Achieving Financial Independence
The Dave Ramsey Way
My Financial Peace Experience – The Second Class
It’s a week later. Technically, it’s been longer than that, because I’ve already fallen behind on the time between when I’m actually in the class and the time I write the blog post, but let’s make believe that’s it’s a week later.
Friday night and my wife and I are off to our second class of the Financial Peace Program.
The second class of the Financial Peace program was ok. There wasn’t anything jumping out at me that seemed like it was going to have a dramatic impact on my Financial Peace. In this second class we watched a video where Mr. Ramsey talks about the differences between men and women in the way they relate to money and he spoke about two different personality types that a person can have in regards to money. Those personality types are Nerds and Free-Spirits. Interestingly, my wife and I both feel that we posses both of these personality types. We each have our “nerdy” side, as well as each possessing a free spirit aspect to our personality. The topic was kind of interesting, but I just don’t see how this is going to play into my journey to financial peace. That doesn’t mean there won’t be something of value for others, it was just really difficult for me to get anything out of it. I’ve gone back through the work book, I’ve listened to the cd, and I’ve pulled out my Anthony Robbins approach to asking “Well, what is good about this?,” yet I’m still left wondering what I can get out of this particular class to aid in my financial peace. I think I’m going to have to be content with knowing that this will be part of the program that just didn’t hit home for me.
In a 12-week program it’s understandable if every single week isn’t going to be a home run. And, everyone is going to have a different experience with each class depending on where they are coming from. So if you’re reading this and thinking, “Oh man, this guy didn’t get anything out of this class, I don’t think I’ll ever sign up for one,” think again. Just because I didn’t get anything out of one class doesn’t mean the whole program isn’t worth checking out. Remember, it’s hard to go through something like this without something sticking!!
Now Go Be Successful In All Areas of Your Life!!
Achieving Financial Independence
The Dave Ramsey Way
Crossing the Bridge to Financial Freedom
Getting to the point where we are financially independent isn’t only about having a high paying job or bringing in tons of money. That certainly helps achieve that goal, however there are other actions that we can take that will also help us on the way; complimentary actions. Specifically, we can help ourselves along the way by learning to get out of debt and stay out of debt. One of the most known proponents of the get out of debt and stay out of debt approach is Dave Ramsey, well-known author and founder of “Financial Peace University”.
I’ve picked up Dave Ramsey’s books a few times and glossed over parts of them. I’ve heard about him from friends and family, and I’ve even been on his mailing list so I receive blog updates. But I’ve never gone deeper than that into my “Financial Peace” education.
Not until last week…
My wife is a member of a church that runs Dave Ramsey Financial Peace seminars and decided it would be a great idea if we signed up for the next one. Although, I was a little familiar with Dave Ramsey’s program and never took the jump to go all the way through one of his books or one of his seminars I decided it wouldn’t hurt to commit to the 12 week program. I once heard something in one of my personal and professional development programs along the lines of “it’s hard to read a book, listen to an audio program, or take a seminar and not have something from it stick.” Although I wasn’t super excited about the idea of attending this program, I was thinking there might just be something in it that I’ll gain; that will stick, and will help me along my way to financial independence.
Since I need something new to blog about I’m taking this as an excellent opportunity to share with you my experience with Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace Program. If you’ve read along this far I’m sure you’re on the edge of your seat as you read on to learn more.
My First Financial Peace University Class!!
I wasn’t sure what to expect from the first class of the Financial Peace University. My wife and I arrived and met the other people in the program. There were a total of 9 of us in the class. The cost to us was $100 and that included the materials consisting of a cd program that complimented what we would watch each week in the way of a video, a hard cover workbook, a hard cover copy of Dave Ramsey’s best seller, Financial Peace Revisited, and a handful of other odds and ends. All of the materials we received for the class, by themselves, were well worth the $100 we paid.
As I mentioned above, the meeting each week would consist of all of us sitting down to watch a video. After the video we’d go over some discussion questions, and we’d be assigned some homework. The first week’s video gave us a break down of what to expect over the 12 week program, specifically that it’s based on taking baby steps. It turns out to be a total of 7 baby steps, some of which don’t seem like baby steps to me. They are:
Baby Step 1: $1000 in an emergency fund.
