t get passwords from someone say 100 miles away
- The child must be using Internet Explorer for their browser. If they use Firefox (as of today) all bets are off. This will change very soon.

So here’s what you do:

Download PC Tattletale from http://www.pctattletale.com
Install it on your kid’s computer
Follow the set up instructions
Wait until they go on the computer
Their password will be emailed to you
After you get their password, uninstall the software

Because we offer a free trial period, you won’t need to pay anything. Plus you’ll have their password sitting around to keep on eye on their behavior.

Home Lenders: The Beginning of the End

2006-05-10T06:54:00.000-07:00

So, Interest rates look like they’re going up again. There are a lot of people who’ve been making a pile of money in the lending business over the past few years. Now, they’re starting to feel pinch.

Truthfully, we’ll look back on these last five years as a time of crooked home lending. The lenders have been writing loans to people who shouldn’t have gotten them. Now, as their business dries up I read their latest trick……

The 50-year Mortgage!

So let’s see. We can have an interest-only adjustable-rate 50-year mortgage. So now we can still buy that $200,000 home for $800 a month. Wow. Truly Amazing.

What you should look for….

There will be a high default rate on the mortgages in the coming years. Once that hits, the pendulum will swing and home loans will be very hard to get. The government (read taxpayers) will get stuck with the tab.

The Realtors and Lenders need to face the facts… The real-estate boom is over. They should talk to the dot-com’ers too see how to cope with this. These lending tricks are getting old.

Highest Paying U.S. Jobs...

2006-05-08T15:19:00.000-07:00

I found this on http://www.msn.com/. My Question to you:

What 2 costs are spiraling out of control in this country?

Answer:

- Gasonline
- Healthcare

Ok, now look at the list………

Surgeon -- $181,850*
Anesthesiologist -- $174,610
OB/GYN -- $174,610
Oral and maxillofacial surgeon -- $169,600
Internist -- $156,790
Prosthodontist -- $156,710
Orthodontist -- $153,240
Psychiatrist -- $151,380
Pediatrician -- $140,000
Chief Executive Officer -- $140,880
Engineering Manager -- $140,210
Family or general practitioner -- $137,980
Physician/surgeon, all other -- $137,100
Dentist -- $132,660 -- $111,130
Airline Pilot -- $134,090
Lawyer -- $110,590
Air Traffic Controller -- $100,430
Dentist, any other specialist -- $106,040
Computer and Information Systems Manager -- $100,110
Marketing Manager -- $100,020
Natural Sciences Manager -- $97,560
Sales Manager -- $96,950Astronomer -- $96,780

Kaaching!! Microsoft to buy Yahoo

2006-05-08T08:07:00.000-07:00

This would shake things up a bit in the tech world. It’s interesting to ponder and it would rock the search engine wars. A while back Microsoft tried to work a deal with AOL and got the door slammed in their face when AOL went with Google. So now a mega Yahoo/Microsoft merger is in the news.

A closer look…

Microsoft has $40 billion in cash. Yahoo wants over $80 billion. So Microsoft just gets a loan right? Of course I’m kidding.

Seriously, Microsoft takes a lot of pride in their technology. They are planning on spending billions to build a massive service infrastructure for both corporate and consumer customers. The cost of such a network with hundreds of thousands of servers scattered around the world is staggering. In fact only a few companies in the world could even begin to make this investment. Do you see where I’m going with this?

Microsoft is excited about the infrastructure costs because it limits the number of competitors. A couple of kids in a college dorm won’t be able to enter the new game. So do they want to buy Yahoo? I don’t think so.

Too see where Microsoft is pouring their energy check http://www.windowslive.com. Yep, that little URL is Bill Gates’ new baby.

Electric Car Smokes Ferrari 360 & Porsche GT

2006-05-05T05:05:00.000-07:00

There is an awesome article in CNN today about a California Start up company. Apparently they’ve built an electric car that’s faster than a Ferrari 360 and Porsche GT. Being from Detroit it seems that Silicon Valley could be our next big competitor. My question is why these guys can crank these cars out for around $100,000 and it took GM over $1,000,000 to build one? Sounds like one hell of an improvement from a Golf Cart!

Here’s the CNN Article:

Wireless Cable TV is Finally Here

2006-05-04T10:19:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wanted cable TV in another room of your house that didn’t have a cable jack? This recently happened to me and I took a risk with wireless Cable TV. It paid off big time.

