Sanity - Setting Boundaries and misc topics on growth and maturity

There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth: 1) not going all the way; and 2) not starting.



















Here is the question of the day: How does this apply to business?

My thoughts about Tiger Woods

So many are discussing all of the circumstances around his actions of late and to me at least the core issues are not being discussed or at least not the ones I think should be:

• Incorrect priorities - instant gratification, adoration and pleasure was more important than the commitment to his partner
• Instead of focusing on what he had - a loving wife and children the focus was on what he felt is was missing
• Breach of agreement - when the wedding took place certain promised were made which in business terms constituted a breach of agreement
• Not fulling grasping the nature of his position - what man people who seek positions of fame, prominence or influence forget is that these roles in life come with a price and one must be willing to accept that people will look to you as an example and that any mistake you make will be magnified for some to make themselves feel better by devaluing you and others because their faith in you and hopes of finally finding a worthy role model were destroyed

How could this have been avoided - what is the solution (note: this are only my opinions)?

• Focus on your goals - what is important and them ask yourself how this person or action moves you toward your aspiration (if they are a destructive influence remove yourself)
• If a person is a sex addict much like an alcoholic for some the only way to deal with the problem is never to put yourself in a position of temptation (like waling into a liquor store). In the case of a sex addict one would avoid being in situations alone with anyone other than your family.
• In business contracts are agreements stating the base line expectation which ideally your conduct will exceed such that the paperwork is redundant and never needed - same in a marriage - a person should strive to conduct themselves in such a way the agreement is never examined or brought into question
• Focus on what you have. Too often people complain about things that do not really matter and overlook what is important. Let me put it this way which person is more beneficial Person 1 - fun to be with, great at parties, says all of the right things in public, makes you laugh, great sex, is exciting, undependable, disrespects you , breaks commitments, complains about what you are not doing for them, is self absorbed, does nothing to help you and upon closer examination leaves a path of destruction behind them. Person 2 - Loyal, respects you, is willing to inconvenience themselves for you to have what you need, acts in your mutual best interests, keeps their obligations to the best of their ability, tries to take an active interest in what you are doing, edifies you where possible and always treats you will respect because they are interested in your well being vs what you can do for them.

I could go on however I think you get where I am going - the topic being discussed while never addressed directly to me is a matter of emotional maturity.



An underlying question that is not discussed but I will bring up is the self image of ethnic minorities - could it be possible that the actions were in part due to the fact on some level despite all of the hard work there was a feeling of being unworthy so instead of focusing on the root cause and resolving because they were unaware situations were created to self sabotage and make their life better match their self image - just a thought to ponder.


These are my thoughts - what are yours?

I will close with this thought:

1. If you are a person lacking integriety the rules do not matter
2. If you are a person of character the rules do not matter

The only difference between the two is in the first society will hold you accountable where as in the second you hold yourself

The power of Accountability, Achievement and Association

We have all heard the saving the truth shall set you free.

This has been an interesting week. Was in a conversation with a friend who told me they are doing work which they believe is beneath them. I shared that there is no such thing as honest work that is beneath you and shared that almost 15 years ago I worked a part time and even cleaned toilets to pay bills as a degreed engineer and that my mother who was a certified and licensed teacher used to clean building with my grandmother to earn extra money to make up the difference. So often we place value on the wrong things and I believe we should be humble enough to appreciate the fact we have our health and the ability to do any work. While I hate this recession I think if we as a society relearn that simple truth we would have made much progress because the obsession with easy money or finding new ways to exploit instead of serve (greed) is much of the reason for our current dilemma. We have lost sight of some important core characteristics:

• Fidelity
• Respect (of self and others)
• Integrity
• Self control
• Diligence
• Accountability
• Patience
• Empathy
• Courage
• Scholarship
• Self Sacrifice

Today I was getting gas and spent about an hour talking to a young man who was telling me how his girlfriend committed suicide yesterday and how he had to cut her down.

He told me about the note they found of how life was no longer fun. He also told me about how for $200 and some change the Doctor cut her off from her medicine. This made this think about how important the quality of the people we associate with are and how they can literally mean the difference between life and death.

What are the characteristics of the people you associate with and do they challenge you to reach your potential or do they enable your continued dysfunction. Do you associate with people who work to create mutually beneficial relationships or people who look to exploit you for their own gain at your expense.

