I have not posted for almost 3 weeks.  I’ve been visiting and I’ve had a visitor.  That visitor was my mother.  It was wonderful to see her.  We spent several days in the Southern Colorado town of Durango, Colorado. I think it is one of my mom’s favorite places and I have a whole new appreciation for it.  Then my partner and I went to visit friends at a yurt in Northern Colorado.  Problem was that neither one of us checked a map before agreeing to the trip. The yurt was (and still is) in the northern part of the state about 35 miles from the Wyoming border, 600 miles from where I live.  Hummmmmmmm.  Bugs staked out the area well before we did.  I brought my fishing equipment and managed to catch some brook trout.  Most I threw back, but there was one that I felt good about keeping.  I pan-fried him in butter and spices.  We dragged slices of the baguette we brought through the pan drippings (because you always have a baguette on a camping trip).  My catch made for quite a tasty morsel.  He didn’t come cheap.  I was covered most of the time by bugs while I was fishing.  They seemed to really like my hands.  After a few hours on the stream, my left hand had swollen to 3 times normal size, my fingers were sausage like and the tips were cold.  I couldn’t make a fist. We left a full day early.  I am happy to report that I am much better, my hand is back to normal.

Why did we go?  Aside from the obvious: We made a commitment and decided to keep it.  As I get older, I have honestly realized that it is important to maintain life’s connections.  They are gifts and living things.  Like all living things they have to be nurtured.  There are people that I have lost track of over the years that I sorely miss and I am now scrambling to find.  So we drove 600 miles to maintain connections that are important to us and resolved to check a map next time.

Our trip was long and we made several stops along the way.  I was going to blog about our stops and the interpersonal encounters because they were downright scary.  I left those encounters feeling that as a nation we are in trouble and resolved to blog about them in detail, but my mother sent me some pretty darn funny e-mails that get the point across.

So here they are:

Clean can be funny..

One day, a man came home and was greeted by his wife dressed in a very Sexy nightie.
‘Tie me up,’ she purred, ‘and you can do anything you want.’
So he tied her up and went golfing.

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A woman came home, screeching her car into the driveway, and ran into the house..
She slammed the door and shouted at the top of her lungs, ‘Honey, pack your bags. I won the lottery!’
The husband said, ‘Oh my God! What should I pack, beach stuff or mountain stuff?’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Just get out.’

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Marriage is a relationship in which one person is always right, and the other is a husband.

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A Polish immigrant went to the DMV to apply for a driver’s license.
First, of course, he had to take an eye sight test.
The optician showed him a card with the letters

‘C Z W I X N O S T A C Z.’
‘Can you read this?’ the optician asked.
‘Read it?’ the Polish guy replied, ‘I know the guy.’

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Mother Superior called all the nuns together and said to them, ‘I must tell you all something. We have a case of gonorrhea in the convent.’
‘Thank God,’ said an elderly nun at the back. ‘I’m so tired of chardonnay..’

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A wife was making a breakfast of fried eggs for her husband.
Suddenly, her husband burst into the kitchen.
‘Careful,’ he said, ‘CAREFUL! Put in some more butter! Oh my gosh! You’re cooking too many at once. TOO MANY! Turn them! TURN THEM NOW! We need more butter. Oh my gosh! WHERE are we going to get MORE BUTTER? They’re going to STICK! Careful. CAREFUL! I said be CAREFUL! You NEVER listen to me when you’re cooking! Never! Turn them! Hurry up! Are you CRAZY? Have you LOST your mind? Don’t forget to salt them. You know you always forget to salt them Use the! salt. USE THE SALT! THE SALT!’
The wife stared at him.
‘What in the world is wrong with you? You think I don’t know how to fry a couple of eggs?’
The husband calmly replied, ‘I just wanted to show you what it feels like when I’m driving.’

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Fifty-one years ago, Herman James, a North Carolina mountain man, was drafted by the Army.
On his first day in basic training, the Army issued him a comb.
That afternoon the Army barber sheared off all his hair.
On his second day, the Army issued Herman a toothbrush.
That afternoon the Army dentist yanked seven of his teeth.
On the third day, the Army issued him a jock strap.
The Army has been looking for Herman for 51 years.

