Words For Financial Success & Beyond

We just arrived in Kauai, and I realize it was time to write my next blog post. So I found an old blog I wrote years ago that includes a few friends who contributed to a little book I wrote called, A Beginner’s Guide to Investing in Real Estate. Those good friends and fellow writers are Clair Crookston, Bryan Kroff, David Shamy, and Kelvin Miller. In the book, we all talked about making good investments in life, real estate, and other types of investments. So, in this week’s post, I wanted to quote from one of those friends and share with you the ideas and directions a person should follow to come up with, not just great financial returns, but great returns on life.

The purpose of one of the chapters that Brian Kroff contributed to was to develop a game plan that will work for you for any goal — financial, personal, or physical. Brian wrote that “your personal real estate game plan, strategies, and flexibility are just as critical,” as any other goals you might have.

He wrote a lot of great stuff, including this from his own great book: “The knowledge you have and will gain about real estate is what allows you to make wise decisions. When it comes to money, knowledge separates the investor from the speculators. Knowledge is the power to control, at least to a significant degree, what happens to us. Knowledge reduces risk.”

Additionally, he says, “Try to establish, as far as possible, a regular ‘information acquisition’ program. Some people try to read a few minutes each morning or evening. Some use their lunch or coffee break to feed the mind as well as the body. Carefully analyze your personal daily schedule, then set aside a certain time period each day to educate yourself as best you can about real estate.”

He doesn’t stop there. He goes on to say, “Fundamental to beginning in real estate is the establishment of your goals. Determine, as far as possible, how you can achieve them. Everyone is unique and different, so set your own goals. Don’t be afraid if your goals are a little bit different, higher, or even lower than someone else’s. Be specific about your goals and write them down.”

And it’s true. Writing goals down can make a huge difference in your level of success and reaching those goals! So, set your goals, write them down, do your research, and go after what you want.

Breaking Out of the Boredom

Recently, I’ve been writing about how keeping a record of one’s thoughts through a journal can be very helpful down the road. I’ve also recently found a few thoughts in those journals about how bored I became when I retired and some of the smart things I did that helped me with that.

If you are retired, you probably know what I’m talking about and if you are totally busy, working hard, long hours plus taking care of your home and family responsibilities, you might not hit that boredom thing very often. It’s funny how so many of us think of work as a negative thing, when, really, it’s a blessing. I think many retired people would agree.

So, what do you do if retirement has you bored out of your mind or, if you are not even close to retirement, you find yourself bored way too much with what you are doing now? Retired or not, what I’ve found, and continue to find, is that there are many different ways to cope when boredom becomes part of our lives, but there is one approach that I think works best.

One of the best solutions to any kind of boredom is to get busy and stay busy with projects you are passionate about. You want to push yourself to do things that are not just fun but that challenge you. Specifically, you want to projects that are well thought out and that fit with what you like to do, what you are good at, and what you find exciting and fulfilling. This might be a big goal, maybe something you’ve always dreamed of doing, but haven’t tried yet out of fear.

A big goal can really wipe away boredom. The challenge of trying something big, even the fear that might come with it, can give you a real mental boost. I remember how fulfilled and not at all bored I was when I decided to have a new house built for me in Kauai. No, I wasn’t the guy who poured the cement or swung the hammer, but I decided on the floor plan that fit my personality and figured out things what things fit my lifestyle—like good indoor-outdoor living spaces. Then, just about every day, there were decisions to be made and new things to learn so I could make the best decisions, and that stuff that kept me really busy so that I was rarely, if ever, bored.

I also went back to work after retiring. I wasn’t working like I used to, but I did enough to keep me busy, starting new and exciting projects. Since I was retired, I could choose to work on things I had always thought about doing but hadn’t had the time for yet. So, I wrote another book, started this blog, and set new, bigger travel goals.

So, if you’re a bit (or a lot) bored, may I suggest you look for something challenging and new to keep you busy? If you don’t have anything in mind right now, that can be your first big goal—to come up with a list of things you want to try or do. If you are just totally busy and never bored, then don’t change anything and be thankful. But also know that circumstances can change, so keep any eye out for that awful boredom and keep busy with exciting new goals.

