Truly the saddest thing that could happen to us is for us to look back on our lives and realize that we mismanaged our time here. There are so many people that let the things that really do not matter take the time of the things that really do. There are so many distractions along the path of life that, if we are not careful, we will fall into the trap of wasting our lives away. It has been said that successful people and unsuccessful people have the same amount of time in the day. The difference between the two is how they manage their time. Time truly is our most valuable asset. If we start to think of it as a tangible asset it can help us to invest it wisely. Would you invest your money in something that produces poor or even negative returns? Where are we investing our time that will produce the most desirable returns on our investment? Recently, I was working with one of my students, and as we were reviewing what he had accomplished the week before, he confessed to me that he was not able to do all of his homework. When I asked him why he had not completed his homework, he said that he did not have enough time. I then asked him if he had watched any TV that week. He responded that he had watched about five hours of TV that week. I then responded that he really did have the time he just chose to spend it in different areas.
Allow me to illustrate a few principles of time management though this illustration. Imagine that your time is represented by a pickle jar, and that sand, pebbles, and rocks represent the things that you need to do in a day. The rocks represent the most important things that you have to do like eat and sleep. The pebbles are the less important things, and the sand represents leisure time and unnecessary things that we do. If you put the sand in first, and then the pebble, and then the rocks you will see that it will be hard to fit everything in. If you start with the most important things first, the rocks and then work your way down to the sand, everything fits. We can take this same principle and apply it in our lives. If we do the most important things first, we will be able to fit more into our day. Remember, never let the things that do not matter take the time of the things that do. If we do this we are bound to take a lot of the wasted time out of our day!

Thought: What does it take to excel at what you do? I have seen people that have reached great levels of success, because they apply the principles of becoming successful. They know what it takes to succeed. Take away everything from them and somehow they can make it all back and then some. What makes these people so different from the average person? Why do so few reach such high levels of success. I believe that the difference is in their understanding of what it takes to excel at what you do. Successful people understand the important principles of success, like the process of creation. It does not matter whether it is more wealth, health, or better relationships that you want, the principles are the same. They understand that thoughts are things and that if they want to have something, they understand that they must hold it in their minds first, and that they must be very clear about what they want. They know that they must see what they want so clearly that it feels as if they have it now. This is one of the great principles that successful people have mastered.
Working Smarter: Work is part of the equation, but just working hard will not get you to where you need to be. Imagine that two people need to move the same size rock the same distance. One person starts to push and push. The second person finds a stick to give him leverage thereby accomplishing more with less effort. Out of those two people who is working harder and who is working more effectively? Successful people know how to get the job done effectively; they know how to produce the greatest returns with the least amount of effort.
Persistence: Being persistent is a trait of successful people that cannot be overlooked. Successful people do not accept temporary defeat as failure. They understand that it is the hard times that they grow the most. In weightlifting it is that last lift where you really struggle that the muscle actually tears. By tearing the muscle you allow it to grow back even bigger and stronger. Successful people never give up!
Responsibility: People that excel at what they do, take responsibilities for their actions. They do not play the blame game. They realize that the level of success that they want to achieve in this life is completely up to them. That is a wonderful things for them because they realize that excelling at what you do really is a state of mind and a willingness to live the principles of success. If you live you life this way, you truly will excel at whatever you chose to do!

Where is this credit crunch, recession, housing bust, whatever, heading? Here is an interesting read with a nice review the history of recessions, inflation, and how the Fed deals with slowdowns. Let us know what you think by posting a comment.

“…economic slowdowns usually trigger massive reflationary responses from the Fed that reignite inflation. Such was the response in 1958, then again in 1970 (not described here), in 1974, 1980, 2001, and currently in 2007-2008. Anytime the Fed has responded by massively reflating the economy, the typical result has been stagflation. In essence, by reflating the economy, the Fed prematurely aborts the bust (recession) part of the cycle and its beneficial adjustment processes and quickly drives the economy back to its pre-recession inflationary levels.”

http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/petrov/2008/1024.html

These days it seems like every time we turn on the TV there is more bad news. This article is dedicated not to what is wrong with the economy but what is good about the US economy and hopefully your personal economy as well. Gas prices are well off its highs of 140 dollars a barrel, now it is trading around 60 dollars a barrel. The price of gas affects the price of just about everything. Interest rates have gone down again by another half a percent. That means lower interest on things like credit cards and home equity lines of credit. Mortgage lenders have stopped making toxic loans. It seems that they have return to a more wise approach to lending. Stocks are on sale. The saying on Wall Street is when there is blood in the street it is time to invest. Remember the whole name of the game is to buy low and sale high. There are a lot of really good companies that are trading low because of fear.
With your personal economy, the biggest hope that you can have in this economy is to make sure that your own personal economy is thriving and doing well. A huge part of this is controlling your spending. The more I coach people around the nation as well as internationally the more that I realize what most people are after is peace when it comes to their finances. Financial peace does not come with how much you make. We gain financial peace by learning to control our spending. Remember you can be broke on a high income. I often ask my students, if you had a million dollars in the bank at this moment, would you be wealthy? Without a doubt my students will say yes. Then I ask, what if your monthly expenses were one million dollars? Would you still be wealthy? I have never heard even one student say that they would be wealthy if that were the case. Therefore, we see that wealth is really relative to the amount of money that is going out the door each month. Real wealth is when you can maintain your current standard of living for the rest of your life without working. There are good things that are going on with the economy and hopefully your personal economy too. Building long term wealth is a marathon it is not a sprint. Living these wealth building principals will give you and your family hope in the midst of fear.

This week's tip is provided by Charlie Machinski.

Back to the Basics

Getting back to the basics and refocusing on what we are trying to accomplish should be a regular routine. Sometimes we can get to the point where we are trying to do so many things at once that we end up doing a poor job on everything. Focus on the things that are going to give you the greatest returns like tracking your expenses. Looking for ways to reduce your expenses and looking for ways to increase your income. If you keep your financial freedom plan as simple as possible you are bound to accomplish more without as much wasted time. Setting goals and keeping those goals is also one of the basics that we should be working towards. If we take the time to zoom out and look at what we are doing we are bound to be more efficient in accomplishing what we set out to do. Allow me to illustrate my point. Joe’s and Tom’s goal was to be financially free. Joe started to look for ways to reduce expenses and before he could find all the areas money was leaking he started to look for ways to make more money. He decided he wanted to make some money on ebay. He made one sale and then he started to look at ebay and stock market investing. He started to really look into the stock market and he spent a few months working on it when he decided that the stock market was not his thing. He started to look into real estate investing and before he could succeed with it he started to look for ways to make money online. He was constantly trying to do too many things without dedicating enough time to succeed at anything. Take the time to take a step back look at where you are headed. It does not hurt use to get back to the basics of what makes us successful.