Doing vs. Talking

This may seem weird but watching Obama get that fly has made me spend some time thinking about what he has done.

I have recently been reading the Tapstack (free mini books that are apps on the iPhone) titled: “Why did I marry you anyway?” by Barbara Bartlein, RN, MSW, The title may seem kind of weird, but it is a great book with a great message, very pro marriage and staying married. In it there is a page speaking on action that I found very powerful, quoting her:

‘You don’t get a degree because you intended to go to school. Or a paycheck because you thought about showing up for work. Intentions don’t count. I get so tired of hearing “I should’ve,”"I would’ve,” and “I could’ve.” Enough already! The should’ves, would’ves and could’ves of broken promises and commitments are not impressive. When evaluating human behavior, I always look at what people actually do, not what they say.” -Barbara Bartlein

Why Obama is more effective.

Obama has been a good leader, not from what he has said but by what he has done. Although I disagree with many of his policies and agendas, he has quickly and decisively led America (to where? is a big question, but where headed there in a hurry). He is very effective at passing legislation. The recent bailout was incredible, I can’t say I was tuned into the news everyday as it went down (as it is going down) but it was done with alarming speed. I think Americans felt like something needed to be done about our financial situation immediately and allowed for the government to throw around money like it is going out of style. Effective. Not effective in the sense of principled solutions to problems, but effective in the sense of just getting stuff done.

Credentials.

On the news and through Facebook I hear a lot of Obama detractors and it makes me laugh. I could quote all their opinions about him and it would just take up a bunch of time. It comes down to this: Sitting on a computer somewhere posting videos or ideas online about Obama is simply not effective.  By posting a video on your Facebook page or website about Obama being evil or doing an awful job you aren’t really doing anything. Look at his resume: Bachelor at Columbia, Harvard Law School graduate, teacher at U of Chicago Law, Attorney, U.S. Senator, U.S. President, and lately Nobel Peace Prize winner. He has some serious credentials. Not that credentials mean everything but compare them to his haters? It makes you think.

My Point.

It’s simple. He hasn’t gotten to the White House by accident, he has done it with very deliberate intention. He is highly effective, his campaign of ‘Change’ was no joke. He is changing things. I have a lot of respect for him. He is a great example of the American Dream. In America we can be whatever we want to be. If you disagree with Obama, just be aware of what your up against. He has done some monumental things, and those that oppose him think they can post some quotes, or disagree with him online and make a difference? You have to be more clever than he is to be more effective than he has been. Watch him get this fly, can you do that?

Where the Wild Things Are

Max’s character makes you think.

As a young child I read the book and thought it was a story with a happy ending. Young boy chooses to leave his family, goes to a far away land, lives out his fantasy and then heads back home.

Caught up in the excitement of the new movie, I went to the bookstore and read the book again. This time the story had a totally different meaning to me. When I finished reading it, I thought: “Huh, I kind of remembered this book having a happy ending?”

Being somewhat older since my last reading of the book, and maybe somewhat wiser, I saw 2 different perspectives on the book.

The Prodigal

Referring to parable found in the bible:

The young man finally comes to his senses, remembering his father. In humility, he recognizes his foolishness, decides to return to his father and ask for forgiveness and mercy. The father who had been watching and waiting, receives his son back with open arms of compassion. He is overjoyed by the return of his lost son!

The Entrepreneur

I shall quote Timothy Ferriss to explain this perspective:

“The New Rich (NR) are those who abandon the deferred-life plan and create luxury lifestyles in the present using the currency of the New Rich: time and mobility. This is an art and a science we will refer to as Lifestyle Design (LD).

I’ve spent the last three years traveling among those who live in worlds currently beyond your imagination. Rather than hating reality, I’ll show you how to bend it to your will. It’s easier than it sounds. My journey from grossly overworked and severely underpaid office worker to member of the NR is at once stranger than fiction and — now that I’ve deciphered the code — simple to duplicate. There is a recipe.

Life doesn’t have to be so damn hard. It really doesn’t. Most people, my past self included, have spent too much time convincing themselves that life has to be hard, a resignation to 9-to-5 drudgery in exchange for (sometimes) relaxing weekends and the occasional keep-it-short-or-get-fired vacation.

The truth, at least the truth I live and will share in this book, is quite different. From leveraging currency differences to outsourcing your life and disappearing, I’ll show you how a small underground uses economic sleight-of-hand to do what most consider impossible.” – Timothy Ferriss, Introduction to ‘The 4-hour Workweek‘.