Journaling Gratefully

As promised in my last week’s blog, here are some great and smart affirmations from Sujatha Lalgudi’s very clever book called Gratitude Journal. This little book convinced me to write in my journal much, much more and be more aware of how life lifting it is to have a ton of gratitude for so many things in our lives. She encourages all of us to devote “a few minutes a day to develop thankfulness, mindfulness, and positivity.”

I’ve kept a journal for many, many years and I must admit it has been a big help in my life. Not only has it raised my spirits and mood, but it has been a very good motivator to do more and more with my life. I have seen it make a big difference in my relationship with friends and family and even with a few strangers!

The author also encourages readers to “invest 90 days of daily practice to cultivate happiness.” One of the other things she offers is a list of great affirmations to live by or to use to build your own list:

• My potential to succeed is infinite.
• I take pride in the progress I make each day.
• I am proud of myself and all that I have accomplished.
• The world is a better place for me in it.
• I go for goals with passion and pride.
• I am never a burden.
• I am smart.
• I am capable and valuable.
• I am at peace with myself.
• I am unique in my own wonderful way.
• I am focused, persistent, and will never quit.
• I am in charge of my own happiness.
• I have the power to create change.
• I take pride in my achievements.
• I have courage and confidence.
• I don’t need to be perfect.
• I love myself.
• I can make a difference.
• I am in charge of my life.
• I set goals and I reach them.
• I am proud of my own success.
• I am my own superhero.
• I love myself.
• I can do anything
• I can make a difference.
• I am in charge of my life.
• I am in charge of my own individuality.
• I am my own superhero.
• I am free to be myself.
• I trust myself.
• I live each day to the fullest.

These are most of Sujatha’s affirmations and I am sure they would be great and help any of us humans if we could live by this list and or even your own list. In addition to this, she lists many, many pages of items that we should pay attention to. These also are a good source of ideas for making your own list of things to pay more attention to or even to come up with more affirmations.

Sujatha also gives out her email address so that anyone that wants to can comment on her wonderful little book or share their stories. I hope you get this book and that you like her directions and ideas. I sure do!

The Power of Personal Questioning

Last week I talked about having a great passion and how, especially when you lose that passion, it can be really hard to move forward and chase what you want. The uncertainty and fear and can be such a big hurdle. So, as I promised in my last post, here are some things you can do to move forward.

First of all, doing some writing for yourself can be a huge boost in helping you reach your goals and improve your life. Ask yourself specific questions, like the ones below, then, don’t just think about them. Write down the thoughts that these questions bring up to make them more substantial and harder to ignore.

• Do I want to significantly raise my level of contentment and fulfillment?
• Do I want to become a better person?
• Do I want to be known as a person of accomplishment?
• Do I want to be in great physical and mental shape with ideal health my entire life?
• Do I want to live a very long, active life?
• Do I want to make a fortune—a million dollars, $10 million, or even $100 million? (Just think how much good you could do with that much money!)
• Do I want the increased choices and possibilities in my life that making my own fortune could give me?
• Do I want to leave the world a better place than I found it?
• Do I want to help others as I help myself?
• Do I want to travel and experience the world and its cultures?

Again, write down your honest responses to these self-searching questions. Develop some of your own “life questions” and answer those as well.

If it’s really about the missing passion in your life or because you are feeling unfulfilled, try answering these questions instead of, or in addition to, the ones above.

• What do you have a true passion for in your life?
• What part of your recent or past life—even during your childhood—really got you excited, to the point that you totally lost track of time when involved in it?
• Think about specific things you love and how they make you feel. Do you get excited about music, art, ballet, sports, outdoor adventures, writing, gatherings, social interactions, running your own small business, helping others…?
• What kind of breakthrough would you be ecstatic to have in your life right now? Would it be in the area of health, wealth, personal expression, spiritual development, or something else?
• In what would you love to excel?

Think about all that. You may find, after taking time to really go through all your interests, that you have many unfulfilled passions. Which ones do you get the most excited about?

