Let’s take two young men. Same age. Similar income. Similar education. When it came to buying a car, they both had about the same amount of money to spend.
The first guy bought a 12 year old muscle car. Over the years, it had been fixed up but it needed work to get it running. But, it was a cool looking car. In addition, for that model and year, there were plenty of add-ons to sweeten the ride.
The other guy spent about the same amount of money on an economy car that was about half the age of the hotrod. [click to continue…]
Don't Do It
Doesn’t anyone want to work anymore?
Three years ago at my office, I would receive four or five job applications a month. That used to be normal. Now I get one application every three or four months. If these economic times are seriously this dire, one would think that I should be receiving ten times the applications rather than 10%.
I hired a young lady last year. She made it three months before she quit. Why did she leave? Was the job that bad? Am I such a horrible boss? No. She told me that she could work 40 hours per week and get a paycheck. OR she could stay home and get 80% of her paycheck. That blew me away.
The increase in welfare availability has caused serious problems in our country. Although I would love to jump on this topic from a political point of view, for this forum I want to keep it personal. I want to discuss how being a welfare recipient affects the personal life. [click to continue…]
A while back, we had a series of inconveniences in our home. About three months ago, our refrigerator and our dishwasher went out. I don’t how long it’s been since you’ve been out to price kitchen appliances, but it was definitely an eye opener for me. But then, to make matters worse, about two months later the transmission went out in one of our cars. And if you haven’t been in the market for a transmission, let me tell you that a fridge and dishwasher are chump change compared to a rebuilt tranny. I was telling a friend about these breakdowns and how annoying they were.
“Inconvenience? Annoying?” she exclaimed. “That would kill me!”
I smiled to myself, realizing that she didn’t have the same perspective I did. [click to continue…]
Thanks for tolerating my absence over the past couple of weeks. The Christmas holiday is time where I do two things. First, I try to spend as much time with my family as I can. My daughter lives two states away and my brother is from the other side of the country, so I treasure the time I get to spend with them and the rest of my family. Second, it’s a time of reflection, where I look back to examine where I’ve achieved and where I fell short. Then I look forward to set goals and objectives for myself, both personally and professionally. I plan on sharing some of those with you in the near future. This is all part of the Life Navigation, which is a central theme to what I share and teach.
As we kick off 2012, I’d like to start off with another central theme which I continually use: Life Balance. This is one of the biggest problems men (and women) have in their pursuits to becoming a better person. Balancing life is the most common issue I have observed which keeps people from achieving their potential. In fact, let me go so far as to say, that the unbalanced life is what sends more people into the ditch of life than anything else. [click to continue…]
The $5 Hamster
One of the biggest obstacles to living the life you deserve deals with your finances. If you do not control your money, then finances will control you, depriving you of being a well balanced man. The solid man controls his budget, which allows him to pursue the activities which are important to him. However, the best designed budget is worthless, if you are constantly trying to recover from large, unexpected purchases from impulse buying. These impulse purchases are typically based on one thing: Emotion. To avoid these emotional purchases, there are few tactics you can use to help take the emotion out of the decision. [click to continue…]
Are you someone who eats out every day? If you are, I’m sure you’ve seen the guys who bring their lunches every day. They walk in the door carrying their little cooler bags or even brown paper sacks. How boring. They look worse than boring. They look like dorky, little boys whose mommies have packed their “wittle wunches”. Even though they’ve been teased about it, cajoled and snickered at, these guys relentlessly continue to bring their sandwiches and leftovers. Maybe they know something you don’t. Maybe… just maybe…there’s a secret here. [click to continue…]
Too much stuff
Success and wealth can be measured in so many ways, but often it boils down to the collections of items we have in our lives. As Bernadette Peters claimed in The Jerk, it’s not about the money, it’s about the stuff. In an effort help maintain perspective, I decided to take a look at how we view our material things. Maybe some of the confusion in your life is not the result of your job, relationships or other circumstance. Maybe, just maybe, it’s how you view your material wealth. A little perspective might make your life a little easier, so I would like to introduce you to Lex’s Maxims in Regards to Stuff. Pay attention, these are pearls.
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