Clinton Skakun

The following post was written by Tony Ramirez.

The majority of people spend their lives wandering aimlessly not knowing where exactly they are headed. Burke Hedges, author of the International Best-Seller, Who Stole the American Dream? Said, “If you don’t know where your going, you’re never gonna get there.” And that is absolutely true!

I remember sitting down with one of my mentors during the beginning of my senior year in high school. I shared with him certain goals I wanted to fulfill. He gave me advice and told me how I could possibly achieve them. My main focus was graduating from school so I could really start helping myself and others without worrying about attending class five days a week 6 hours a day. He handed me a sheet of paper with 6 questions on it.

The 6 Questions You Need to Answer

Those 6 questions put some things into perspective and played a major roll in my success during my last few months of school. Not only did I finish my schooling but I managed to do it an entire semester early, which has bought me an extra 6 months to get ahead!

I can honestly say the following questions have helped me succeed, which is why I keep the answers updated. If you are serious about achieving a worthwhile endeavor then ask yourself these questions:

1. Who am I?

2. Who do I know?

3. Who do I stand for?

4. Why is my time valuable?

5. Where am I going?

6. What am I willing to do to get there?

Before I continue, I need you to understand that success isn’t easy. I remember spending countless hours of doing nothing but reading and teaching myself material that I needed to know. I still remember the hours I spent answering nonstop packets of work, hours upon hours of writing essays and doing projects. It was difficult, but I embraced the rigorous work by understanding what I was willing to do to get to where I wanted to be.

Because I knew my time was valuable I committed 2 months of hard work to gain an extra 6 months. By doing so, I can now focus more on helping and influencing other people through StayStrongDreamBig.com and get my own life on a greater more meaningful path.

Remember, anyone who ever achieved greatness was aware of where they were headed. Can you imagine if the founders of the United States didn’t have a clue of where they were going when they challenged Great Britain to war? Fortunately they did and it is why they defeated the British, the largest and strongest country at the time. The founding fathers also knew what they stood for and it is the reason why people leave everything they own behind and immigrate to the States today, illegally. They are in search of the opportunity, freedom, hope and dreams that the founding fathers stood for.

Take some time and answer the 6 questions above. If you can’t answer all of them, it’s okay, simply focus on the ones that you can. Those 6 questions have enhanced my success, given me a greater insight on who I am and what I can do. It can surely do the same for you.

(I would greatly appreciate if you could spread this message with others through out twitter, facebook, digg, stumbleupon…anywhere you think it will benefit another person.)

_______________________________________________________

Name: Tony Ramirez

Website: www.StayStrongDreamBig.com

Tony Ramirez is an entrepreneur who strongly believes in the the power of dreams and the power each and every person has to achieve greatness. He writes at StayStrongDreamBig.com, where the main focus is to empower and add value to sharp, ambitious individuals like yourself. To find out more about Tony Ramirez follow him on twitter or visit his site here.

Rich people think differently! Rich people are conditioned differently!

One of the better books I’ve read on money: Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth This book explains that how we handle money in our adult years, and how much we have of it, is rooted in our childhood and what we were “fed” by our parents, teachers, friends, pastors, neighbors etc. Eker grew up in a family that had many mixed feelings about money. His mother wanted him to get a “real job” and his father told him to work for himself. Eker’s father was an entrepreneurial minded who lit the spark so to speak in Eker’s interest in business and wealth building. Eker told the story of how he fell on his face a few times in his twenties before finally building and selling a company for little over a million dollars.

What’s your Money Blueprint?

Until reading this book I had never heard of a money blueprint and didn’t know what it was. Eker uses the money blueprint as a metaphor for your subconscious programming towards money. Take for example these people who can loose billions one day and gain it back the next. And then consider people who win the lottery, and months later they’re back where they started…broke. Is it that not everyone can make the kind of money to build wealth? Do billionaires have skills that millionaires don’t and do millionaires have skills that the middle-class don’t? Eker takes the responsibility off of skills and onto behaviors and attitudes. The fact is we all have a set level in our money blueprint. For some it’s $2400 per month for others it’s $2400 per day! We all act consistent with our money blueprint. If your money blueprint is $50,000 a year you’ll probably end up working a job making around $50,000, get a degree that only gets you a job working for that much and work extra or lesser hours to fit that figure.