In theory it’s possible to have one of your cable boxes wirelessly broadcast cable through your home. To do this you’ll need a wireless TV broadcaster. They cost around $50. But the big question is do they really work?

I bought such a device from http://www.x10.com/. You should have no problems with this device. I set mine up to broadcast about 30 feel through a wall. The video comes through crystal clear.

Now, it does not do HDTV. So you have to keep that in mind. Also, if you’re in the room with wireless TV you might have a hard time changing the channels. They do offer a remote control feedback feature, but I didn’t need to hook this up. I don’t believe this will work with Digital cable (Comcast).

One last drawback is the wireless TV will have to watch the same channel as the sender TV. For most applications this really isn’t a big deal.

I’m writing about this device because it worked well and I’m happy with it. Keep this device in mind if you want TV in a room that’s not wired for it.

Royal Caribbean Cruises, What you need to know: Part Two

2006-05-02T08:04:00.000-07:00

Today I’ll give some inside information about Royal Caribbean excursions. This is for the 7 day Caribbean cruises on the Voyager of the Seas. The 4 stops are Labadee, Haiti; Ocho Rios, Jamaica; George Town, Grand Cayman; Cozumel, Mexico.

Labadee (Monday) – Royal Caribbean will relentlessly push the Jet Ski tours on you. I believe its $80 (it can hold 2 people). Some of our group did this, but the adventure was short lived. Furthermore, locals wanting to sell them shirts and crafts approached them on the water while they were trying to Jet Ski. I was told the experience was a little scary. You should put the $80 or $160 towards a deluxe suite on the ship. Instead, sit on the beach and maybe rent a $10 floating mat. Royal Caribbean offers a free lunch while you’re there.

Ocho Rios, Jamaica (Tuesday) – Ocho Rios is a ruff town, but the people are very nice and really want to help get you anything you need. There is a small walled off section where you can hang out. It includes a Jimmy Buffet Margaritaville bar and sandy beach. It’s nice to walk through, but since you can eat for free on the ship why run up a $100 bar tab eating there? Nice to visit, but you’ll probably stay on the ship that day.

Grand Cayman (Wednesday) – People from my group did the stingray excursion and loved it for $40 a person. If you want to save some money, spend $8 and catch a cab to 7-mile beach. It’s beautiful. You won’t be disappointed. Shopping is expensive.

Cozumel Mexico (Thursday) – Booze cruise for $40 a person was a lot of fun and entertaining. Be prepared to drink a lot (it’s free). However, no lunch is provided. A friend rented a motor scooter. It broke down 10 miles out of town and he had to run back to the ship in the blazing heat. I’d stay away from those for that reason. You’ll notice the area has not recovered from the hurricanes. The large shipping docks are wiped out and they are trying desperately to tender tourists in from the ships that still visit. If do any shopping do it here. The local communicate really could use the money. While there, you’ll notice all of the hotels are concrete shells. Everything has been blown out. The hotels are not opened yet.

Hopefully this helps you when you travel with Royal Caribbean on the Voyager of the Seas.

Royal Caribbean Cruises, What you need to know: Part One

2006-05-01T07:10:00.000-07:00

After returning from a 7-day cruise on Voyager of the Seas, I thought I’d give you the skinny about how Royal Caribbean operates.

You will board the ship on a Saturday. During that day only you can buy a free drink pass for $40. Buy it. You’ll certainly drink that much in soda pop and you’ll be far ahead. Secondly, they offer (on the 11th deck) a prepaid wine package. Again, take them up on this. You’ll spend about $175-$200 and you’ll be far ahead again. The wine is served with dinner and for 2 people one bottle a night is more than plenty. I bought the 7-bottle package and gave away 2 bottles the last night. The 5-bottle package would have been perfect.

Voyager of the Seas is a breathtaking ship both in size and scale. As room accommodations go, I would pay the extra money for a suite on Deck 10. These rooms are much larger than a normal stateroom and have a very large private balcony. This is a big deal because you should know that the normal staterooms are very cramped and may not have any view of daylight whatsoever. Think of living in a closet for a week straight.

The suites offer free drinks between 5:00 – 7:00 pm. You will recover much of the extra cost of the room by using the free bar for guests on this deck only.
I will talk about the excursions on the ship and which ones are worth going on.