Baby Step 2: Pay off all debt except the house utilizing the debt snowball.
Baby Step 3: Three to six months expenses in savings.
Baby Step 4: Invest 15% of your household income into Roth IRAs and pre-tax retirement plans.
Baby Step 5: College Funding
Baby Step 6: Pay off your home early
Baby Step 7: Build wealth and give!
After giving us a breakdown of the “baby steps” we’ll be using, the class focused a great deal on that first baby step of saving up $1000 for an emergency fund. Mr. Ramsey really drove home the idea of what an emergency is and why we need to be ready for one. We’re all going to have things come up like car repairs, Christmas presents, etc. and that we should not rely on a credit card to deal with these “emergencies”. It’s important to save up this emergency fund and have it ready for the expected emergencies. If you plan for them you won’t ever get caught reaching for a credit card to deal with them.
The other thing that Mr. Ramsey discusses in this first week is that everyone should learn as early on in their financial education as possible is the concept of compound interest. It’s amazing how time makes such a difference on the amount of interest that we can accrue on savings if we let the interest build and compound.
As we finished up this first class we went over our homework which consisted of going home and developing a basic budget and starting on that first Baby Step of getting $1000 saved up in an emergency fund.
I still don’t know what all I’m going to get out of the next 12 weeks, however I’m sure I’ll get something of value; something will stick. I’m confident the first Baby Step will be achievable fairly fast. My wife and I are in a place financially for the first time since we’ve been together where we have more money coming in than we have going out. We’re still playing catch up for the years where this wasn’t the case, but the time for that catch up shouldn’t be more than a a few months. I’m excited and looking forward to the journey.
If you want to see all of the other cool stuff Dave Ramsey has in his Financial Peace University go check out his website at www.daveramsey.com.
Now Go Be Successful In All Areas of Your Life!!
With computers and the technology that they bring being such a huge factor in our personal and professional lives it behooves us to learn everything we can about using them. One of the resources that I’ve just started using to help expand my professional skills is Lynda.com. I can’t emphasize enough how impressed I am with the selection of topics Lynda.com offers and the depth they go into for the tutorials that you can select from.
My professional background is balanced between years of experience in counseling and an almost equal number of years in IT. What I’ve found in my years working in Information Technology is that the range of computer skills that a person employed for a company have go from very basic, almost non-existent, to extremely competent. It’s easy for me to take basic computer skills for granted and to fall into the belief that everyone already knows how to use a computer, and have the basics down for using office productivity software such as Microsoft Office.
This, however, is not the case. I’ve even run across executive directors of companies I’ve consulted for who didn’t have the knowledge to use Microsoft Word properly to format a business document. What are all of these people who are lacking the basic skills in computers and office productivity software going to do to acquire the skills they need to function effectively in the work place? What can all of us do to stay polished and up-to-date with our skills?
It does require a monthly subscription to use, but it is well worth the $25 per month for the professional education that can be gained from the video tutorials that are offered there. If you don’t think you’ll use it that much you don’t have to keep paying every month, however you’ll find the selection and quality of the programs so great that you’ll probably end up keeping the subscription indefinitely. I have!
Lynda.com offers video tutorial series on Windows 7 and Mac. If you happen to use either of these at home, or at the office, or both, wouldn’t it make sense to learn all you can about how to use them. There are series on Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat, and more; much more. Are you looking to make a career change? Lynda.com has a 3 1/2 hour long program on creating an effective resume. The selection offered has something for everyone and you’re going to find many valuable video tutorials to increase your professional development.
Add Lynda.com to your action plan for Continuously Improving You!
I’ve mentioned before that a very important aspect of investing and making money in the stock market is knowing when to sell. Again, the common saying is buy low – sell high.
Right?
Yet, how many of us have also been taught to invest in the stock market on a regularly basis and hold our investments for the long term. If you look at the chart for the S&P500 you can clearly see that it does indeed go gradually up from the very first day it was first measured to today.