How do you find out what your Money Blueprint is…look at your bank account, look at your yearly income, how about your net worth. The symptoms, job..income..debt…net worth..etc, will tell you a lot about your blueprint.

Self Sabotage and the Financial Thermostat

What does the thermostat in your house do? When it gets too cold the heat kicks on, when it’s too warm it shuts the heat off. Lets say you set the thermostat to 22 deg, when the room temperature is say 18 deg the heat will kick on until it’s 22 deg. If it’s a very hot day, the furnis wont come on. Thing is, the same type of mechanism works with your financial thermostat. If, for example, your financial thermostat was always set to having $900 left over at the end of every month. One month you get a bonus, or sell a car, or inherit some money. Now your brain says, “WOW I’ve got extra money, lets buy a new widescreen/car/pool/shed” You will probably spend until you have around $900 in you account…why? Because somewhere deep down you’re working hard to stay at that level. You could say, “well they’re just bad with money” true but not true. Lots of people are bad with money, but somehow they seem to divert to the same level they’ve been set to. Why is it that Doug gets promoted to a higher paying job, making almost twice as much as before, but eventually moves back to his old job using excuses like “it’s too much work/too much of a pain/really hard to adjust to” His brain is really saying “It’s WAY too hot in here, turn off the heat”.

So what happens when Average Joe makes too much money, say he inherits $50,000? He tends to party and get contentious, until he runs out of money or hits his set level once again. What if Rich Jack had only $50,000? He’d feel broke! He wouldn’t spend a cent until he worked himself back up to his level(maybe in the millions)! Is the difference skills? NO! The difference is that Average Joe has a $3000 a month standard and Rich Jack has a $100,000 a month standard.

We don’t monitor our thermostat consciously. Most of our behaviors and choices are made subconsciously.

“People’s regular behaviors make or break them” – T. Harv Eker

How do you change your Financial Thermostat?

You change your Financial Thermostat by recognizing how your childhood beliefs about money have shaped your life and then decide to set new standards for your life. If you grew up in a regular family you probably heard your parents, teachers, friends, neighbors bash rich people. You read in the paper and heard on the news about rich people who were thieves or extortionists. If you decided to grow up as a honest person, and you had mixed feelings about the rich, you’d avoid ever getting rich. RIGHT? On top of that we all have heard these cliches, basically mantras for poor people: “you can’t be spiritual and rich”, “if I had a million dollars I’d give it all away”, “If I had a million dollars I’d buy a private jet”, “they’re a bunch of rich snobs”, “But I’d be bored if I didn’t work(aka I’ve worked paycheck to paycheck so long I don’t know how to do anything else)”, “If I can’t buy a limo why should they?”, “If God gave me a million dollars I’d buy five Ferrari’s”(in that case I hope God doesn’t give money to you.) I have news for you, 98% of everything you’ve heard about money is total and complete bullshit! Do this if you want to be rich: Stop listing to people who have no money and go find millionaires and hang out with them, listen to what they have to say about money.

“If you ever want to be wealthy, you can NOT have ANY negative feelings toward rich people. What you’ve heard about rich people is a lie!”

If you haven’t read Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth, BUY IT and READ IT NOW! If you don’t want to buy it borrow it, or get it from the library.

Jim Colins, in his book, Built to Last explains the difference between good companies and great ones. The opposite of Great is not poor. The opposite of Great is Good. Think of it, so many Good ideas crowd out the Great. The few gems of Great often get destroyed or forgotten by diverting focus on the mountains of Good.