On Vacation Until May 1st

2006-04-21T17:18:00.000-07:00

Time for SunShine. I'll be on this ship leaving from Miami:

Royal Carribean

E85 Fuel now offered in Michigan

2006-04-20T19:45:00.000-07:00

An Article in the Detroit Free Press today mentioned that E85 is now being offered throughout Michigan. The new fuel will be sold through Meijer’s chain of gas stations in the state.

This is exciting news since E85 can be used in most cars already on the road today. The price per gallon is expected to be $.40 less than 87-octane gasoline. Additionally, the new fuel will not emit environmentally damaging gases.

E85 is refined from Biodegradable sources such as corn. The fuel has a lot of promise because it would allow the United States to essentially grow its own fuel source that is renewable every year. General Motors has recently launched a large marketing campaign to promote the fuel as an alternative to Hybrid-Vehicles.

[Source: The Detroit Free Press; Meijers]

Housing Prices Force 211,014 New Yorkers to Leave

2006-04-20T05:15:00.000-07:00

What happens when the average home price in your state skyrockets to $427,600? For many people you’ve got no choice but to live somewhere else.

Apparently this has been happening in some of the hottest areas of the country where housing prices have surged in the past few years.

So where do you go when you’re priced out of your hometown? Somewhere warm of course! Many of these people are relocating to areas such as Florida where the average home price is less than ½ of places like New York (approx $223,000).

With Interest Rates on the rise this trend is likely to get worse. Home prices in a lot of these high priced areas will simply make housing no longer affordable for average people.

If you want to find out more CNN Money has a great article talking about this alarming trend. Search for an article called ‘Housing prices put Americans on the move’. It’s a great read!

Duke Rape: Amazing Details

2006-04-19T08:25:00.000-07:00

Compilation of reported details and defense disclosure of "time stamped photographic evidence" from the Duke lacrosse team party, Monday March 13th.

You be the judge!!!

2:00 PM Neighbor Jason Bissey sees at least five men standing in the backyard of 610 N. Buchanan drinking beer.

4:00 PM Bissey sees several young men drinking in the backyard.

8:30 PM The accuser is called by her escort agency and told to report to the Buchanan Boulevard house that night
11:02 PM (Time stamp on student camera) Students are hanging out in a living room (at 610 N. Buchanan), apparently waiting for the dancer to arrive. Most have drinking cups in their hands.

11:02:36 PM Men are sitting around the house. Many have plastic cups in their hands.

11:08:28 PM Men throw their arms in the air as if they are cheering and posing for the camera.

11:09:25 PM A closer picture of a few men posing for the camera.

11:30 PM Bissey, after being out for a while, returns to his apartment. He sees approximately 30 people enter the house. Several young men are gathered near the back door of 610 N. Buchanan.

11:30 PM (Police report) Complainant arrived 610 N. Buchanan road and joins another stripper from another escort service to perform for occupants of residence. They danced for only a few minutes (approximately 4 minutes) before males became aggressive and rowdy.One asked if the dancers had any "sex toys". When the dancers said "no" a broomstick was waved and dancers were jeered at. Dancers left and got into stripper #2's vehicle.
Complainant says some boys apologized and the two women went back into the residence, but were separated. She says two boys, "Adam" and "Matt" pulled her into the bathroom at the residence. She says she was physically assaulted, raped, and strangled by "Adam", "Bret", and "Matt" for approximately 30 minutes. (She also says that one or more names could have been aliases, and one of the names of the attackers was "Dan" -- presumed to be Dan Flannery -- one of the males who made the reservations with the escort service.)

11:50 PM Bissey, on his porch, notices two women walk to the back of the house, where a man greets them.

11:55 PM Bissey sees the two women go into the house.

Midnight (Time stamp on student camera) The dancer is sprawled on her stomach on the floor, as a second dancer stands over her. Students are watching the show but not grabbing or attempting to touch the women. Bruises are clearly visible on the legs and thighs of the alleged victim.

March 14, 2006
12:00:12 AM The first picture of the dancers. The accuser, wearing pink and white lace lingerie, is lying face down on the floor.

12:00:21 AM The accuser and the second dancer are dancing together.

12:00:29 AM Dancers are performing. The accuser has what looks like bruising on her knees. Her right shoe is missing from her foot. It can be seen in the background.