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Notes from a DC Airport Ticket Agent

God Bless America !
A DC airport ticket agent offers some examples of ‘why’ our country is in trouble:

1.  I had a New Hampshire Congresswoman (Carol Shea-Porter) ask for an aisle seat so that her hair wouldn’t get messed up by being near the window. (On an airplane!)

2.  I got a call from a Kansas Congressman’s (Moore) staffer (Howard Bauleke), who wanted to go to Capetown. I started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information, and then he interrupted me with, ”I’m not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in Massachusetts ..”

Without trying to make him look stupid, I calmly explained, ”Cape Cod is in Massachusetts , Capetown is in Africa ”

his response — click.

3.  A senior Vermont Congressman (Bernie Sanders) called, furious about a Florida package we did. I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando . He said he was expecting an ocean-view room. I tried to explain that’s not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state.

He replied, ‘don’t lie to me, I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state!”

4.  I got a call from a lawmaker’s wife (Landra Reid) who asked, ”Is it possible to see England from Canada ?”

I said, ”No.”

She said, ”But they look so close on the map.”

5.  An aide for a cabinet member(Janet Napolitano) once called and asked if he could rent a car in Dallas . I pulled up the reservation and noticed he had only a 1-hour layover in Dallas . When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said, ”I heard Dallas was a big airport, and we will need a car to drive between gates to save time.” (Aghhhh)

6.  An Illinois Congresswoman (Jan Schakowsky)  called last week. She needed to know how it was possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:30 a.m., and got to Chicago at 8:33 a.m.

I explained that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois , but she couldn’t understand the concept of time zones. Finally, I told her the plane went fast, and she bought that.

7.  A New York lawmaker, (Jerrold Nadler) called and asked, ”Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know whose luggage belongs to whom?” I said, ‘No, why do you ask?’

He replied, ”Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said (FAT), and I’m overweight. I think that’s very rude!”

After putting him on hold for a minute, while I looked into it. (I was dying laughing). I came back and explained the city code for Fresno , Ca. is “FAT” (Fresno Air Terminal), and the airline was just putting a destination tag on his luggage.

8.  A Senator John Kerry aide (Lindsay Ross) called to inquire about a trip package to Hawaii . After going over all the cost info, she asked, ”Would it be cheaper to fly to California and then take the train to Hawaii ?”

9.  I just got off the phone with a freshman Congressman, Bobby Bright (D) from Ala who asked, ”How do I know which plane to get on?”

I asked him what exactly he meant, to which he replied, ”I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these planes have numbers on them.”

10.  Senator Dianne Feinstein (D)
called and said, ”I need to fly to Pepsi-Cola , Florida . Do I have to get on one of those little computer planes?”

I asked if she meant fly to Pensacola , FL on a commuter plane.

She said, ”Yeah, whatever, smarty!”

11. Mary Landrieu (D) LA Senator called and had a question about the documents she needed in order to fly to China .  After a lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded her that she needed a visa. ‘Oh, no I don’t. I’ve been to China many times and never had to have one of those.”

I double checked and sure enough, her stay required a visa. When I told her this she said, ”Look, I’ve been to China four times and every time they have accepted my American Express!”

12. A New Jersey Congressman (John Adler) called to make reservations, ”I want to go from Chicago to Rhino, New York .”

I was at a loss for words. Finally, I said, ”Are you sure that’s the name of the town?”

‘Yes, what flights do you have?” replied the man.

After some searching, I came back with, ”I’m sorry, sir, I’ve looked up every airport code in the country and can’t find a rhino anywhere.”

”The man retorted, ”Oh, don’t be silly! Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!”

So I scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, ”You don’t mean Buffalo , do you?”

The reply? ”Whatever! I knew it was a big animal.”

Now you know why the Government is in the shape that it’s in!

Could anyone be this DUMB?

YES, THEY WALK AMONG US, ARE IN POLITICS, AND THEY CONTINUE TO BREED..

The interpersonal encounters

were similar to the notes from a DC ticket agent.  Mamma Mia!

Please comment.  What has become important to you as you have gotten older?

One of the questions I ponder often is what makes one person different from another in terms of what they achieve.  The biblical parable of the sower talks about good seed that falls on rocky soil, seed that is stolen by birds and seed that takes root yet has different yields.  All of it is good seed yet some yields 10, 50 or 100 fold.  In other words the same good seed in good soil has different yields.  Why?  Perhaps his is a question best answered by the wisest sage.  So despite the fact that I constantly ponder this question, I’ll take it down a notch and apply the question to gardening, personal finance and task completion.