He recanted how she was tired in her notes and how life was no longer fun, there was no joy in life. She had what many consider the american dream her own house, a good job, and could do what she wanted and yet that was not enough so what was missing?

Also, to a lessor degree can some of what we see here be attributed to why some people succeed and others continue of paths of self destructive behaviors?

On Emotional Maturity & Emotional Intelligence some topics mentioned for discussion are:

• Are you mature?
• Your relationships reflect your maturity
• Are you Emotionally Mature?
• Emotional Maturity & Relationships
• Youth Fades ... Immaturity Lingers
• Emotional Control & Expression

the part I like the best because it ties back to business is

Maturity & Leadership

Leadership is more than a desire to delegate tasks. If your confidence provides orientation for unconfident followers, and if your decisions are beneficial, you will be respected. Soulwork coaching can help you accomplish family, team or organizational goals. Soulwork can help you:

1. maintain a clear vision that encourages people to align with you
2. create an environment where people want to be responsible
3. clearly describe what is necessary for quality performance
4. transfer responsibility to the people who do the work
5. develop individual capability and competence
6. set an example and challenge people to continually learn

Pardon the rambling but here are the questions:

• how have your relationships past and present affected the current quality of your life and are they moving your closer to or further away from your goals?
• Are you better off long term from having known this person?
• Are they better off long term from having known you?
• Have the quality of their life or business improved from having associated with you and visa versa?
• When setting your goals since you cannot achieve them alone have you answered the WIFM question with regards to how it will affect others?

I will leave you with these thoughts:

• Personal: Characteristics of Healthy Relationships
• Business: 8 characteristics of ideal business partners
• Food for thought: Journey of a Serial Entrepreneur

What do you think?

The Millionaire Next door (Pros and Cons)

Agree or disagree? 

I personally agree with the principles it shares, others may disagree yet it is common sense. I know when I have ignored the principles laid out it was at my own peril. 

Main Points

•      Spend Less Than You Earn - If you are always spending up to or above what you earn, you will never increase your net worth no matter how much you make. The author discusses being prugal: prudent and frugal.
  
•      Avoid Buying Status Objects or Leading a Status Lifestyle - Buying expensive imported vehicles is poor value and you will constantly need to buy the newest model. Buying status objects such as branded consumer goods is a never-ending cycle of depreciating assets. Living in a status neighborhood is not only poor value, but you will feel the need to keep buying status objects to keep up with your neighbors, who are mostly UAWs.
  
•       PAWs Are Willing to Take Financial Risk if it is Worth the Reward - PAWs are not misers who put every penny under their mattress. They invest their money for good returns, and will consider riskier investments if they're worth the reward. Many put money not in the stock market, but invest in private businesses and venture capital. They do not gamble or speculate on long-odds stocks.
  
•       Economic Outpatient Care - The authors also make the interesting observation that UAWs tend to have children who require an influx of their parents' money in order to afford the lifestyle that they expect for themselves, and that they are less likely to have been taught about money, budgeting and investing by their parents. 

Passive Income 

What Does Passive Income Mean?
Earnings an individual derives from a rental property, limited partnership or other enterprise in which he or she is not actively involved. As with non-passive income, passive income is usually taxable; however it is often treated differently by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). 

Investopedia explains Passive Income
There are three main categories of income: active income, passive income and portfolio income. Passive income does not include earnings from wages or active business participation, nor does it include income from dividends, interest or capital gains. For tax purposes, it is important to note that losses in passive income generally cannot offset active or portfolio income. 

It is important to note that, by some, portfolio income is considered passive income; in which case dividends and interest would be considered passive. The important definition is the one the IRS uses, and to be sure your taxes are filed correctly, it would be prudent to check with the IRS or a tax professional on this matter if you have a blend of active, passive, and portfolio income.  

Top 10 ways to become the Millionaire Next Door 

Everyone wants to get rich and become the Millionaire Next Door. Unfortunately most of us will not be on the Forbes list of Billionaires under 40. However, we would all like to have the Millionaire Mind or be the Millionaire Next Door. Some keys tips to becoming the Millionaire Next Door are:

1. Live well below your means, try paying cash for purchases versus running up debt.  In order to not run up debt you will need some ideas on how to save money and reduce your expense.
2. Own your own home, now is a really great time to own your own home.  The fastest way to build wealth with your home it to get a shorter mortgage.  Make sure you consider the advantages of 15 year vs 30 year mortgage.
3. Most millionaires are married
4. Unfortunately, working for 30 to 40 years is key.  This is sort of the get rich slowly mentality but it works, however there are ways to become a millionaire as an employee.  Make sure you invest in your companies 401K.  You can take advantage of matching funds and the tax benefits.
5. Own your own business or be self employed.
6. Be conservative with money have a family budget, save and invest your money
7. Get a college education, advance degrees are better, Eighteen percent have master's degrees, 8 percent law degrees, 6 percent medical degrees, and 6 percent Ph.D.s.  It is a know fact the if you have a degree you are more likely to have a job.  98% of the people with college degree are employed right now.  It is worth taking the time and figuring out a way to pay for college to get this advantage in your life.
8. Put in your time most millionaires work 45 to 50 hours per week.
9. Invest wisely and diversify your portfolio, stock picking is tough, you have to stay on top of it.    Consider hiring a financial planner to help you with your investments.  It is well worth it is you get the right person.
10. Non-formal education is also important, read a lot, self help, investment magazines, Wall Street Journal

So for most of us, and based on the Top 10 list will need some time become a millionaire. However, if you are looking to find out how to earn extra income. Or you are curious how to develop a passive income as describe in the book the 4 hour Work Week, you need to start now. Did you ever wonder about all those internet millionaires? The guys that started Youtube or Facebook and sold it for a gazillion dollars? Most of us will never be those guys. I know that I am not smart enough. However, I would love to earn extra income on the side and eventually build it up to something I might be able to do full time. I frankly would love to be able to work at home. If you are curious and looking for a way to jump start your passive income. Click Here!

Related links:

• Home based businesses
• Investing In Mutual Funds
• Get Rich Quick

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The millionare nextdoor .Pdf Ebook Download

 

What’s Wrong with The Millionaire Next Door 

I put a passing reference to The Millionaire Next Door in my post Wednesday on The Tragedy of Impulse Saving.  A commenter asked about it and actually followed up to say that he would love to hear my opinion on the book.  I can’t bring myself to write a proper review of a 13 year–old title, but on the flimsy pretense that one person who comments must represent thousands of silent readers who feel the same way, let me share why I don’t like it.  (That’s the problem with leaving comments here; I just read what I want to.)

To start with, Millionaire Next Door is poorly written.  Large sections just dump information on the reader without drawing any conclusions or giving any advice.  And the authors’ choices of topics, and how much ink to use on them, is peculiar, as if they just threw together the book from notes they happened to have had lying around.  So, for example, 70 pages (of 245 in my paperback copy) are spent on giving money to your children.  36 pages cover buying cars.  There isn’t much of anything on buying houses.  There’s a big section on selecting financial advisors, but little on investing as such.

The core advice in the 70 pages on giving money to your children is that you shouldn’t give money to your children.  Not only will it make you poorer, but it is bad for the kids. They will amuse themselves by spending it and not learn to be frugal like you. The authors cite data that shows that adult children who get money from parents are in general poorer and argue that giving your kids money will have the opposite of the intended effect. Unremarkably, they do not consider the possibility that maybe those children got money from their parents because they were poorer, not the other way around.

The other reason not to give your children money, besides it being good parenting, is that if you give it to them then you will not have it anymore. And it is here that I stop being able to even relate to the message of the book. You save your money carefully throughout your life not so you can spend it on the finer things, nor even so you can spend it on the ones you love. You save it because it’s the right thing to do. This is the Scrooge McDuck school of wealth management.

The authors describe sharing their research with an audience of “affluent grandmothers.” (Yes, really.) One takes them to task.

I’m as indignant as hell. What am I supposed to do with my money? My daughter’s family is having a rough time making ends meet. Do you know about the problems with public school around here? I’m sending my grandchildren to private schools. (p. 145)

I’m with grandma on this one. Starting a statement claiming to be “indignant as hell” is not the way people, even affluent grandmothers, talk in my part of the country. But where I come from, sending your grandchildren to private school is just about the most wholesome thing you could do with your money, short of anonymous donations to charity. The authors of Millionaire Next Door have different values. Private school tuition is mentioned repeatedly in the same category as big houses, country club memberships, and, of course, luxury automobiles. (Did I mention the other day that the authors were professors of marketing at state schools?)