12:00:40 AM The two dancers are performing. A crowd of about 15 men is visible in the photo. The men are sitting on couches. They are not showing much reaction.
12:01:16 AM(Time stamp on student camera) The second dancer is lying on her back on the floor with the alleged rape victim kneeling over her.

12:02:16 AM The accuser is on top of the second dancer. The accuser's right thumbnail does not have a fingernail or polish on it. Her right pinky nail also doesn't have a nail. The men are smiling. The dancers are smiling.

12:02:46 AM A young man, who appears to be passed out, sitting in a chair.

12:03:57 AM The dancers are leaving the room after performing for four minutes. The photo clearly shows that the alleged victim left one of her shoes behind as she departed.

12:03:57 AM The dancers by the door. The accuser's right shoe is on the floor. The men in the room are sitting. Their facial expressions have changed.

12:10:39 AM A young man passed out. His shorts are slightly pulled down.

12:15-12:20 AM Bissey hears voices in the alley beside the house. At least two men are discussing money, one saying, "It's only $100." Bissey sees a man leaning into the window of a car parked outside the house. One of the women he saw earlier gets out of the car and says she needs to get her shoe. She walks to the back door of the house.

12:30:12 AM The alleged victim is on the back porch. She has a shoe only on her left foot as she appears to smile and apparently tries to get back inside.

12:30:12 AM The accuser is on the back steps of the house, alone. Her right shoe is off. She has a purse and makeup bag. Her clothes appear intact.

12:30:34 AM The accuser is still on the back steps of the house.

12:30:47 AM The accuser is on the stairwell of the back steps. Her mouth is open and her teeth are showing.

12:31:26 AM The alleged victim appears to be stumbling down the back steps of the house.

12:37:58 AM A series of photos beginning at this time shows the woman lying on her left side on the back porch, seemingly passed out or asleep. Pink splotches are on a wrought-iron railing beside her. She had visible cuts on her legs and buttocks that did not appear in the previous photos.

12:38:07 AM The accuser is lying on the back steps. A tan object can be seen in the background.

12:38:18 AM The accuser is still on the ground.

12:41:32 AM The accuser is seen getting into a black Honda Accord helped by a partgoer.

Between 12:45 AND 1 A.M.: Bissey sees a car, which at least one of the women had been in earlier, speed away. One man standing across from the house, on the Duke campus, shouts, "... Thank your grandpa for my nice cotton shirt." Several men come out of the house; Bissey hears at least one of them say, "Guys, let's go," repeatedly. Within minutes, there is silence. The lights at 610 Buchanan are dim, and no one is outside.)

12:53 AM (Police) Female calls 911 to report racial epithets being shouted from residence at 610 N. Buchanan Road. (stripper #2.)

12:55 AM Police arrive and see evidence of a party at the house, but no stragglers. No one answers the door, and police can't find the woman who called 911.

1:00 AM (ABC News) Time a female security guard at Kroger recalls a woman (stripper #2) coming into the store and complaining about being unable to get a woman out of her car who she had picked up walikng down the street.
On the tape of the guard telling this to a reporter on April 3, the guard recounts the conversation she had with the the dancer who came into the store: The woman told the guard she was driving down the street and heard people yelling racial slurs at a woman she had never met before, then, out of sympathy, she picked up the woman and brought her to the Kroger parking lot.

1:06 AM Police leave residence on Buchanan.

About 1:20 AM Security guard at Kroger encounters woman who says she has a person in her car who is drunk and won't get out.

1:22 AM (Police report) Durham Police called to Kroger store on Hillsborough Road. Durham police received a call from a security guard at a Kroger grocery store located on Hillsborough Road. The guard told the 911 dispatcher that woman named Kim, the second dancer at the party, pulled up and was worried about her friend. She said the alleged victim did not smell like alcohol.

About 1:30 AM First officer to arrive at the Kroger tells the dispatcher: "She's 10-56 and unconscious." The radio code 10-56 means an intoxicated person.
The dispatcher asks: "You need a medic truck or are you 10-4?"
The officer replies: "She's breathing, appears to be fine, she's not in distress. She's just passed out drunk."

About 1:35 AM Second officer arrives and takes accuser to police dept.( or psychiatric hospital). Officer referred to DUMC Emergency Center.

