Finding Success

Personal growth is often overlooked in the midst of pressing responsibilities and challenging schedules. We get locked into a pattern and then we become blinded by the pattern to greater possibilities, opportunities, and dreams.

Never forget how to dream. Our dreams give meaning and purpose to our lives. Living without dreaming is merely existing. Never forget what it feels like to wake up every day excited about the possibilities and the potential of our future. Do you feel alive? Do you have a dream?

People who have lost the ability to dream live with a sense of dread. The future looks dark and foreboding. The saddest sight I have seen in my international travels are poverty stricken people who have lost all hope. To look in the eyes of a child who has lost hope is heartbreaking.

Poverty is not an empty pocketbook, but a crippled mind. Success begins in the mind. We must start thinking successfully before we can start living successfully. Athletes learn to win mentally before they win in their chosen sport. Financial traders spend much time learning how to think right so they can trade right.

Learn how to dream again. Start thinking like a winner. Then learn how to set goals and plan. Success seldom comes at random. We must have definite goals and a plan for getting there. Nothing of value is accomplished without planning. Think and dream with a pen in your hand.

Along with planning, learn to manage your time effectively. There are some basic time management skills that will enhance the implementation of your planning.

1. Get an appointment book. Plan each year the year before. Plan each month the month before. Plan each day the day before. You’ll sleep better at night when you know you have a written agenda for the next day. Much stress is generated by fearing that we’ll forget something. Writing down our schedule also forces us to prioritize our time.

2. Plan your time in specific blocks of activity. Don’t answer every phone call. The important ones will leave a message in voice mail. The ones who don’t leave a message do not expect a return call. Set aside two specific times per day to answer phone messages. Answering calls randomly throughout the day will hurt your focus and effectiveness.

3. Set aside time to do details and special projects beginning with the most important. If you don’t get them all done, you re-schedule the tasks that are the least important for another day with the satisfaction that the most important tasks have been accomplished.

4. Take time for creative thinking. It has been said that the hardest and most important work we do is the hard work of thinking. This is when our planning is tweaked and perfected. This is when new ideas and breakthroughs are accomplished.

5. Leisure time is our decompression chamber that gets us ready to work again. This is your reward that makes the rest of your week worth it. We work harder and better when we know that there is a reward coming at the end of the week.

Finding success is a combination of re-training our mind, dreaming big dreams, planning, and time management. Be all you can be. Everybody trades their life for something. This is not a dress rehearsal for life, it’s the real thing. We have one shot at success. Make the most of it.

Going Positive

We live in a negative world full of anger, hurt feelings, and grudges. Anyone with a positive attitude comes across odd, if not unbalanced. Negativity, if left unchecked, will rob you of every good thing in your life - relationships, personal well-being, and opportunity.

How do we become positive people in a negative world? It takes a shift in our mindset or world-view called a paradigm shift. I'm not talking about individual thoughts, but the filter through which those thoughts are processed. A decision must be made to become a positive person and embrace a new paradigm for our life. Once you have embraced your new paradigm, it is important to understand the relationship between thoughts, attitudes, words, actions, habits, lifestyle, character, and destiny. Our thoughts become our attitudes which becomes our words which become our actions which become habits which become our lifestyle which becomes our character which becomes our destiny. We need a total makeover of our thoughts, attitudes, and words.

1. Thoughts - We are what we think. We can change our thoughts by exposing ourselves to positive input, rejecting negative thoughts, dealing with our anger, and thinking pro-actively.

While we can't use environment as an excuse to avoid change, we must realize that what we see and hear can influence our thoughts. Choose carefully the people you spend large blocks of time with. Do they excuse themselves from positive action by focusing on problems? Do they have a "can-do" attitude? Are they angry, rude, complaining, or overly critical? Show me who your friends are and I'll show you the direction of your life.

Find people you want to become like. Ask them if you can learn from them and if they would mentor you. Most successful people find great fulfillment in helping others to realize their dreams. I have a friend who has been very successful as a financial trader. He mentors others for free. I know because I'm one of his students. Recently I called him with a problem I was having in my financial trading. I thought my problem was a technical issue. Within two minutes he identified my problem as a defect in my way of thinking and emailed me some material that would help me.