After all this questioning, take some time to contemplate and think about it, then write down what you believe to be your true, unfulfilled passions.

If you are doing something you are passionate about, there are a few more questions you should ask.

1. Am I actually doing that special something that I have a great passion for?
2. If so, am I doing it for the right reasons?
3. What are those reasons?

Asking questions gives us the opportunity to really come to understand ourselves, what we are thinking, and maybe even what we want. But mostly, asking and writing our thoughts down make them more concrete and can jumpstart a plan to get more out of life, to find or chase a passion you may have been ignoring because you were afraid, uncertain, or just let life distract you.

The new year is just around the corner, so this is the perfect time to define what you want and start in on a plan to make that happen for you so you are living a fulfilling and passionate life in 2023.

Rallying for Passion and Against Fear

I’ve written about turning dreams into reality before and I do think there are lots of things you can do to really make those dreams come to pass in your life. It’s been said that “Lucky are those who have a passion for life, but blessed are those who have passion ALL their life.”

I don’t know about you, but I believe one of the most important keys to staying young, in nearly every way, is to flood my life with passion. For me, that comes from pursuing what I want out of life, really going after my dreams full force, keeping an eye on my priorities, and doing those things that I love to do with all the energy I can muster!

I set very specific and tough goals for myself, and I go after those goals like my life depends on it, because, you know, I really DO believe my life depends on it. When I write those goals down, I am much, much more likely to follow through and reach those goals. You see, I loathe the idea of living a life of insignificance. It’s like wasting the most precious resource in the entire world. A human life. My life!

If you don’t feel the same way, then ask yourself, “Why don’t I know what I want in life?”

That question is particularly bothersome if you once had a great passion for something and then you lost it somewhere along the way. Far too many people give up on life when that happens, fearful of the outcome if they try something else. But they’re losing out on so much more when they don’t try.

Here are 3 common fears that can slow us down or stop us from going after what we really want and dream about. Are one of these stopping you?

1. Fear striking out aggressively in a new direction because we don’t know what it will be like.

2. Fear of taking risks because risks include the possibility of failure.

3. Fear of the possibility, real or imagined, of losing what we have already.

When we give into these fears, we end up just sitting on our hands. We give up on having what we really want and totally miss out on having long-lasting fulfillment and contentment in our lives.

I’ve talked to many very, very successful people that freely admit they had an enormous fear of becoming a total failure, but they pushed themselves forward anyway and, most of the time, they were very successful, despite their great fears!

How did they do that? Well, everyone has their own specific methods, but next week, I’ll give you some ideas on how to push your fears aside and push yourself to go after the things you really want in life.

Seek Great People

Many years ago, I read about a guy who started with nothing. He was extremely poor, but his father told him that he could become and accomplish anything he wanted, if he wanted it bad enough. He also discovered a lot about setting goals and keeping motivated, so he really grabbed a hold of what he was observing and pushed himself in all he did. He set goals for himself and put a timeframe on those goals and wrote them down.

Eventually, he turned his life around and later became one of the world’s most influential people in the personal achievement industry. He condensed those hard-learned lessons of life into books from which many people taught others. Seeing this, he also put his knowledge on 12-inch LPs and then on 8-track tapes and then, as technology progressed, onto cassettes, CDs and DVDs. He sold more than 2 billion dollars’ worth of those great reprinted and rerecorded motivational and goal setting directions and information.

In my younger years, I followed this man’s work and got very interested in him as a person, so I went after him. Yes, eventually, I got to meet him and know him very well. We even took trips together to places like the Grand Cayman Islands. He came to Salt Lake City and met my wife and me at our home. During that time, I followed his example and what I learned from his tapes helped me make a huge financial leap in my income, up into the millions. This wonderful man was Paul J. Meyer.

Yes, there were other people who have done astounding stuff in the financial arena who also helped me. That was because I would seek out and find those people who have accomplished big things in my field. So, in my personal experience, you should go out and get to know the people who have hit it big time in your area of interest by reading any written works or stories of theirs and, yes, push and push until you get to meet them. Then spend all the time you can with them and pick their brains. Most of these super successful people do like to share and help others do what they did. Yes, I’m saying just go do it!