Historical Chart of the S&P 500
There are of course some down times… Times like the great depression. Times like late 2007 and 2008.
But what do “they” tell us to do? I don’t know about you, but it seems to me “they” always advise us to just hold on to our stocks because the value of those stocks will eventually go back up. “They” tell us we will only lose our money if we sell during these down times. But what happens if we hold on to our securities during these down times and we lose ALL of the profit we had earned over all of the years? How many years will we have to wait to regain all of the value of our stocks? Chances are that it could be many years. What if you’re older and are relying on your stock investments for your retirement? Will you even be alive to see the values of your stocks go back up to what they were before the last downturn?
I’m bringing this up over and over again because I believe the average person doesn’t realize the importance of knowing when to sell their stocks so that they can limit their losses. It seems so logical to me now, but I’m one of those who always believed if the market crashes it’s no big deal. It will eventually come back up. The key word here is eventually. Like I said before, will that eventually happen while we are still alive?
Guess what? I don’t believe this hogwash anymore. We need to pay attention to the market and watch our investments so that if we see the market losing value we can sell our stocks and limit our loss.
This is how the rich do it and if you want to be wealthy, this is how you will need to learn to do it. Just before the down turn of the market in 2007 and 2008 many members of Congress, who are privileged with insider information, sold their stocks and got out of the market. They limited their losses and kept themselves from being financially ruined like many of the common American citizens experienced when they lost their life savings.
As a side note, to this day it is illegal for individuals to use insider information when trading stocks unless they are members of Congress. Yes, you read that correctly. It is ok for members of Congress, the leaders of our country who are supposed to be looking out for us, to utilize insider trading without going to jail for it. It’s perfectly legal. Matter of fact, based on a study done by Alan Ziobrowski, Ph.D., the average stock performance for US Senators from 1993 to 1998 beat the stock market average by 12%.
Let me put this in perspective for you. There are professional mutual fund managers out there who are paid to invest in stocks who can’t beat the market. These are people who do it for a living, yet it is very rare for a professionally managed mutual fund to beat the market, let alone beat it by 12%. I don’t know about you, but I have very little respect for politicians in general and I highly doubt they are more intelligent than professional mutual fund managers.
Now that I’ve ranted about the evils of our leaders in Congress, let’s get back on track with our knowing when to sell. We have to have an exit strategy.
If you invest in a stock at $80 a share and it goes up to $100 per share you might want to put in a stop/loss order for $95 a share. In general terms, what this means is if your stock ever drops down to $95 per share it will be sold. Now let’s say your stock rallies and it goes up to $110/share. Great!! You are making some money. Now you can go back and cancel your stop/loss order for $95 per share and set a new one for $105 per share. You are not charged anything to place these orders until they are carried out. By doing this you are limiting your risk and controlling your loss. Again, this is just the basics. I encourage you to get out there and get educated. Look for books on investing and go find some quality websites where you can go to increase your knowledge on investing.
I’ve been doing a lot of reading on Investopedia.com lately and I think it’s a great place to start.
I’ve got one gripe, and it’s the reason I’m sitting here right now typing out this post.
I just went through the beginning investor tutorial on investopedia.com and they don’t even hint at the idea of knowing when to sell. As a matter of fact they hint a whole lot at buying and holding no matter what. It kind of makes me wonder if the people that run investopedia.com are members of “they”. I’m really eager to see if and when investopedia talks about the idea of selling to limit your losses.
But who am I to talk. I’m just some yahoo who is learning this stuff for the first time and wanting to share what I’m learning as I go through the process.
Although I do have that one gripe I’m still recommending investopedia.com as a place to go to start learning about investing. It’s all about taking action and getting out there to learn what you have to learn to become financially literate. Start there and start looking for some books on Amazon
. Keep an open-mind and stay focused on your continuous financial improvement.
Now Go Be Successful In All Areas of Your Life!!