Think of a company that sells ten different pairs of shoes. Money, time and man power is invested in the eight pairs of the shoes that are doing OK in sales. But there are only TWO pairs that are really out selling the other eight. In fact these two pairs are doing so well that they compensate for 70% of the companies income in sales. One day a smart person at the company decides to bring up the idea of dropping a few of the 80% of shoes that are lagging behind in sales. Someone objects his idea with, “But their all so good…”

Sacrificing the Great for the Good turns over: wasted time, wasted energy and wasted resources. Focusing on the Good distracts from the Great. So what do you do when you have so many choices, so much to choose from? Focus on the GREAT not the Good. If you can get the Great you don’t need the Good, the Good will just get in the way. Choosing the GREAT instead of Good will give you simplicity. Choosing the GREAT instead of Good will give you clarity. Choosing the GREAT instead of Good is power.

Obsessing with the Good will only squeeze the breath out of the Great, it will ruin your commitment to the Great and eventually kill it. The Great demands attention. The problem is the Good demand just as much attention as the Great.

What exactly do I mean by the Good and the Great?

• The Good and Great of time
• The Good and Great of finance
• The Good and Great of social networking
• The Good and Great of the world of sexy and attractive females(or males if you’re a female )
• The Good and Great of movies/video games/TV
• The Good and Great of computer programs or operating systems
• The Good and Great of RSS feeds you subscribe to
• The Good and Great of product lines in your company
• The Good and Great of delayed or short term gratification

The contrast of the Good and Great is really a reinstatement of the 80/20 rule: 80% of the Good only produces 20% of my results. 20% of the mix is Great and produces 80% results.

Photo by aussierupe

One of the greatest human needs is that of certainty. To be certain of their future, certain that they’re doing the right thing in the present moment and certain that they will be able to handle what comes in the future. When people loose certainty or become insecure it causes them anxiety and sometimes even depression. They do crazy things. They get more cautious. They avoid change. Judging by human nature this kind of reaction seems to make sense. But is it a healthy one? Yes and no. All of our emotions are there to tell us to do something. Pain, fear, anxiety, overload are all emotions that can turn your life into a disaster if not properly read and handled. What meaning we pull from all of this is a major determinant in how we take control of our lives and what we let control us.

“Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.” – John Allen Paulos quotes

There are a lot of people freaking out about the economy. Some people think its the end of the world, and for some it is. Century old companies going bankrupt, people loosing their jobs left and right, less demands being met in one market and not enough being met in another, government pouring tax dollars into bailouts that are doomed to failure and poorly executed. No wonder the majority of North Americans are on the edge of their seat. Their entire lives are about to fall in. People want things to get back to normal, but if you look at past recessions did things eventually get back to normal or did it leave behind a few changes?

“The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.” – Ursula K. LeGuin quotes

There’s a school of thought that’s very healthy in both good and bad economic times: Your best sense of certainly lies in uncertainty. Yes, the future is very uncertain. The only thing you can really be certain of is change. And hey, this thing called job security never existed. So many people had so much hope in their jobs that when they end up getting laid off they think, “this isn’t suppose to happen” and then they wonder when things are going to change back to the way they were. Things may never, and probably wont ever, change back. It’s a stark reality. Even the government who attempted to bail out one of the largest auto makers in the world couldn’t get them back on their feet. Why? Because it was an empty hope, “Lets toss money here and hope that consumers start buying from them again.” If you’re going to keep a fire alive use wood instead of paper bills, it’s less expensive and the fire’s going to eventually go out anyways. That money could have gone to creating new jobs to meet new demands. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Sure people are going to have to go elsewhere to find work, its really the consumer that decides whether a company is worth keeping alive.

“The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.” – Erich Fromm quotes

Bottom Line? Whether you live in 1953 or 2010 there’s always the possibility of economic downturns, economic upturns and a whole host of uncertainty that comes with the future. We can sit around and complain, go into deep depression about job losses and another company going bankrupt or we can change, adapt and do something about it. Don’t waste your ability to think on senseless complaining.

“The 21st Century has begun as an era of uncertainty, with a heightened focus on security and public safety.“ – Gavin Newsom