There is so much more I want to share with you about Paul J. Meyer that I learned through his book Fortune, Family, and Faith. He gave me a copy of that book and signed it with a very nice note back on August 4th, 2008, the year before he passed away.

Next week I want to share more of what I learned from this great man, like his list of 13 ways of how to keep your priorities, which is just one of many treasured lessons he has to teach us all.

Finding Joy in the Journey

I don’t really like the saying, “No pain, no gain.” It’s not that I don’t believe the struggle can be worthwhile—the struggle is what makes most gains so very fulfilling—but the idea that in order for us to reach a goal it must be painful seems, to me, to say that enjoying yourself means you’re goofing off and not trying hard enough. Our society glamorizes the painful struggle in popular media and, although it makes great drama, it does not give us a realistic view of how we could, or should, live our lives and achieve our goals.

Chances are you will spend many hours and days, if not weeks, months, or years, working towards the big goals in your life. So, the question becomes, why would you choose to spend so much of your life suffering to reach a future goal? The path you walk to achieve your goal should have some level of enjoyment in it. It might not be a constant joy, but joy should be a consistent enough part of it to keep you going.

For instance, if you are flipping houses to build your wealth but hate every minute you spend searching for the right property, fixing it up, and talking to buyers, why do it? If what you really enjoy is entertaining people, you can work towards amassing wealth by going big in the entertainment world. It might take longer or be harder to build wealth that way (but then again, it might not) but no matter how long it takes or what trials you go through, you will probably enjoy getting your name out and searching for those big gigs. When you’re spending so much time and energy on something that it becomes what your life is about, you really ought to enjoy it!

Our society tends to focus too much on the end goal itself, even to the point of drilling into us that happiness is something that we reach in the future, or even in the next life. But happiness can, and should, be yours now. You can find great enjoyment and satisfaction in pushing yourself and being challenged in almost anything—it’s really up to you and how you look at a situation. But it’s also wise to find something that keeps your interest and makes you jump out of bed every morning, excited to get back into the life you’ve made for yourself.

So, save your “no pain, no gain” moments for those little jobs we must do to continue doing what we love. Like those few hours you need to prepare your taxes correctly or those last few reps at the gym. But don’t let it be about large chunks of your life and what you do every day. Be happy now. Enjoy the whole of your life including the journeys you take, not just what your life will be when you reach your goals.

Contentment is in the Right Now

There are so many things in our lives that we view as priorities — many, many things. There are obvious ones like getting an education, finding a good job, staying in good health, and taking care of the ones you love, including parents, siblings, your spouse, kids, grandkids, and friends. And you want to be sure you have time and energy to pursue the things you love in life as well.

All those things are so important and critical to a good life and even a great life. But many of those items can be thrown off track if we lack contentment and satisfaction. And, I think, there’s one big thing that gives us great contentment — living in the “right now”.

Of course, it can be very difficult, if not impossible, for us to always “live in the now”. Our busy lives distract us, causing us to worry and contemplate what’s coming next. But, I think, our greatest contentment and satisfaction comes from living in the now, so it’s important to make that a priority, too. Luckily, there are easy ways to help us spend more of our mind time living in those right now moments.

• On a regular basis, ask yourself, “Am I at ease at this moment and living in the now?”
• Visit the future but don’t stay there. Keep coming back to the right now.
• Visit the past but don’t bring back any regret or guilt.
• Make a habit of monitoring your mental and emotional state through self-observation.
• When you are stressed, stop, pause, take a big deep breath and count in your mind. That’s right. Just count numbers. You can start at 1 and count to 500 or start at 100 or 500 and work backwards. Then refocus on living in the now.
• Buddha said, “The root of suffering is found in our constant wanting and craving…” so let’s all work at reducing our wanting and craving so aren’t as anxious and can be more present.

Of course, living in the now should be a priority, but you also want to prioritize those things that require planning. The question is, how do you stay in the moment while planning, dreaming, goal setting, and doing all those things that help you get what you want out of life?