Perception determines Action.

The story although extremely short, maybe one entire paragraph, is powerful. Who was Max? A wreckless youth, a waster? Or a genius, a creator? You choose, more importantly than what we think of Max, we get to choose what we are. People’s perceptions of us matter very little, It’s all about what we think, and then what we do with our thoughts. Max is an example to us good or bad. The story has a happy or sad ending depending on how you look at it. He is either the returning prodigal or the quitting entrepreneur. Either way, “Let the wild rompus begin.”

Already a buzz word, always sad to me to see a word lose it’s meaning when the majority catch on and use it repeatedly without fully understanding it.

What is Hustle?

I would like to define it. The dictionary (in my opinion) doesn’t do the word justice.

Hustle is giving your all, and by all, I mean, your all! All of your heart, might, mind, and strength to achieve your desired result. It is not just being busy. I know a lot of business owners (I would say Entreprenuers, but that word is becoming more and more sacred to me every day) who are always relating how busy they are to how hard they are working. This is a fallacy. Busyness is not Business. Hard work isn’t sufficient by itself either. I know plenty of people who work hard and feel good about how HARD they work, yet they hate their lives.

Hustle to me means working faster, longer, more effectively, smarter, being passionate, focused, creating, leveraging others, leveraging time, leveraging products, leveraging anything and everything you can (business in its simplest sense is just that: leverage) to get your desired result.

Americans generally lack hustle. They think the government is so incredible that they rely on the government to protect them, pass a law to make it easier, or do it all for them. Hustle says: If you want it, It’s yours, go earn it. The best things in the world are those earned.

I believe everyone is an entreprenuer (sacred) in some area, and if they hustle in that area life will be incredible for them. Agree or disagree with me, the recession is a result of lack of hustle. In a personal recession? Take a scoop of hustle and call me in the morning.

To hustle or not to hustle?

That question actually doesn’t exist, Hustle or die. Do the Hustle.

Somehow I was directed to this video and I thought it was really cool. I had the thought that this video gave a small taste test of the potential that we have individually and collectively. I had a great feeling as I watched/listened to it. I hope you enjoy it, let me know what you thought as you watched it.

We determine our own value.

Everyday we write down exactly what we want to make that day. Our boss/employer doesn’t determine our worth, they simply agree to pay exactly what we ask for. Please do not misunderstand what I’m saying. I’m not saying that you should walk up to your boss and tell them ‘I should make $_______’, and then expect them to immediately start paying it. What I am saying is that everyday you wake up and work for $_______( your current income) you are telling the world exactly what you are willing work for, or to put it another way, what you can be bought for.

So aren’t you worth a whole lot more?

No matter what your current $_______ is, you are worth way more than that. I hear and read a lot of people say that human beings are priceless, or infinite in value, yet everyday we accept much less than that. So what is the point? Nothing I have said so far is blowing anyone’s mind, and that kind of leads to the point I’m getting at.

What $______ would blow your mind?

My buddy Garrett Gunderson did an exercise one time, that changed my life forever, he blew my mind to shreds! He said what is a lot of money to you? $100 a month? $1,000 a month? $1o,ooo a month? $100,000 a month? $1,000,000 a month? $10,000,000 a month? and well, he kept going. When he finished with these incredible amounts of money, he said that at some dollar amount, which was different for everyone, it became a joke. At some point it becomes a joke, at some point it is no longer reality to you.  It would be better if you heard Garrett teach this, but what I learned was this: Why do I accept $_______ right now? Why couldn’t $100,000,000 a month be possible? What I think is a lot of money someone else looks at it as chump change.

So what do we do?

If you could write yourself a check right now for your monthly salary, what would be the ideal amount? More importantly than the amount is what are you doing to be more valuable today? Are you creating more value than you are being paid for? According to Napolean Hill and others, it is impossible to create more value than you are paid for. So create value. That’s it. Create value for people by being valuable or worthwhile. You are always worth more than you are paid, but what you get paid should validate your worth.

Read this article by Seth Godin and decided to post it plus add my opinion at the end.

DON’T TRY TO GET A JOB

Don’t you dare.

There are a few reasons for this. The first is that the act of trying to get a job corrupts you. It pushes you to be average, to fit in and to do what you’re told.

The second is that this act moves the responsibility from you to that guy who didn’t hire you. It’s his fault. As soon as you start spending your day trying to please the guy, you’ve blown it.