He also seeks out world class traders in the top 5% of their profession and asks them to mentor him. You must realize that these traders are worth billions, but they enjoy helping others who admire and look up to them.

Anger is one of the biggest obstacles to personal development. People hold on to their anger for years and become bitter and focused on the past. I have a solution. Immediately forgive everyone all the time. Don't let the sun set on your anger. Get rid of it. Forgive and release and go forward with your goals and dreams. People who refuse to forgive become bitter and stuck in the past.

Change the way you think about problems. Look at them as challenges. Stop reacting and start responding. A reaction is thinking and saying what you feel in the moment. A response is thinking and saying after careful thought. Respond with pro-active thinking. How can I help? How can I encourage? Can I fix this or who can fix this? Always think solutions. If you can't think of an immediate solution, begin thinking that a solution is possible and your creative juices will begin to flow. Your mind will be freed to work on an answer. I've had answers come to me in the shower or in the middle of the night. Because I thought in terms of possibility, the creative part of my mind went to work on a solution.

2. Attitudes - Attitudes are thought patterns or habits of thought. Ninety per cent of communication is non-verbal. You are constantly broadcasting an attitude whether you are aware of it or not. Attitude is seen in the way we say something, not the exact words. It has been rightly stated that our attitude determines our altitude in life. Attitude alone can drive people away from us or attract them like a magnet.

A mother's attitude sets the atmosphere of the home. A person's attitude can open up doors of opportunity or close them. A husband's attitude can make a wife's life unbearable or enjoyable. A person's attitude will determine how many and what kind of friends they have. Uneducated people with great attitudes have a greater chance of getting promotions at work than do the highly educated with bad attitudes.

Whether you are aware of it or not, your thoughts produce attitudes which either create a positive or negative atmosphere around you.

3. Words - Words are powerful. They shape our world. They determine our future and our quality of life. The U.S.A. is the most influential and the most powerful nation on earth. The existence of our entire nation is based on a constitution which is made up of words. Our laws are made up of words. When the 9-11 attack came, the President got on international television and spoke words. When we get married, we make a life long commitment based on words. When we buy land, we get a deed with words on it. When wars are started and ended, words are spoken.

Choose your words carefully. Are they encouraging or discouraging? Are they helpful or hurtful? Do they bring hope or hopelessness? Are they pro-active?

Negative talkers spew out poison wherever they go. Perhaps they are bitter, unforgiving, and focused on the past. They can't figure out why everyone avoids them. They blame others for not being good friends. They refuse to take responsibility for their thoughts, attitudes, and actions.

Avoid griping, complaining, and criticizing. Don't categorize people and label them. See the best in everyone. See their possibilities and their value. Focus on their potential and help them achieve it.

Do you want to be happy and successful in life? Make a decision today to go positive.

Getting Back On Top Financially

Many Americans find themselves caught in a failing economy with mass layoffs and disappearing markets. Reduced incomes have wiped out personal equity balances in savings, real estate holdings, and portfolios. Individuals have been left with a mountain of secured and unsecured debt.

In a previous article titled, "When Everything Goes Wrong," I discussed how to survive day to day when you hit the bottom financially. In this article I'm dealing with the next logical step which is financial recovery.

How does one start the long journey back to fiscal health? Here are 7 steps to financial recovery and prosperity:

1. Get your income up. Negotiating with creditors and even taking their calls is an act in futility without adequate income. It may require both spouses to work and do some extra jobs as well.

2. Establish a financial cushion. You can't live your whole life from crisis to crisis and keep your sanity. Living on the edge is not healthy. It drains you of your energy and creativity. Once you get your income back, this step is necessary to get your mind back.

3. Make deals with your creditors. Many people don't realize it, but creditors will negotiate debts for pennies on the dollar. Some are more negotiable than others, so start your offers low. Take your smallest bill first, and then the next largest, and negotiate the best payoffs you can and eliminate the debts. Starting with the smallest first will speed up the process and give you a feeling of accomplishment. If any are hard nosed and don't want to work with you, put them on the bottom of the stack and come back to them later.

