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Weekend Challenge #05 (02/22/2020): A FINANCIAL REVIEW

HERE IS YOUR WEEKEND CHALLENGE: A FINANCIAL REVIEW

you weekend challenge has arrived

 
Listen to this weekend’s Weekend Challenge

The weekend is the perfect time to get do a FINANCIAL REVIEW.

The way I see it, as part of being a leader in your professional life, you must be a great leader in your personal life. The best way to be a great leader in your personal life is to keep your house in order. The less you can stress about your personal life, the less you stress with your professional life.

YES, they are a symbiotic. The two live and exist because of the other. Do NOT kid yourself and think otherwise. Simply break it down, if you cannot manage your own person finances, how are you expected to be a good steward at work?

While I am a complete and total advocate for keeping WORK at WORK and HOME at HOME. You are still one person and the events of one will impact how you act and react with the other. That is why you have to be aware and cognizant of both.

So, what does this have to do with finances?

Simple. You have to ensure that you know how much money you have, how much you need, where it is coming from and most importantly where it is going. Stress levels decrease when finances are in order. In just about anything and everything we do, when there is less ambiguity there is more confidence. Having more confidence means being less stressed. Being less stressed at home means being less stressed at work. All that confidence means a lot less anxiety. Doing what it takes to be less anxious is key to being an Authentic Leader.

I hope you can see how that works?

Don’t worry this WEEKEND CHALLENGE is relatively simple.

  1. Make a list of all your money holding accounts (Savings, Checking, Stocks, Mutual Funds, ETFs, etc.). If you only have a couple well then things just got a lot easier.
  2. Determine the amount of money you have in each account.
  3. Make a list of ALL outstanding debt (who you owe money to): Credit Cards, Loans, Mortgage, Car, Liens, etc. (again, if you have a couple of these debt items, CONGRATULATIONS things just got a lot easier).
  4. Determine and list ALL your sources of income (DO NOT INCLUDE ANY ITEM FROM #1)
  5. Here comes the cold hard truth: Determine how much money you have and how much you owe. This is the one thing most people refuse to see and admit. For most of us, this realization is going to sting. Let it sting.
  6. Now, here comes another difficult thing to do. Determine what you need to do to increase your income and decrease your debt and NOT paying on your debt is NOT the correct answer.
    1. Create a budget
      1. Pay yourself first (if you can, make $100 your monthly allowance)
      2. Save some $$$ (buy assets (saving it in the bank is not an asset (remember your money in the bank is an ASSET FOR THE BANK!))
        1. Buy Precious Metals (I.e., Gold, Silver, Platinum, Rhodium)
        2. Buy Financials such as Stocks, Funds, etc. (do your homework)
        3. Real Estate (Rental Property)
      3. Live off the budget
    2. Create a pay-off debt plan
      1. I recommend the SNOWBALL plan
        1. Pay on all your debt the minimum
        2. Select the one debt (DEBT#1) you owe the least and pay extra until all paid
        3. Once DEBT#1 is paid off, take the COMPLETE amount you were sending to DEBT#1 and ADD it to DEBT#2 and keeping doing that until it is also paid in full.
        4. Now take DEBT#1 and DEBT#2 amounts and apply them to DEBT#3 and repeat the process until you are completely debt free.
      2. DO NOT CREATE ANY NEW DEBT.
        1. If your only reason to create new debt is because you are buying CRAP to impress not the family, not the friends, but totally complete strangers then you are WRONG and nothing anyone, including me, can say or do will help you become a Great Leader.
        2. However, if you must CREATE new debt then make absolutely certain it is for the right reason (such as):
          1. Transportation (old one cost too much to fix or constantly breaking down)
          2. Housing (previous one was TOO expensive to live in)
          3. Appliances (only if the previous item no longer works, buy the bare minimum (a.k.a., Absolutely NO touchscreen refrigerator)
          4. Clothing (only if you shop at Thrift stores, 2nd Hand, Goodwill (lots of great stuff there)
          5. Food (STOP GOING OUT TO EAT! Buy and Cook Your Own Food)
          6. Entertainment. Going out is OUT OF THE QUESTION! Stay in and save a ton coin by subscribing to Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Amazon Prime (this cost way far less than table service in the Velvet Room)
        3. STOP WASTING MONEY!
      3. LIVE LIKE A PAUPER until you are debt free, then you will be surprised how you will live like ROYALTY later.
      4. There is NO BAD TIME TO BEGIN on taking care of your finances. Well there is a bad time and that BAD TIME IS NEVER TAKING CARE OF YOUR FINANCES.

Remember, just because the app on your fancy schmancy smartphone says you have money does NOT mean you have money to waste.

NOW, GET TO WORK!

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Weekend Challenge #04 (02/15/2020): READ A BOOK!

you weekend challenge has arrivedHERE IS YOUR WEEKEND CHALLENGE: READ A BOOK

This weekend’s challenge is probably one of the most difficult challenges I have issued. It is difficult in that everyone (myself included) perceive ourselves as NOT having enough time to read a book.

Then comes the inevitable excuse of which book to select?

Then comes some other lames ass excuse of they cost too much!

Did you know in just about every town and city in the United States there is one building that people can go to and find a book to read?

The Public Library

The public library was set up on the premise giving people an opportunity to read any book in their stacks and the opportunity to check out (borrow) the book to read at home. Then two weeks later the book is returned having been read cover to cover.

But what if you do not want to go to the library because it seems beneath you or some other excuse?

As you are reading this challenge, I know you have access to the Internet.

Therefore, allow me to introduce you to Amazon dot com. Amazon not only sells books at price set by the author or its publisher. Did you know that many of the authors that are selling their books through Amazon also sell them for the deep discounted price of $0.00?