The third is that the economy is terrible and the best jobs you’re going to get are lousy.

So, what should you do?

Today, right now, while the opportunity costs (look it up on Wikipedia) are the lowest they will ever be, go start something.

Start a business. A tiny one.

Train people in social media. Run an eBay selling business. Sell coffee from a truck every morning at the train station. Run spring break tours by bus for other college students. Start a newsstand on campus. Run a birthday cake delivery service. Train executives in public speaking. Start a dog poop shoveling business.

Start something. Run it. Be responsible.

1. You’ll probably make more money
2. You’ll certainly learn more
3. If you’re good at it, people will offer you a job
and
4. If you’re not, then why on earth would someone actually hire you? Go get good at it.

Have fun. No whining. This is your moment, go make a difference.

You can thank me later.

by Seth Godin

I originally found it through Twitter, here is the link to the original site which had some other very cool posts by the way, check it out.

I love Seth’s perspective here. I would add that if your objective is to just ‘get’ a job then you will meet dissapointment sooner than later. I know of many great jobs still available and would say “Don’t try to get a job, go get a job where you will learn, earn more than you do now (possibly in sales), and do something you at the very least enjoy.” Every job I have ever had has lead to other, even greater opportunities. Please don’t do something you hate for money. It isn’t worth it.

Cool little video about perspective. I always enjoy looking at something from a different angle.

This is a pretty cool video made me think of how much of a priviledge it is to live at this time.

I was reading an article out of the Star Tribune based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota and I read this part of the article and I had to re-read it like 5 times. Now I’m not a financial planner, or the most savvy economist but read this and tell me if I’m missing something:
“Its combined funds for active and retired employees rose at an annual rate of 9.7 percent over the past 20 years, exceeding inflation by an average of 6.6 percentage points a year. The funds are expected to exceed inflation by 3 to 5 percentage points annually.”
So the funds are ‘expected’ to ‘exceed’ inflation by 3-5 points annually?

(click here for the full article)

Fuzzy Math.

My buddy Coby Tippetts calls this type of thing Fuzzy Math. See we are sold by people in the finance industry that our mutual funds are increasing annually an average of 9.7% but that doesn’t mean that every year your investment capital is raising an additional 9.7%. It is an average. If it is only outperforming inflation by 3-5%, then aren’t we only making 3-5% on our money? This is an example of a sacred cow. But there is another flaw in the ‘average’ retirement plan, read on…

Killing Sacred Cows.

This is the title of my friend Garrett Gunderson’s book and in it he has an example about this ‘average’ return that most people fail to realize. When you do the math on the returns it uncovers a basic assumption. In the book on page 70 Garrett gives this example:

“Suppose I have $1,000 to invest in a mutual fund.I invest it in a fund that has an estimated 10 percent return and enjoy a 100 percent positive rate of return the first year. Now I have $2,000. In year two the market actually drops 50 percent, leaving me with half of my $2,000, or $1,000. Year three results in yet another 100 percent positive rate of return, so again I have $2,000. Unfortunately, year four brings 50 percent negative yet again, so I’m back to my original amount of $1,000.

“The mutual fund company is pleased to announce a 25 percent rate of return on its prospectus for the last four years, but what does that mean for me? (Of course, this is an extreme example to prove a point. Mutual fund companies are much more subtle than this, because they would show the fund over a longer period of time so as not to highlight the wild variations in such a short period of time.)

“My actual return, as concerns he fund alone is $0 and 0 percent- or so it would appear. The situation is actually worse when we take into account inflation (which, generally speaking, is grossly underrated by most media), the capital gains taxes I paid in years one and three, fund expenses (because the mutual fund gets paid even for bad performance), and lost opportunity costs.”

He goes on in more detail of the actual math on ‘average rate of return’. I love his example and if you thought this was good you should read the entire book, it is available at your major bookstores and can be ordered online here at: killingsacredcows.com

I realized reading the book that I had many ‘Sacred Cows’ that I needed to murder in order to prosper.

Garrett titled his book ‘Killing Sacred Cows‘ and the subtitle is ‘Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying your Prosperity.’ I have read the book a couple times and I think it is one of the best books on personal finance and the abundance mindset I have ever read. Anyone could read it and find it to be very valuable for their personal prosperity and financial education. Check it out and leave a comment here, I’d love to hear how much you like it.

I really liked the video from yesterday and so I decided to post another one. I think it is a pretty cool way to teach. Check it out!