4. Don't forget to pay yourself. Take a portion of what you make and invest it in stocks, bonds, real estate, or other sound investments. Establish a fixed amount such as 10% of each paycheck. You may have to cut back in other areas to be able to do this.

5. Change your spending habits. Learn how to budget and live on less. Make a list of areas that you can economize on such as housing, transportation, and entertainment. You want to make this a permanent recovery by creating as much surplus in your budget as possible.

6. Upgrade your career. This might require finishing your degree or getting technical training. Learn how to build a resume or allow a professional to do it. There are many online employment sites that you can put your resume into so that recruiters can see it. While searching for jobs online, many services allow you to immediately apply on line for the job you are looking at by emailing a resume.

7. Think long term. Upgrade insurance policies. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. Take better care of your health. Lose weight, work out, and improve your diet. Plan ahead for college for your children.

Financial recovery is a process that takes time and discipline. The most important thing to do is to get started on step one today.

Save Money On Vacation

A traditional way that families have saved money on vacations is to visit relatives. The downside of that is that your host may take the initiative to plan your vacation schedule for you. The next thing you know they're mad at you because you rebelled against the schedule. Then there are tensions and you don't send Christmas cards to each other for the next five years, etc., etc.

There must be some better ways to economize on vacation expenses and still have fun. The most costly part of vacationing is the lodging cost. One way that families have pinched pennies on vacation expenses is to go camping. Rather than do an abbreviated description of many different ways to save money, I'll go in depth on the subject of tent camping.

Tent camping is the most economical form of camping and a good family sized tent can be bought for $70 to $300. I've done a lot of tent camping and have actually spent entire summers in a tent when I was single. When choosing a tent style, you will notice that the most common style of tent is the dome tent.

I successfully used dome tents for many years until I was camping with a group of men on an island one night and the wind kicked up pretty strong. One of the guys had an old garden variety Sears cabin tent. When both of the fiberglass poles on my dome tent snapped in the middle of the night, all the guys in my dome tent piled in with the guys in the old ugly cabin tent. Did I mention it was raining? That night I slept a little closer to other guys than I'm naturally comfortable with. What happens on the island stays on the island. My next tent was a Sears cabin tent and I still have it after many years of happy camping.

Tents have to be re-waterproofed every few years. The 3M company has an excellent spray that is easy to apply and is available in most outdoor departments.

You can save money on your tent purchase by buying a slightly used one on Ebay. You'd be surprised how many people use a tent once and then never again. Garage sales and estate sales can also be good sources. There are web sites that specialize in selling new and used gear. One company that I have bought from for many years is Campmor. They have great sales and specials all year long.

There are many types of campgrounds to choose from. There are campgrounds with all the modern amenities like pools, electric, running water, and entertainment. One such campground is the one at Disney World and they have a special section for tents. There are some larger campgrounds outside of Disney that are more economical.

National and State campgrounds tend to be a little more woodsy. Some have electric and water. Others are called "primitive campsites," meaning no conveniences except maybe an outhouse and a water outlet you can walk to. One of my favorite sites is a primitive site on the shore of a beautiful lake that costs just $4 per night. The road that leads there is unpaved for about 5 miles. The downside is that my wife went once and decided she didn't like primitive camping.

Another type of tent camping that I've used is backpacking. You can get to places unaccessible by a car and unspoiled by humans. One of my most memorable vacations was a week-long backpacking trip in the Smoky Mountain National Park. Some pre-planning is required because you have to check in with the forest rangers and get a permit detailing where you will camp each night. My favorite campsite was next to a waterfall. When we washed our dinner plates in the stream, baby trout came up and nibbled at the scraps.

Tents used for backpacking should be in the weight range of 3-6 pounds. The trend is toward ultra-light equipment and less of it. The lighter your pack, the more you will enjoy your trip. Don't economize on your initial investment of backpacking equipment. When you're in back country your very survival may depend on your equipment's quality.

Vacations don't have to be expensive. Many have found tent camping a viable alternative to high cost lodging. Happy Camping!