That’s right, you can sign up for the Amazon Kindle app and soon you can be reading books at no cost to you.

But what about those that do not want to share their private information with a large mega corporation?

Uh, let me let you in on a little secret: Amazon, Google, and Yahoo probably already know more about you than you know about yourself. The information about your online habits and such is already made available to them by the analytics they can capture when you visit any of their sites or use their services.

So please stop with the excuse of not wanting to share your information. If you do not believe me about how much information you are sharing take a look at the itemized receipt from you last trip to the grocery store. Trust me when I say, just by looking at your receipt your grocer knows your shopping habits better than you.

They have the exact same information on that receipt which in turn they use to predict how many turkeys to order in time for Thanksgiving and when the cold and flu season is hitting your home. They can also extrapolate information such as the number of pets you have, when your kids are entering the teenage years of their lives, they can also tell when your kids leave the home. Do you see where I am going with this? Face it, they have plenty of information on you already.

Still not convinced? That’s fine there is one more service I would like to share with you: Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/)

Project Gutenberg is an eBook service with over 60,000 FREE selections. Seriously, who can turn down a free book to read? You can read it on your smart phone, android tablet, iPad, PC, heck you can even read it off your Internet enable television. WOW! Can you believe that? We NOW live in a future that we can read a book using the Television screen. Folks, this is the future and the future is wanting you to learn, to empower yourself, to make you a better person. The Future wants you to be BETTER than you were Yesterday.

There is NO EXCUSE to not read a book this weekend.

The ONLY real excuse is there is NO Excuse!

Thus, I CHALLENGE YOU to get yourself a real or virtual book and READ something new and exciting!

I CHALLENGE YOU to LEARN something new this weekend.

I CHALLENGE YOU to DISCOVER something different this weekend.

I CHALLENGE YOU to GO ON AN ADVENTURE this weekend.

I CHALLENGE YOU to tell me know what you are reading this weekend.

I CHALLENGE YOU to DO WHAT IT TAKES TO BE BETTER this weekend!

Get to Work!
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Accountability blog Change Choice Decisionmaking Inspiration Leadership Leadership Principles Motivation

Weekend Challenge 03 (02/08.20): HOW AM I DOING?

you weekend challenge has arrived

Remember, we are supposed to be learning from out past. The choice we made can never be undone but those choices also serve to shape our future. For every action we take there is an outcome we may or may not like.

However, when we make what we perceive to be rational and sound choices then no matter the outcome we feel we made the right choice. Whether the outcome was what we expected or not. It is when we make hasty and rash decisions that are not worth the risk that…well we get what we deserve: a hasty, rash and unsound outcome. To avoid the outcomes that are not in our favor or not exactly what we expected we have to focus on being intentional with our decision making and be prepared to deliver on a decision that may sometimes not give us what we expect or want.

One way to be intentional in our future decision making is to review our past decisions. Please read carefully: TO REVIEW OUR PAST DECISIONS and NOT TO DWELL ON THOSE DECISIONS AND THEIR OUTCOMES.

Sadly, as I write this I know there are individuals that are going to only read the last seven words of the previous sentence and all that I am writing will go to waste (on them).

Good thing, you are not one of those that dwells on past decisions only to repeat making the decisions that CONTINUE to deliver the outcomes and expectations that are NOT what you expected or anticipated. As leaders, the only common thread to decision making is ensuring that whatever the decision it is something you will learn from and become better as a leader but also as a human being.

REVIEW YOUR DECISIONS
The weekend, is the perfect time to pour yourself a cup of coffee or a cuppa tea or a snifter of warm brandy or whatever you choose to drink, and reflect on the past seven (7) days.

Use this weekend to review the following and be HONEST with yourself:

  • What decisions were made?
  • What decisions did you not make?
  • Which decisions could have been better with more info?
  • Which decisions were made in haste?
  • Which decisions were made as a form of revenge (for example, I’ll show them)?
  • Which decisions changed your life for the better?
  • Which decisions changed your life for the worse?
  • How were your relationships made better by your decisions?
  • How were your relationships strained by your decisions?
  • Did the decisions you made have a negative impact on others?
  • Did the decisions you made have a lasting and positive impact on others?
  • NOW REALLY BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF: Did the decisions you made have a negative impact on YOU?

These questions are to be used solely to IMPROVE your future. The answers are yours and yours alone, you do not have to share them with anyone but you do have to think about them but not for too long. Thinking too long is where the dwelling begins and that is NOT a good thing.

In the answers, see what needs improvement, what needs to be removed, what needs to be modified and most importantly what needs to remain. However, this will only work if you are willing to be HONEST and TRUTHFUL with yourself. It can be difficult because there are far too many individuals that truly believe they do not need to improve but everyone around them does.

Thus, I challenge you to get rid of the bad, the nastiness, the bitterness, the sadness, the distrust, the anger, the destructive, scarcity mindset and yes WE all have them to some degree or another. In case you FAILED to read that right, I wrote WE which INCLUDES ME.

I Challenge You to be better, do better, because as an adult and leader, you already KNOW better.

I Challenge You to let the good, happiness, growth and the abundance mindset in, take root and grow inside you.

I Challenge You to find the way to let the best in you coming shining through. To be the best version of you that you can be.

This Decision Review Challenge is one that you must repeat every week. Repeat it so that you are constantly improving. This challenge is actually quite simple on the complexity scale of 1 to 10. I give this a 5. Five in that, it may be a bitter pill to swallow, at first, but once you find yourself asking and honestly answering these questions it will get better. I promise it will get better and you will become better. You become better because you are aware of your actions and behaviors.

You are better because YOU WANT TO BECOME BETTER.

Well there it is, YOUR WEEKEND CHALLENGE, now get to work!