Learn to Invest
In my last post I introduced a new series or chapter to Continuously Improving You. I discussed the importance of becoming financially literate and learning everything we can about earning money no matter what happens to be going on in the world. Specifically, to learn how to earn money no matter what the stock market is doing. The traditional or typical way of investing in the stock market is focused on buying stocks and holding them with the hopes that the stocks will go up in value. The challenge here is that the only way stocks are going to go up in value is if the stock market is going up. To insure that we can achieve our financial goals, and more importantly, keep what we earn along the way we need to learn how to invest the traditional way when the market is going up, and we also need to acquire the knowledge so that we can choose investments that we can profit from when the market is going down or when it is going sideways.
If all of our financial education is limited to investing in stocks and/or mutual funds then we are at the mercy of the stock market. As a matter of fact, we are in a position where we are only going to get a return on our investments if the stock market is going up. As I mentioned in my previous post it is common knowledge that the stock market does go up over time, however it is a gradual upward trend. What many people don’t realize is with that gradual upward trend the stock market is down or sideways much more than it is up.
So what do I mean by sideways? It may seem obvious, but it was something that always confused me when someone talked about the stock market in terms of it being sideways. I took a snapshot of the chart for the S&P500 on the day that I am writing this post (see figure 1). It covers the last 6 months. You can see from most of the chart that during the months of December and January the S&P500 was going up. That makes sense. Now notice what is happening from February to today (4/6/11). It kind of goes up and down in a zig/zag pattern. It’s not really going dramatically up, or dramatically down; it goes sideways. 
Chart for S&P 500 on 4/6/2011
If we’re only going to make money in stocks or mutual funds when the stock market is going up, what are we going to do when the market is going down or sideways? Stocks and mutual funds will only go up in value if the stock market is going up. If the market is going down, make sure you don’t own stocks or mutual funds. Again, it may seem obvious, but how many people lost most of their life savings in 2008 when the stock market tanked? Why? Because they didn’t sell. They didn’t have an exit strategy. They held on to all of their stock investments because they hadn’t learned the importance of when to sell. Stocks and mutual funds will only go up in value if the stock market is going up. If the market is going down, make sure you don’t own stocks or mutual funds. It’s that simple. If those people who owned stocks and mutual funds in late 2007 and 2008 had done nothing else but set up a stop/loss order they could have dramatically reduced the amount of money they lost when the market took a turn for the worse. People had to learn the hard way that the buy and hold strategy that we’ve been taught for so long is not the way to succeed with investing. Many people held on to their stocks and mutual funds during the downturn in 2008, and many people lost.
The point here is that if we invest in stocks and mutual funds, and those only go up in value when the market is going up then the key to not losing our shirts when the market goes down is to make sure we sell and get out of stocks and mutual funds when the market tanks. We have to create rules for ourselves and stick to those rules if we are going to control our losses.
Investing is more than just buying and holding, or buying low and selling high. It’s about watching the markets and minimizing our risks of loss. If we don’t learn to sell when the stock market takes a turn for the worst our risk of loss is going to be extremely high. And we will lose our money.
If you get nothing else out of this post I hope that you come away with the desire to learn more about investing and more importantly learning how to minimize your risk in your investing strategy. For those that own stocks don’t become so emotionally attached to your stocks and to the idea of being invested in the market that you don’t have an exit strategy. If you don’t have an exit strategy, go figure it out now. Do yourself a favor and learn what you have to do to sell when the value of your stocks drop. Learn to keep the money you’ve worked so hard to earn rather than losing all of it.
How do we learn this? Ask and ye shall receive… or something like that.
There are lots of good books on investing out there. Browse on over to Amazon and start looking for books on investing. Pay attention to the ratings. Read the samples if they have them so that you can get an idea if it’s a book that is written in such a way that you’ll understand it. Nothing is worse than buying a book, taking it home, and finding out that it sucks.