1:58 AM An e-mail talking about plans for a party that would involve killing dancers is sent from a computer located in 2C Edens Dorm, according to a Durham police search warrant. The e-mail is signed "41," which is lacrosse player Ryan McFadyen's jersey number.

2:31 AM Accuser arrives at DUMC emergency room. Staff evaluation indicates possible sexual assualt. Sexual Abuse nurse is summoned for examination.

2:50 AM Durham police initiate "rape investigation".

March 15, 2006
Duke University administration briefed on accusations.

March 16, 2006

6:55PM Search warrant served at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd.

The Truth About Windows Vista

2006-04-19T05:28:00.000-07:00

Windows XP has been around a while, 6 years in fact. Microsoft has lost favor with Wall Street. Their stock price hasn’t moved much over the years. Gone are the good old 90’s.

There’s a lot of pressure for Microsoft to come out with a replacement for Windows XP and later this year you’ll hear a lot about that Replacement. Microsoft has already slated $500 in advertising convincing you to shell out $100 or so for an upgrade. But should you really care?

What you absolutely need to know about the Windows Vista operating system:

Microsoft’s in a bit of a bind. As they make their software better, there is less of a reason for people to upgrade. It gets harder and harder for them to plead their case. They also have to support old software. So what?

Well, it turns out that you can’t really do anything very ‘cool’ because you have to support software from 10 years ago. If you do start breaking some old rules, people get mad. Their old software no longer works. At one time, Microsoft did have some really neat stuff for Vista, like Win-FX, but it got axed because of this problem. So they put a new face on the same core and try to bake-in new ‘features’.

Do you want a computer or do you want the Internet?

Ahh. Isn’t this really the nail in the coffin? Most people don’t care about their computer, they just want to send some emails, chat, and go to porn sites (I’m kidding of course). Seriously, watch this trend: More and More PC Applications are appear as online websites. In fact, Google just bought a pretty kick-ass word processor that works just like MS Word. It’s free, and it’s online. No software to install. This means you need a lot less of a computer or operating system for that matter.

Microsoft will be successful with Vista by putting into new PC’s. Good for them. But I don’t expect many of us to run out and buy an upgrade to something that’s already working good enough: Windows XP

Do you plan to upgrade? Let me know.

Higher Gas Prices: Be Happy about it

2006-04-18T04:58:00.000-07:00

If you can’t beat ‘em, Join ‘em – Couldn’t be more true for the oil industry. Gas prices are not coming down anytime soon. Here’s why:

Brazil, Russia, China, and India, you know the places where all our jobs are going. Well now they’re getting paychecks and starting to buy cars. This puts a BIG demand on Oil.

Russia just announced they wouldn’t be able to produce as much oil as they have in the past. Iran’s building a nuclear power plant. What’s up with that anyways? (World War III on it’s way, I assure you), and the Middle East is in turmoil.

All this means $3 per gallon gas will be here for a while. So what are we to do?

JOIN THE PARTY!!

Invest in an oil company. Exxon Mobil has had record profits. Now, don’t get too mad at them. It’s really a supply/demand thing. Stop complaining and become an owner in the company. Buy some stock.

My Pick is: Suncor Energy Inc. (SU)

Why?

Canada has massive supplies of oil. It’s held in something called Oil Sand. Only problem is, it’s difficult to refine. When oil was at $40 a barrel it was just too expensive to think about. But at $70/barrel, Canada’s looking to become the United States’ best friend.

If you had invested $1000 in Suncor Energy last year, you would have doubled your money. For most people that would offset the higher gas prices. And, the ride isn’t over yet! They’re expected to go much higher. It’s not too late to invest.
My Advice: Be an oil owner and you’ll get excited every-time you hear about higher gas prices.

Useless Information (funny)

2006-04-17T06:04:00.000-07:00

A co-worker sent this to me so I thought I'd post it here to give everyone a good laugh!

Did You Know...

If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
(Hardly seems worth it.)

If you farted consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.
(Now that's more like it!)

The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.
(O.M.G.!)

A pig's orgasm lasts 30 minutes.
(In my next life, I want to be a pig.)

A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death.
(Creepy.) (I'm still not over the pig.)

Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.
(Do not try this at home. Maybe at work.)

The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.
("Honey, I'm home. What the....?!")

The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It's like a human jumping the length of a football field.
(30 minutes... lucky pig. can you imagine??)