Well, you can go ahead and set future plans, dreams and goals, but once they are determined, write them down. That way, when you don’t need them, you can physically set them aside until you want to work on them or need reminders to keep focused. So, as you see, it’s not that you can’t think about the past or the future, but rather that you need to be aware of how much you do think about things that are not part of the moment you are living right now.

Awareness of what your mind is doing is a big part of living in the right now moment. When you are aware of what your mind is doing, you can steer it back to the right now after you give yourself the time to plan future things or momentarily ponder the past. Once you have, try to become totally absorbed in what you are doing, thinking, or being right now and enjoy the contentment that comes with it.

100 Ways to 100 Years

On my July 2nd post, I said I would continue with an additional list on the theme of aging and what you can do to live a longer heather life but I wasn’t able to do that the following week, so I still owe you, my good readers, that list.

In that previous blog, I wrote about some basic things a person can do to reset the whole body, which included eating extra protein and colorful fruits as well as getting in some strength training. That’s a good place to start and pretty easy to do, but now I’d like to share with you more ideas from the article “100 Wonderful Ways to LIVE TO 100”.

Living to 100 is a great goal and it can be done. No, it’s not easy, but don’t you agree that it’s probably worth the effort? Your kids and grandkids and great grand kids would certainly like you to do it.

Here’s a few more suggestions from that article:

1. Find a reason to laugh and smile a lot.

2. Try a little responsible “retail therapy”.

3. Don’t forget about yourself. Fitness guru, Jack LaLanne, who passed away at the age of 95 in 2011, knew the importance of looking after yourself. “This is where I take care of the most important person in my life, me”.

4. Try to have a friction free marriage.

5. Put the pedal to the metal – be a super cyclist.

6. Stop smoking.

7. Get fishy. Consume lots of omega-3 fatty acids.

8. Get busy and stay busy.

9. Get enough sleep.

10. Run, but not too much.

11. Wash your hands.

12. Buddy up at the office.

13. Grow from trauma.

14. Smile a lot.

15. Hit the gym.

16. Turn off the TV.

17. Cut the sugar.

The bottom line is, never forget how very important you are and take care of yourself, especially when it comes to self-talk—keep that positive for a long, happy life.

Reset for Aging

I’ve been thinking a lot about this thing they call aging recently, especially since I am moving in on that big number 80. 

Last year my son gave me a book on my birthday called Successful Aging by Daniel J. Levitin that I’ve really enjoyed. Then the other day I came across two other aging articles. One was in the March issue of the AARP Bulletin titled, “The Answer to Age Related Weight Gain” and the other was titled “100 Ways to Live to 100” found on the website HuffPost, which I had read before. Combined, they really got me thinking.  

Since I have only 11 years before I hit 90 and, even worse, just 21 years until I come up on 100, I really studied those ideas and instructions that I thought would help me make the most of my life as well as those that would help me live the longest. It’s given me a lot of great things to focus on. 

I will never forget that French lady Jeanne Calmet who lived an active 122 years and 164 days, living on her own until 110. Or the Russian woman, Nanu Shaova, who lived to a record 127 years. These ladies prove that a long, meaningful life is possible. 

A new book, The Whole Body Reset by AARP, Stephen Perrine, and Heidi Skolnik, has a lot of great advice about how to preserve muscle at age 50 and above, such as…

• Eat at least 30 grams of protein at every meal
• Eat colorful fruits and vegetables
• Try strength training

That’s just a few of the great suggestions in this book that have to do with successful aging and living a better life. 

And here are just a few of the “100 Ways to Live to 100″ from that HuffPost article I came across again recently: 

1. Find a purpose for life

2. Walk a lot

3. Be happy

4. Do unto others 

5. Practice yoga

6. Be optimistic

7, Go meatless

8. Eat your fiber

9. Make healthy changes in your life starting today

10. Don’t dread getting older

There’s a lot of food for thought here. I’ll add to that list next week as well, but in the meantime, work with some of these suggestions. You can never start too early to improve your chances of a long, meaningful life. 

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