Also, get on the computer (I know you’ve got access to one since you are reading this) and start looking for web sites that cover investing. Seek what you want and you’ll eventually find it. I did my share of research and one of the sites that I came across that I’ve found to be pretty darn awesome is www.investopedia.com. They have some great tutorials. Do yourself a favor and go there, go to their tutorials section and start continuously improving your financial education. http://www.investopedia.com/university/beginner/
Financial Education and Investing
One aspect of our personal and professional development that I haven’t posted much on is in the financial areas of our lives. I imagine part of the reason for that is because it’s one of my weakest areas. I’ve read plenty of books on personal finance and some of those books have been huge in motivating me to get out and make moves to improve financially. Although, many of the books on real estate investing that I’ve read seemed to be more fluff than providing the actual steps needed to start investing in real estate, they got me fired up to actually get out there and do it. No offense to the writers of books on real estate investing, but I almost always felt that the only thing I got out of reading a book on investing in real estate was the planting of a seed of what can be done. That being said, those books do have some value because if I had to do it all over again I would definitely read them again. If the only value of reading one of these books is the planting of the seed that is value enough to make it worthwhile.
In some of the other books on taking control of your financial life I’ve had a similar experience when they talk about trading in stocks and options. They will state something like “You should take control of your financial life and learn how the rich get rich by making a profit in both up and down markets”. And, that’s it. I often times felt like they left me hanging.
Hmm, you think to yourself. Is that it?
At least these authors could give you a little more direction and provide a list of books to go and read. That’s one of the strengths I appreciated about Jack Canfield. He typically provides a section or appendix where he lists all of the books he read and researched to write his book. It’s a great way to find more “stuff” to read to feed your development and continuous improvement. I’m digressing here….
If you are like me and read one of these books on improving your financial awareness and are left wondering where we are supposed to go to learn about investing in both up and down markets than I hope you’ll appreciate some of the resources I’ve recently come across on investing with options.
I’ve kind of stumbled into this new area of my continuous improvement when my wife signed up for a seminar on investing in the stock market. Her participation in this seminar allowed her to bring a guest and no one else was interested in going with her. I’ll admit, even though I enjoy learning about investing my feelings about going to this seminar were that I could take it or leave it. The fact that I was going to have to wake up at the butt crack of dawn to go to this two day seminar being offered by TD Ameritrade and Investools didn’t help. I’m not a morning person!!
The day of the seminar arrived. We woke up before the chickens and headed on down to the hotel where it was being held. It was going to be a full two days and I couldn’t help but wonder if I was going to be able to get through them without falling asleep in my chair. To my pleasant surprise it turned out to be a great two days.
Of course, “they” tried to sell us on signing up for the trading education program that ranged in price from $2,000 to $25,000. That wasn’t anything that surprised me. Still, there was an incredible amount of value that they provided in the $99 two-day seminar and I’d do it again. The seminar opened up my eyes to investing and got me motivated once again to further my financial education.
Financially I’m not in a place to spend the kind of money “they” were asking for the classes in trading, however I could see paying the money for the training if I had it. It looks like there is an enormous amount of value in the classes and learning how to invest in such a way that you know how to make money in any market, up, down, or sideways, makes sense. After all, how many people do you know that lost most of their life savings in 2008? Raise your hand if you know anyone!!! I can name all kinds of people I know who lost much of their life savings during that down time of the market. Now imagine that you took the time to learn how to make money during that terrible downward spiral, and rather than lose your life savings you earned more money than you ever did when the market was up? I’m not making this stuff up.
It’s possible.
It just takes becoming financially literate and if you are motivated enough you can become a person that knows how to make money as long as the market opens everyday. It doesn’t matter if the stock market is up, down, or sideways; as long as it opens you can be a person who is making money. By the way, although the stock market will generally go up over time, you need to realize that during that upward trend it is typically down or sideways more than it is up.
This new “chapter” of Continuously Improving You is going to focus on becoming financially literate. Since I couldn’t sign up for the classes through the financial seminar I went to, I decided to take my new found inspiration to become financially literate and started looking for books to read and searched for quality websites focused on investing. I’ll be sharing these new books, websites, and knowledge with you as I come across them
Here’s to continuously improving in all area of our lives and specifically in our financial life!!!
Now Go Be Successful In All Areas of Your Life!!