The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.
(What could be so tasty on the bottom of a pond?)

Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
(I still want to be a pig in my next life...quality over quantity)

Butterflies taste with their feet.
(Something I always wanted to know.)

The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
(No comment!)

Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people. (If you're ambidextrous, do you split the difference?)

Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump.
(OK, so that would be a good thing....................)

A cat's urine glows under a black light.
(I wonder who was paid to figure that out?)
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
(I know some people like that.)

Starfish have no brains.
(I know some people like that too.)

Polar bears are left-handed.
(If they switch, they'll live a lot longer.)

Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.
(What about that pig??)

Boat Flipping 101: Boat Flipping for Fun and Profit

2006-04-14T11:56:00.000-07:00

Boat Flipping 101: Boat Flipping for Fun and Profit

Spring is upon us once again. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a beautiful boat to use anytime you want? Wouldn’t it be even nicer to not pay for it?

This is possible with a little homework.

Boats or Yachts are an absolutely horrible investment. In fact they’re not an investment at all. People buy them expecting to loose money. They buy them for a different reason – to have fun.

Now that doesn’t mean that you or I need to loose money on a boat too. Boat Flipping – buying low and selling high will let you and your family drive the boat of your dreams for FREE.

Here are some Boat Flipping tips:

* Don’t EVER buy a new boat. You’ll get killed in depreciation. I’m not talking only a few thousand dollars here. You can get stung big time. A recent owner of a 34 foot Sea Ray told me he lost $25,000 per year on his new boat.

* Buy an inexpensive boat. Anywhere under $10,000 is fine. You’ll be able to sell it
Put the “Fore Sale” sign on it the day you pick it up. Selling a boat can take all summer. If you sell it early, just buy another one.

* Study the market – A “Used boat listings” website can help you find what boats sell for
Call on a lot of boats. Find the guy who must get rid of his.

* Offer 75% of the list price. Remember, you’re looking for the distressed seller.
You make the money on the buy, not the sale

* When you sell don’t be the most expensive. Be toward the middle to bottom in price.

* Hedge your bets: Get a Boat inspection for $300. It could save you a lot of frustration.

* Don’t expect to get rich. If you can sell the boat to cover your costs and brake even you’re ahead. Remember you got the full use of the boat for the summer. You won’t need to store it all winter.

Start with small boats and work your way up. One day, you could be driving a yacht all summer long for free.

Happy Boating!

3 Steps to Loosing 10 pounds in 30 days

2006-04-13T12:19:00.000-07:00

Over the years I’ve gotten very good at losing weight. Ok, I’ve also gotten very good at putting it on at times too. But I digress.

I personally use the 3 steps below and they work EVERY TIME. That’s the good news. The bad news: it’s going to take some work.

Before you begin you’ll need some motivation. Take a picture of yourself in your underwear. This isn’t the same as looking in the mirror. There’s something shocking about a picture. You’ll see you don’t look how you think you do. Print this picture and post it in your bathroom. You’ll want to see it every morning when you wake up.

This will be more than enough motivation to loose some weight. If you don’t do this, the rest won’t work. You won’t be motivated enough.

Here’s my 3 Step plan:

Step 1: Eating – Follow a low carb diet. Atkin’s or South Beach work great. These diets are easy because you eat as much food as you want and never feel hungry. Ideally you’ll be eating a lot of eggs, steak, lobster, crab, fish, and chicken. Who can argue a diet like that?

Step 2: Exercise – If you don’t have a gym membership or time, then just start walking in the morning. Slowly get into jogging, walking won’t do it alone but it’s a start. It will be hard at first, but you’ll have to get up to 30 minutes a day of something. Running, Biking, whatever. If I eat well and don’t do this, I don’t loose the weight.

Step 3: Take VPX Redline gel-caps – If you’re tired all the time, these little beauties will change that in 15 minutes flat. They are the best fat-burner out there. I’ve tried them all, and this is the one I live by. Don’t take them on an empty stomach, you’ll get sick. GNC sells these for $90 a bottle, which I think is a total rip off. You can find them online for about $30. Take 1 capsule in the morning, 3 before you work out, 1 in the evening.

That’s my 3 step plan. It will work every-time. It’s simple but not easy. I’ll do this diet once or twice a year. I’ve been doing it the last few weeks to prepare for a cruise next week. Again, I’m amazed by the results I’m seeing!