Why do some people complete their tasks online while others are late?  Why do some gardeners lose their plants to common pests like aphids and wind burn while others do not?  Why are some people plagued by late fees while others are not?

The answer lies in what you value and in the concept of routine. If you value the timely completion of tasks what do you do to make sure that happens? If you hate late fees, what do you do to make sure you never get one? If you love gardening, what do you do to make sure that your garden thrives and that you are not spending hundreds of dollars every year replacing dead plants?

The answer is routine. You develop a routine to make sure that your garden thrives, that your bills are paid on time, that your work is completed on time.  I have a great garden.  I love it and it has taken years to create.  In the fall, I winterize it.  In the spring I trim the previous year’s dead matter from the perennials.  I placed a drip irrigation system as the garden was going in so that I could water systematically with the turn of a knob rather than drag hoses all over the yard each time I watered.  I have tried very hard to systematize everything to make maintenance convenient.  Every morning in season when I have my coffee, I patrol the garden looking for pests and sign of sun and wind damage.  I perform the same task in the evening.  Walking through my garden during the growing season twice a day has become part of my daily routine.  Over the years certain tasks have become much less fun than others therefore I have learned to farm those tasks out, because having a thriving garden has remained a value to me.

Some might argue that I take the matter of routine a bit too far.  A friend of ours owns a nursery and greenhouse.  Like a phoenix from the ashes this garden paradise arose from an asphalt parking lot and a foreclosed upon Mexican restaurant.  I have a routine whenever I go there.  I go first to the grapevine and then to the honeysuckle. I have 3 shrub varieties and 3 vine varieties that I was introduced to at this green house.  I inspect.  What did I find today?  Aphids galore on the golden flame honeysuckle.  I told the owner who was grateful, but already knew determined to let the ladybugs do their job, eventually.  We both laughed agreeing that there was probably a program for me.  Then I remembered the orchid that I brought home only to find aphids on it picked up from the greenhouse where I bought it.  I’ll take my routine and philosophy any day rather than surrender my efforts to the devouring pests of aphids, late charges, over drafts and the like.

I took a sales class a few years ago.  The instructor had us do a painful exercise all on our honor of course.  Each night that we failed to make sales calls, we were to take a dollar from our wallets and burn it.  Just the thought of the exercise gave me palpitations.  Late fees provoke the same feeling in me.  Paying a late fee is literally a waste and does not enhance the value of the product purchased.  Paying a late fee on your mortgage doesn’t increase the value of your home and paying a late fee on your rent does not mean your landlord is going to reward you by putting in a new pool or laundry services.  Late fees are literally money up in smoke or money down the toilet.  They represent a waste and poor money management skills.  Anyone with a telephone, ATM card or access to a personal computer can pay their bills on time.  So if it is of value to avoid the fees it is easy to establish a routine around paying the bills on time.  Simply logging in, calling in or going to the ATM machine can be done on any schedule to make sure late fees never occur.

The same is true with task completion. If the desire is to write, then write a page on something every day.  If your boss has a project for you figure out how long it will take to complete and establish a routine around task completion until it is done.

I have become convinced that the reason some individuals are more productive than others is that the more productive ones have established routines geared toward what they value and ultimately toward higher production.

We have a choice, to maintain our homes through routine or risk coming home to a flooded house because we forgot to swap out the old hoses to the washing machine for new ones.  We can paint siding each year or have the sun blister and warp it until it needs to be replaced.  We can develop the routine of saving when we are 20 or 30 or go into panic mode at age 52.  There are so many things that we can do to unleash the power of routine in our lives.

Please comment. What are the things that have made a difference for you?

Adam Baker’s Man versus Debt is one of the blogs that I follow.  This post was inspired in some ways by Adam’s April 27th post When to Quit Traveling. Adam at the age of 24 or so, didn’t like the way his life was going accumulating things and personal debt so he and his family decided to sell their possessions and travel for a year.  They decided to cut their trip short by a couple of months and return home.  Adam discusses the implications of that decision on their present and future realities on his blog.