I’ve been struggling quite a bit lately with being down, for lack of a better term. It’s not that I’m depressed or anything like that. I think I’m typically a fairly happy and satisfied person most of the time; a great deal of the time in fact. That is probably a huge part of the problem of my “being down”. What I mean by being down is that I’m having a difficult time being motivated to get out and do what needs to be done to meet my immediate financial goals of simply living day to day. I am too comfortable and perfectly happy being at home, working on my blogs, and focusing on my personal and professional development. The problem is, at this point, the blogs are not bringing in enough income to live off of, and sitting around studying various personal and professional development topics isn’t going to bring the money in. It’s getting to a point where I have to get motivated and move out of my comfort zone to get myself “Up” in such a way that I get out and do what I need to do so I can pay the bills.
First question you might be asking is why the heck am I even in this situation?
Good question!!
My wife and I decided to make a rather major life changing decision and we pulled up roots in our native California and moved to the Great North West to be closer to my extended family. There were a number of reasons that helped us make this decision, and the decision was made because we truly believe we’re going to be much happier than we were living in Southern California with the high real estate prices, super busy traffic, long, hour and half (one way) commutes, and the crazy crowds. I felt like I was going to lose my mind if I stayed much longer. For example, on one of my hour and half commutes to work one morning I was getting, let’s say, “extremely frustrated” with all of the people who can’t seem to figure out when you go up a hill on the freeway that you want to press down harder on the accelerator in order to keep your current speed. I don’t know if it’s a Southern California thing where most people are just dumb shits when it comes to driving, but there is really no reason whatsoever for the flow of traffic to go from 70+ miles per hour to 30 miles per hour in the blink of an eye simply because there is a hill. On this particular morning, which really wasn’t any different than any other day as far as the dumb shits and traffic on the road, my frustration got the better of me and I started screaming at everyone…
“You DUMB SHIT, get off the “insert profanity” road if you don’t know how to drive. Just stay home if you are too stupid to figure out how to keep your speed constant when you go up a hill.”
I was directing my verbal assault on everyone and everything in site as if they would hear me if I just yelled loud enough.
Later, when I was relaying this experience to a good friend of mine he just laughed and said “Man, you should be in alcoholics anonymous. You sound just like an alcoholic only in your case without the alcohol.” It really doesn’t surprise me since I could see many people being “driven” to drink (pun intended) after dealing with all of the clueless drivers on the roads of Southern California. As a side thought, that would be an interesting study; how big is the membership in Alcoholics Anonymous in places such as Southern California where the traffic is miserable and the people are stupid. (Sorry if you live in Southern California. I feel I can say this since I’m a native Southern Californian)
So here I am. I’ve quit my secure job in Southern California where I worked for a great company and the best boss I’ve ever had and I’ve moved to the Northwest. I’ve escaped the dead, brown, desert and I now call my home a place where everything is green, full of life and I feel all warm and fuzzy inside whenever I go outside and take in the beauty around me. I keep wondering if I’ll ever get used to and take for granted how pretty it is where I now live. I’ve mentioned this to my family, who were a lot smarter than I am and made the move up here over 20 years go, and they tell me after 20 years they still appreciate how pretty it is.
There’s just one small issue I’m having now that I’ve made the move and live up in this gorgeous place, feeling perfectly happy and content (for the most part) sitting at home, working on my blogs, doing some free-lance work on websites for a non-profit, and hanging out with my 2 dogs.
It’s just a small issue…
I need to get a job and bring in some income so that I can simply take care of my basic day to day necessities. The challenge, as I’ve been hinting at throughout this blog, is I’m having a difficult time getting motivated to take action. I mentioned to my wife that I’m feeling down, and I think she probably thought that I was getting depressed. She suggested I pull out my personal and professional audio programs and start listening to them. She’s kind of smart like that.
It really doesn’t matter if I’m feeling down depressed, or feeling down unmotivated, listening to a good personal and professional development audio program can make a difference with either state. In my attempt to not be too stubborn I’m taking my wonderful wife’s suggestion and I’ve gone and grabbed one of Brian Tracy’s audio progams. As a matter of fact, I’m typing this blog post right now as I listen to Brian Tracy’s “The Luck Factor”.
Granted, simply working on my blog isn’t going to magically start bringing in enough income for me to immediately realize my goal of working at home, and it’s not going to magically get me the job I need to bring in the income I need right now so that I can pay my daily bills. Still, it’s got me more motivated to take some action and get focused.
