Fighting with a Sword of Light
Two months ago while I was at a meeting, my house was broken into and the burglar took a laptop, camcorder, and all the jewelry in my top dresser drawer. Gone were pieces of my mother’s and grandmother’s jewelry and my favorite costume jewelry and beads.
When I first realized what happened, I was a mass of emotions. As I consciously tuned in to what I was experiencing, I could identify both a sense of violation and, even more pronounced, a feeling of vulnerability. Anger surfaced when I saw that the burglar had taken one of my pillowcases to put everything in. That seemed like the ultimate insult.
While I allowed myself to fully experience the emotions, I also knew that I had to find the strength within myself to let go of whatever was taken and try to see it as a releasing of the past. Since I had previously given away everything I owned on three occasions, I had some practice doing this. Continue reading
Getting Ready for a Prosperous New Year
In the next week or so, you’re going to hear a lot about New Year’s resolutions, and I’m not going to suggest that you make any. What I am going to suggest is that you think about what you would realistically like to accomplish financially in the next year and what first steps you might take in order to reach that goal.
People often set unrealistic goals, which is why they procrastinate and avoid taking action. It’s important that the goals you set be congruent with who you are at this moment in time.
Also important is in awareness of your own emotional relationship with money. If you are fearful about your financial future, ashamed of your current financial situation, or feeling powerless to change your situation, those feelings can interfere with your ability to alter your financial position.
So any action plan has to include both what you were going to do to shift your internal and external environments as they relate to your finances.
Here are some suggestions: Continue reading
Are You Ready for the Upturn?
There is no doubt about the fact that the global economy is going through a major upheaval and restructuring and no one really knows what the long-term outcome will be. The signs point to a slow recovery during the restructuring, and for business owners, this is a good time to prepare for an upturn.
Those of you who have been in the job market, especially older workers, need to consider how opportunities are changing, and in some cases disappearing. The question for you is whether you are going to stay in the job market or create a business opportunity by yourself or with others whose skills complement yours.
There are a number of emerging business models that reduce some of the risk of starting a new venture or reconfiguring the one you have now. For example, pop-up stores are literally popping up in many locations both online and off. (Google pop-up stores for more information.) Continue reading
Prosperity Tip: Combine Fantasy and Reality
Dreaming big and having goals that project you far beyond your current financial position can motivate you to excel and prosper. Problems arise when fantasies do not have any base in reality.
Visualizations, affirmations, and treasure maps are best used in combination with the development of reality-based financial skills such as record keeping, learning about investment opportunities, and even budgeting, which many people consistently avoid.
At the same time, your financial dreams and goals need to be congruent with both your nature and your knowledge level. (See: Are Your Goals Congruent with Your Persona )If you hate to work with numbers and make no effort to learn how to perform simple financial tasks, large sums of money can slip through your fingers with great rapidity. Continue reading
What Conscious Prosperity Action Did You Take Today?
Many people I talk to become so focused on “fixing” the internal issues they perceive are blocking their prosperity that they forget to do the real-world tasks necessary for financial health.
Perhaps you are one of the people hoping that if you get your thoughts, beliefs, and emotions in perfect alignment, the money you so ardently crave and hope to manifest will somehow magically appear. Although there is a far-out chance that you will win the lottery or suddenly inherit a large sum of money, more often than not some grounded action is necessary to reach your financial goals.
First of all, if a large sum of money comes your way and you have no financial management skills, then like the proverbial lottery winners who spend everything they gain, your fortune is most likely to dissipate. Money doesn’t take care of itself — it requires constant love and attention, just like people. Continue reading
How to Have a Happy & Prosperous 2010
I wish you all the best in 2010. And to help insure that you experience a healthy financial year, here’s what I suggest:
- Without delay, set up a system for keeping careful financial records. Use software such as Quicken, Quickbooks for your business, one of the many apps available for the IPhone or ITouch, or one of the online services such as mint.com. If you deal with multiple currencies, try AceMoney
- If you already keep good records, analyse the data. Determine your best source(s) of income, your highest expenses, and how your monthly income in 2009 compared to your monthly income in 2008. Be aware of changes in your sources of income and expenses. Continue reading
Get Real about Your Finances
If you want to thrive in this economic environment and prepare for a prosperous 2010, it’s time to pay attention to your finances and create a strategy for the new year. Even if you already keep good records, you can learn to go even deeper into what you can learn from your own numbers so you can get the most value from your money.
I hope that if you suffer from any level of Financial Vagueness Syndrome, you will decide that this is the time to hunker down and get real about your finances. One thing is for certain: Money doesn’t take care of itself. Without care, it’s like a wild child that needs to be tamed.
I’ll have to admit that I avoid talking about this because I know that people would rather have a magic bullet that fixes something and makes their money fine. But without money management, you limit your own prosperity.
Here’s what I suggest: Continue reading
A Container for Your Income
Let’s assume, as I suggested last week, you’ve set an income goal that includes an amount you’d like to earn and you have set a date by which you’d like to reach your income goal. Now it’s important to make sure that you have a realistic container into which the money can flow.
If you are a business owner or practitioner, what is the designated income stream into which the money can come? A coach, for example, needs to have a website to draw people in or some sort of marketing that makes it clear what that coach has to offer. There also has to be a clear way for potential clients to contact the coach as well as an established payment system.
With products to sell, an entrepreneur needs distribution channels for the products and a manufacturing system that ensures prompt delivery. Without these, maintaining an increasing cash flow is difficult.
For those who have a job, have you upgraded your skills or done what is necessary in order to earn more? If you are on commission, do you have a system in place for increasing your client base or selling more to existing clients? Continue reading
The Selling of the Six-Figure Fantasy
I spend a lot of time online and check out a lot of sites just to see what others are doing. I’ll have to admit that I’m getting totally worn out by get-rich-quick overload. Over and over again, I see headlines and sales letters promising that anyone can make six-figures by doing ____. (Fill in the blank). And it will only cost you ______ (Fill in the blank). And it’s guaranteed.
Here’s the headline that pushed me to write this:
“How to Build a Six Figure Business in 33 Days From Scratch”
(I predict that you will soon be seeing the seven-figure come on. Six figrues will be so yesterday) Continue reading
The Dangers of Financial Vagueness
In my book, Build Your Money Muscles, I talk about Financial Vagueness Syndrome (FVS) as a key stumbling block to financial comfort. If you don’t know what is going on with your money, it’s difficult to plan, strategize, and make rational financial decisions.
If you have been listening to the gloomy financial news, then you probably know that one of the main reasons the system is falling apart is that no one really understood the sophisticated financial instruments such as mortgage back securities and credit default swaps that were being traded in the markets.
Recently we learned that when billions of dollars of TARP funds were distributed, no one kept track of where the money went and what it was used for.
On top of that, no one was watching the store. When the SEC was warned about Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, for example, the warnings were ignored. No one really wanted to know what was going on.
You could easily conclude that Financial Vagueness Syndrome played a significant role in the global financial crisis. Has it played a role in yours? Continue reading
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