I am middle-aged.  I don’t say that like it is a medical diagnosis with all the emotional impact that medical diagnoses can have.  I say that at a statement of fact.  I am middle-aged.  I have also had a long and rewarding professional career and I have gotten to a point where I can see beyond my career to other opportunities.  Honestly, going to school for years and training to become something, in my case a doctor, can make you feel that you always have to be that thing you trained to become or practice that thing you trained to do the same way you have always done, but you don’t.  You always have the right to change your mind no matter how crazy every one around you may think that you are.

I have taken enough personal development classes to know that bringing about an even slightly different reality than the one I currently enjoy will require a great deal more than wishing.  It will require beginning with the end in mind.  The first time I heard the catchy phrase “you plan your life first by beginning with the end in mind”. I thought what kind of BS is this?!  Personal development programs always use the example of travel.  We plan trips toward a specific destination and, although there may be many ways to reach that destination, we always settle on a specific route.  The problem is that travel is easy and life can be a bit more challenging.

In the additional years of living since I first heard that phrase I now understand what that phrase truly means.  I will never reach a destination without first setting that destination as specifically as I know how. I then have to reject the things that prevent me from reaching that destination.  Wow, that sounds kind of harsh but ultimately that is really true.  If I know that in 10 years I want to be a person who owns 10 investment properties and that those properties will require a down payment of $20,000 each, I will have to engage in behaviors today that enable me to develop the requisite funds.  That will certainly mean saving money, it might mean networking to find like-minded business partners, it will also mean controlling day-to-day expenses as well as large purchases to make sure that I have the funds on hand that I need to buy the investment properties.

The toughest thing about beginning with the end in mind is deciding what that end is, deciding what I want my life to look like in all areas.  If I make one decision will that close off other opportunities?  Probably, but life teaches that a decision will also create opportunities.  There is a whole multi-million dollar  industry called personal development and life visioning to help people decide what they want illustrating that this is the toughest part of the life change process.  What if I make a decision and fail in the attempt?  I have to ask myself what is the worst that could possibly happen and can I survive that?  Yep, fear of lost opportunities and fear of failure are probably the two reasons people find it hard to decide what they truly want and therefore find it hard to make change.  I know that is surely the case for me.

Looking back, I found it relatively easy to be where I am today.  I certainly worked and worked hard and there were times that I felt quite alone. Looking forward feels a bit different because there is a certain level of complacency.  I really don’t have to do anything different and, except for the stirring in my heart, I would make no change at all.  Fortunately I am into listening to my heart these days.

First step?  Begin with the end in mind.  Quite fortunately in life we can have several beginnings.  Thank God for yellow note pads!

Are you beginning with the end in mind?

Please comment.

This blog post was inspired by Lee of Lee’s Shizzle

You ever wonder how one guy hits it out of the park and everyone wants to know how he did it.  I mean EXACTLY how he did it?  If cloning success were that easy everyone would be successful.  Alas it isn’t that simple.  Lee was trying to encourage folks to use their own creativity on the road to success.  He remarked how crazy it is that when you are out fishing and one guy seems to be catching the fish, all the other fisherpeople crowd around the same hole as the successful guy as if catching fish is as simple as fishing in the same hole.

I fly fish and that analogy screamed volumes to me.  At the tail water fishery on the San Juan where the fish are very selective, you come to understand that it takes more than fishing in the same hole as the successful guy to net the big fish.  It takes the right fly, heck the right combination of flies, the right fishing line and the right presentation. And at the end of the day the fish just may not like how you smell.  This same principle, that success depends on a whole lot of variables applies in the world of personal finance.

There are two principles to wealth and they are that you should 1) live below your means and 2) save your money.  Once you have mastered those two principles, then you can add two more: 1) invest your money wisely and 2) create other income streams so that you can live below your means, save your money and invest your money wisely.

Now the 20 year old new to the personal finance game would have very different results than the 50 year old who is new to the personal finance game.  Why?  Because in addition to those principles is another factor that lurks in the background;  it is one you cannot duplicate and it is one that cannot be cheated.  This factor is time.  In general the 20 year old has more of it than the 50 year old and these two bedrock financial principles take time to come to fruition.  Two different people at two different ages, using the same financial principles cannot clone success.  The 50 year old would have to save more per month than the 20 year old to produce the same results.  The 50 year old might decide that he is so behind the 8 ball that he has to take risks to boost his yields and make sure he stays on track.

One sales professional may come to a new job with more training and more real world experience than his colleague.  His results, therefore, will be different than his colleague’s even if the company they both work for also offers sales training.