On some of my blogs it’s difficult for me to post on a consistent basis, because I don’t seem to have the inspiration to write something. It’s safe to say I’m feeling “inspired” right now and wanted to do some writing before I switch gears and focus on the “J O B” stuff. For reals, I’m going to take action today and work on getting a job. I promise!! In the meantime, I’ve got to strike while the inspiration is there and do what I hope is some worthwhile and valuable babbling. And, it’s Brian Tracy’s “The Luck Factor” that’s got me going.
In the opening of “The Luck Factor” Brian Tracy discusses that successful people aren’t successful because they are lucky. We aren’t where we are in our lives because of magic. We had to take some sort of action, or in my case (I admit I’m jobless and struggling financially because I didn’t take the action I needed to take to not be struggling.) inaction, to be where we are in our lives. Successful people are successful because they took the actions that are necessary to become successful. They got motivated to take the appropriate action that will lead to the corresponding results.
It’s not MAGIC.
As Brian Tracy explains, Socrates said that for every effect (luck or success or being broke) there is a cause. Successful people (what we might think of as lucky people) have done what is necessary (the cause) to become “lucky” or successful (the effect). They took the actions needed to cause the effect they wanted and have achieved the success they desire.
The goal than for us people who haven’t achieved some of our most important goals and gotten to that point of success where we would like to be is to figure out what “lucky” or successful people did to get where they are and go do the same thing. We need to figure out the causes or actions that lead to luck and success, and go do those actions. For me that means a number of things.
- Writing more blog posts
- Focusing on my other entrepreneurial “projects”
- Most importantly, getting a job so that I have income coming in right away.
What causes or actions do you need to do to achieve your goals?
What aren’t you doing that you should be doing to achieve the success you desire?
What do you need to give up doing in your life to make room for those actions that you need to start doing?
There needs to be a vacuum available to start a new action, and that requires the willingness to let go of, or change, what is not working in your life.
Are you, like someone I know, wasting your time playing too many facebook games? What are the chances of succeeding in life if we are focusing all of our time on making sure the flowers are watered in FarmVille? The chances are probably not very good that we’re going to experience much “LUCK” in our life if we don’t switch gears and start doing the actions that will lead to success in our lives. Sure that means our FarmVille flowers are going to die. I admit that sucks nuts. However, is keeping our Farms in or virtual, make believe world, going to bring success to our real life? It’s time to bite the bullet and make some changes!
What changes are you going to make right now that will help you achieve your success?
Now go be successful in all areas of your life!!
If you are interested in learning how to achieve success in life, it is important to know and understand that you must have a successful mindset. To truly achieve success in life, it is important to understand and accept the fact that failure is an essential component. All too often individuals place so much emphasis on the concept of success that they are unable to achieve it because of the fact that when they fail they see it as a negative distraction to that which they want to achieve. It is amazing how many people frown upon failure. If you ask those people how often they have achieved success, it is likely that the response will be a low number. However, if you ask the person that has failed over and over again that same question, you are likely to discover that they have experienced a tremendous amount of success. If you want to learn how to achieve success in life by creating a successful mindset, you will benefit from the information contained within this guide.
A British writer by the name of Nelson Boswell once stated the following:
“The difference between greatness and mediocrity is often how an individual views a mistake”.
If you consider the words of Mr. Nelson Boswell, you will immediately find that in order to be “great” in life, you must have a successful mindset that provides you with the capability to see failure as a beneficial aspect of your overall success. It is absolutely essential to first change how you perceive the mistakes that you make within your life – especially the mistakes that are made on the way to greatness. If you want to learn how to achieve success in life, it is important to avoid placing too much emphasis on a mistake and isolating that mistake to the point that you identify it as a “failure”. It is important to keep what many refer to as the “Big Picture” clear in your mind. By doing so, you will be able to take the mistake that you have made and turn it into a learning opportunity. This is the main characteristic of someone that has a successful mindset.