And their analysis of this obviously deranged old lady:

It is obvious to us that this grandmother is not completely at ease about providing economic outpatient care to her daughter’s family. The real problem is not with the public schools; it is that her daughter’s family is in a situation of economic dependency. Mother has difficulty with the fact that her daughter married someone who is unable to earn a high income. (p. 146)

Even I have trouble getting beyond the Neanderthal sexism implicit in this diagnosis. Perhaps the son-in-law does just fine but it is the daughter’s career as an aroma therapist that disappoints her mother. Or maybe daughter is a single mom.

Even if we accept that this woman is disappointed in her daughter’s choice of life partner, can it really be that the authors are blind to the fact that it is not the daughter or son-in-law who are the recipients of grandmother’s largess? It is the grandchildren who are going to private school. Perhaps Grandma wants them to have every advantage they can, something especially important given their good-for-nothing father.

Alas, these authors cannot get beyond the fact that this person is allowing her descendants to live a lifestyle beyond their means. The right course is to live well below your means. Living at your means is bad enough, but beyond it is just flat out wrong. And reading this book you come to realize that they do not mean wrong in the sense that it is fiscally unwise. They really mean immoral.

Scratch the surface of Millionaire Next Door and you find an ugly streak of class envy, or maybe class disgust. The heroes of this book are the millionaires who look and act like ordinary folks. They shop at J.C. Penney and drink two kinds of beer: “free and Budweiser.” The villains are those that have expensive tastes and spread those tastes to others. And nowhere is it suggested that those expensive high status things might actually be objectively nicer than the lower status alternatives. For the authors of this book, status is the solitary benefit you get from the country club or from sending your kids to a private school.

Millionaire Next Door has, and I use this term carefully, a Marxist view of consumer culture.  It holds that the reason that most people with steady jobs lack tidy fortunes is that they are seduced into spending all they make, and possibly more, on high status items consistent with their perceived station in life. The problem is not that you, the reader, cannot figure out how to live the lifestyle that you desire but that you desire it to begin with. The point of the millionaire living in the ordinary house next to yours is not that even somebody like you from this neighborhood can get rich. The point is that the millionaire had the good sense not to take on pretensions and move on to a nicer area.

Millionaire Next Door sold about three million copies and spent three years on the New York Times bestseller list.  I don’t think this was because the late ‘90s was a time receptive to an anti-materialism, anti-status, anti-rich message.  On the contrary, it was the surface message, that anybody could become rich if they followed the secrets in the book, which generated enthusiasm.  Readers just ignored the anti-rich stuff and the kooky advice about buying cars by the pound.  That’s the trouble with giving advice; folks just read what they want to.

Business and life lesson from an Orchestra

Most people today enjoy listening to music, albeit singers, bands or a full orchestra. To me in orchestral music we can learn much about how to run an effective business. So what is an orchestra? 

An orchestra - an instrumental ensemble, usually fairly large with string, brass, woodwind sections, and possibly a percussion section as well. The term orchestra derives from the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus. The orchestra grew by accretion throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but changed very little in composition during the course of the twentieth century. 

In a growing business concern either through employees or contractors you as the owners work to create an organization to accomplish the mission of servicing your customers and/or clients. An orchestra performs a work of music for their audience (customers/clients). So, what lessons are here? 

• A conductor – leads the orchestra in performance and rehearsals, determining as the leader the musical works being performed as well as the tempo (speed and rhythm) at which the work will be performed.
• An orchestra exists to perform music – not engineering, law, auto repair – they are focused.
• An musician plays from common sheet music
• Each instrument in the organization has a unique sound and make no effort to serve in other rolls albeit vocal, winds, wood wind, string, percussion (does not pretent to be what isit not)
• Each instrument has its own strengths and limitations
• Each instrument works to compliment the others in the orchestra
• All orchestra members practice to ensure a professional performance
• Each musician learns to master their instrument before joining the orchestra
• Each musician follows the first chair, section leader and ultimately the conductor
• Each musician learns to read sheet music if only by sight and follow what it dictates
• Each musician understands the importance of keeping their commitments
• No member works to outshine the group unless the music calls for is and only when asked to do so
• Each member agrees to the uniform of the organization
• Even when performing in unison the musicians play within the range octaves of their instruments – i.e. c is still c but in the octave of their instrument
• Each member musician is treated with respect
• Each musician maintains and respects the instruments (equipment)
• Each musician understands the importance of self control
• The success of the orchestra is based on who well each section gel and work together – the failure of a single section is a failure of the whole 
  
• The fun is when all of the hard work comes together for a successful and well received performance
  

Are there any lessons you would like to add?