There is no way around it. The awful truth is that it is impossible to duplicate success across the spectrum of variabilities.  We just want to pretend that it isn’t.  Then we don’t have to factor in the role that our life experience, temperament and creativity may play in our overall outcomes.

Please comment.

The “p-word” is Porno and Zack and Miri, life long friends decided to make one. Busted and broke, Zack thinks it would be an easy to make a porno and make money. Miri thinks that if it were easy, everyone would do it. Zack raises the money, finds a studio, writes the script and together they select the cast. They are on a roll and ending their financial problems does seem easy, but before they shoot a scene, they lose their studio, props and investment. Miri was right…not so easy. This movie was not a tale of persistence or success, they never do make their porno and the best we can figure out is that they never do change their financial situation. Friends, Zack and Miri, do fall in love, but nothing else changes.

Their experience is true for so many who seek positive financial change in their lives, assume the change will be easy and rush, headlong, into disappointment.

Not everyone that I talk to about getting started in a home-based business gets started. In fact most don’t. I have learned over the years, that when a prospective business partner says no to me, what they are really saying is that there must be an easier way to make money. There must be an easier way to make money than sales, there must be an easier way to make money than marketing, there must be an easier way to make money than saving and investing, there must be an easier way to make money than taking classes at night to improve skills. There must be an easier way. Period.

As Zack and Miri found and most wealth seekers find: There isn’t. Faced with the harsh reality that there isn’t an easier way, wealth seekers either quit seeking wealth or they vow to acquire the necessary skill sets to gain and retain wealth. Few people choose the latter. The majority, never quite letting go of the misplaced belief that there must be an easier way, drift aimlessly from project to project, opportunity to opportunity becoming increasingly disillusioned with each failure.

Unfortunately few people ever make and complete the journey of wealth creation. According to the Tax Foundation’s July report of individual income tax data, ten percent of American households make over $100,000 per year. In their book, The Millionaire Next Door, Stanley and Danko indicate that the average household income of millionaires is $247,000.

When Stanley and Danko wrote their book, they focused on millionaires because they thought that many American households could attain that level of wealth within a single lifetime. “About 95 percent of millionaires in America have a net worth of between $1million and $10 million. Much of the discussion in this book centers on this segment of the population. Why focus on this group? Because this level of wealth can be attained in one generation. It can be attained by many Americans.”

Why do some succeed while others ultimately fail?

People who seek and ultimately gain wealth gain different skill sets from those who don’t. Napoleon Hill places Specialized Knowledge among the 15 required assets to create wealth in his book, Think and Grow Rich. How long does it take to acquire Specialized Knowledge or a new, useable, skill set? 1000 hours, according to Michael Masterson in his book, Automatic Wealth. That is roughly 2 years at 10 hours a week for the person who has a full-time job and is seeking to change his or her financial picture. So one must either gain Specialized Knowledge or align himself with one who has it. Every other success strategy or characteristic outlined in Napoleon Hill’s Books requires work to attain or practice. Desire, Self-Control, Autosuggestion, Faith and a Definite Aim, require daily practice. Forming a Mastermind group does not require daily practice, but it does require a commitment to that group, and it often does require rearrangements within social networks. That is changing the people you hang out with.

The Success Strategies are also known as Laws of Success. They are so called because they cannot be negotiated with, they simply are.

The irony is that without any knowledge of the Laws of Success, Zack and Miri employed them. They had a Definite Aim: to change their financial picture. Their living situation reinforced that aim daily. Their group of actors and camera-men became their Mastermind Group and their group became self-reinforcing facilitating Faith, Autosuggestion and Specialized Knowledge. Zack initially had Persistence and Imagination to overcome the setback of losing their equipment, set and props. But lost Self-Control and Persistence when he realized he loved Miri. Without knowing the Laws of Success, he used the Laws of Success. Without knowing the Laws of Success, he broke them. Breaking the Laws of Success will undo the plans of success as Zack discovered, because he never did achieve his Definite Aim: to change his financial picture.

The truth is that whether we acknowledge them or not, we live in a world governed by Laws, Rules and Regulations. Many of which we use without acknowledgement and many of which we break in ignorance. We take for granted that we can leave our home without floating away because gravity allows us to walk down the street. We understand that what goes up, must come down and that our best hope is to control the nature of the landing.

Such are the Laws of Success. They exist and they work no matter our state of awareness.