Many individuals go through life attempting to avoid failure because of the fact that they believe that they must do this in order to achieve success. However, individuals that have a truly successful mindset know and understand that failure is unavoidable. If you want to learn how to achieve success, there are certain principles that you must come to know and understand. They are as follows:
1. As you live your life and experience different types of situations and events, you will learn many different lessons.
2. It is important to erase the word “mistake” from your vocabulary and replace it with the word “lesson”. An individual with a successful mindset will know that a mistake is not a failure, but an extremely valuable lesson that was meant to be learned.
3. Many individuals that have successful mindsets will tell you that they have made the same “mistake” more than once in their lives, or that they have encountered the same “lesson” over and over again. It is important to know and understand that this will happen until the lesson that is meant to be learned is completely learned.
4. If you want to learn how to achieve success, it is important to understand that if you fail to learn the little lessons in life; those lessons will increase in difficulty until you master that which is meant to be mastered.
5. Once you find that your actions, thoughts, and behaviors are changed, you will know that you have truly “learned your lesson” and achieved success.
As you can see, if you are interested in learning how to achieve success in life, it all starts with your mindset. A successful mindset means that you no longer look at mistakes as failures, but as lessons. You see the lessons as necessary components to your overall success. If you take the time to change your perspective and learn from the mistakes that you make in life, it is then that you will truly learn how to achieve success in the ways that you desire.
Nicole Roberts
If you are interested in learning how to achieve success in life, it all starts with your mindset. A successful mindset means that you no longer look at mistakes as failures, but as lessons.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nicole_Roberts
Two of the most beneficial activities you can do in your process of continuous personal improvement is to feed yourself positive messages on a daily basis, and surround yourself with people who are successful. Carrie Wilkerson, the Barefoot Executive, clearly falls into the category of successful people. She’s created a wonderful way for you to stop and watch short 5 minute videos to keep yourself thinking positively on your path of continuous improvement.
Go check out her site, The Barefoot Executive. Explore all of her awesome content and take a peek at her videos. She packs a lot of value in what takes just a short amount of time out of your day.
You’ll find Carrie’s information to be HUGE if you’re working towards being a successful entrepreneur, or if you are searching for the keys to success in working from home.
She’s put a lot of thought into the design of the site so that you don’t have to spend a boat load of time on it in order to receive an enormous amount of value.
Now Go Be Successful In All Areas of Your Life!!
In my last post I went over Catherine Ponder’s “The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity,” and I wanted to do a follow up on that post. It’s been close to a month since I created that post and believe it or not I’m still listening to this audio program.
It’s that good.
I just go through the whole thing and then go right back to the beginning to listen to it all over again.
If you haven’t read my last post… yet… I discuss in that post how “The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity” focuses on positive and prosperous affirmations. I’ve now got a small stack of “note cards” that I carry around; each card having one of my favorite prosperous affirmations printed on it. I’ve got a fairly long commute and I use a portion of the time in the car to read over my cards. There’s probably a good 10 to 15 minutes, sometimes more, on the way to work that I dedicate to my positive affirmations. My trip home will have a similar chunk of time with me focusing on my affirmations.
If you are anything like me you’re probably wondering does any of this even work…
Well guess what… I’m here to tell ya that I really don’t know if it works. <smile>
I bet you thought I was going to go into some long monolog about how well it works, but I’m not going to say something that I can’t substantiate.
What I can say is that it sure as heck can’t hurt. And, more importantly, it does at least keep me in a more positive state; it keeps me looking for the best in life.
Some of the affirmations I’ve got printed out on note cards that I go over daily (out loud even) are…
- Everything and everybody prospers me now, and I prosper everything and everybody now.
- I expect lavish abundance, every day in every way, in my life and affairs. I specifically expect and give thanks for lavish abundance today.
- All financial doors are open, all financial channels are free. An endless bounty now comes to me.
Here’s what I’d like to know…
- How many other people use affirmations like these? Do you?
- What are some of the affirmations that you like to use?
- Have you found affirmations helpful?
Let’s have some fun with this. Let’s use this as something that we can all add to and provide some positive reading for others.
I’m looking forward to seeing what others would like to share.
Now Go Be Successful In All Areas of Your Life!!
