Wealth Building 101: What to do while you wait
Seems like I have been doing lots of waiting lately. Waiting for the recession economy to improve, waiting for the drought to break, waiting for temps to get below 100, waiting for my goats to get pregnant, waiting for my leg to heal after getting kicked by a horse. God is teaching me what to do while I wait.
But to those who wait on the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:31
In the past I tended to decide what I wanted to do and would dive right in without asking for any guidance. The result was many stalled or complicated projects that often cost way more than anticipated. The last few years my budget has been tighter and my energy lower. I have found myself seeking God’s timing and blessing for my projects and the results have been nothing short of amazing.
At the beginning of 2011 I had many projects in mind but I did not expect them to be completed this year. I resigned myself to paying down debt and starting back on projects next year. I focused instead on giving appreciation for all my completed projects and current blessings. I kept going with my business marketing even as sales seemed to slow. The recession economy also slowed my vet practice so I had more free time to reflect and visualize for the future.
Interesting thing happened once I got out of the way. God started working on my projects and arranging one miracle after another for them to be accomplished easily and with minimum expense. It was like I was just along for the ride.
Here is what God has done for me this year:
Patio completed with free flagstones
Fence around 10 acres with half cost and labor from my neighbor
Panels for fence around my yard delivered for a great price
Down cedar stacked at a discounted price
A new shelter for the horses
Hot wire around my front pasture
Other gifts:
Neighbor’s goat to milk since mine did not get pregnant
Perfect healing from my kick injury
Healing of a foundered horse in my care who should not have survived
A fun new pony to enjoy
It was like God had all these gifts saved up and he was just waiting for me to stop pushing to get my way. I had to run out of my own resources before I considered depending on his. How sad but once again God used my struggles to teach me a huge lesson.
Here is what I have learned to do while I wait on God:
Show appreciation and count my blessings
Keep working even when business slows
Journal and reflect on previous actions
Focus on a positive vision for the future.
Trust God for timing and anointing
Now waiting is becoming a peaceful and useful pass time. I may not be soaring like an eagle but I am sure less weary. Madalyn
Photo Credit: Flickr via creative commons
Wealth Building 101: Manage your emotion
When it comes to wealth building, emotion is not your friend! A perfect example of this is the roller coaster ride the stock market has been on the last few weeks. One day the news is good so people buy, the next day the news is bad so people sell. Did the companies being bought and sold really gain or lose value in those few hours? Of course not but people are reacting to emotions rather than logic.
What about your everyday spending habits? Do you spend money when you feel like you want something even if the item is not in your budget? Do you have a budget? Do you save when you are fearful about the recession economy and then start spending freely again when the economic news improves?
How about your work habits? Do you stay focused on your business even when your friends are headed to the lake? Do you set goals and plan out the action steps needed to reach them?
Before I was introduced to the Kiyosaki financial education principles I made all of my wealth building decisions based on emotion. Actually, it has only been in the last few years that I have developed the discipline to manage my emotion when it comes to wealth building. I am a very impulsive person and I love excitement. Believe me when I say I have had to sit on my hands during the recent stock market churning. I have a plan for my investments but it has been so tempting to bail on some holdings to add to others only to watch the fortunes reverse for each in a matter of hours or days.
Same with my everyday spending. On my farm I have so many projects I want to do but I have to stay focused on priorities. In the past I would have simply done the projects and put to cost on credit cards. Now, thanks to my Kiyosaki, richdad education, I avoid credit card debt like the plague. I have to look at the importance of a shelter for the horses first even though my emotion is that I want a round pen more.
Same with business. It is Friday afternoon and I am so tempted to call it a week and quit early but writing this blog is the action step that is needed to achieve my long term business goals. Now that I am writing this blog my emotion has shifted from bored to excited.
Emotions are like that. They are fickle and can shift on a dime. That is why wealth building is about managing emotion.
Here are a few tips that help manage emotion:
Keep a journal so you can see where your emotions go from day to day
Keep a balance sheet for your business so you can see where your money goes
Track business and personal assets and expenses
Understand what your net worth is
Watch your cash flow monthly
Study all you can about wealth building. Hint – all the experts say make a plan and stick to it. Boring but true.
Schedule time for fun and keep a little cash on hand for impulse spending
Celebrate and reward yourself for managing your emotion
Madalyn
Like this post: Check out Hope is not a strategy or
Why you need a coach
Photo credit: Flickr via creative commons
Wealth Building 101: Creating cash flow monthly verses building a fence
I have been building fence the last few weeks in 105 degree weather and hard as that is, it is easier than creating cash flow monthly. You see, with building a fence I see the fruits of my labor right away. The pattern looks like this:
Goal – work – reward
My goal is 1000 feet of new fence so my horses can have more grazing area.
The work involves laying a ground wire so I know where I want the post holes, buying the supplies, digging the holes, driving T posts, stretching wire, tying the fence to the posts and hanging gates. It is hard but straight forward work.
The reward is happy horses and hopefully a lower feed bill when it decides to rain again.
Creating cash flow monthly is not so clean a process. The pattern looks like this:
Goal – work – work – work – work some more – small reward – work – work – work some more – setback like a major recession – keep working – reward – work – reward – work – more reward – ongoing reward of regular cash flow monthly with less to no additional work on your part
Your goal is cash flow monthly so you can have money and time to enjoy it. In other words, to live your dream.
It’s the work part that is so challenging. First, you have to be willing to work and delay your gratification. Second, like building a fence, you have to have a plan. If you are starting a business from scratch this can be a huge barrier. You will not likely get a loan or investor support without a solid plan on how you intend to create cash flow monthly. If you have never built a business of your own you may have no clue where to start the process.
A great place to start in building a business that can generate cash flow monthly is with a solid network marketing company. With a good company and good partners you will have the security and mentoring from people who have already put the infrastructure in place for you. You will still have to learn the skills needed to be successful and there will be a lot of work involved but you will have a plan. You don’t have to quit your job and you can build your business working as little as 7 to 10 hours a week.
The reward part of creating cash flow monthly is often very slow in coming. This is probably why so many people lose track of their goals and give up on their dreams. They stick to what they know, even if it is painful – like fence building. Madalyn
PS My network marketing business gives me cash flow monthly so I can have and enjoy my own farm. Fence building is not my real job:).
Wealth Building 101: Do what you have to do
A huge part of wealth building is personal growth. Personal growth means doing things we don’t always want to do when we need to do them. This is one of the big differences between those who are wealthy and those who are not. You see wealth building is not only about the money we have in the bank but the strength of our character to do what we have to do.
The cool thing is that the thing you did not want to do is rarely a big deal once you actually do it. For instance, My milk goat, Sissy, has just started weaning her first set of kids and I have been needing to milk her but I have been putting it off. You see, Sissy’s mother was very hard to milk the first time and I was expecting another rodeo.
When I brought Sissy into the milking pen she sensed my nervousness and got very tense. Initially she jumped all around at the end of her lead but she never tried to rip my clothes off like her mother did. Finally after we had covered the walls, floor and each other with milk she settled down and let me get a bit of milk in the bucket. Towards the end of the milking, Sissy laid her head against my back and relaxed.
Once the job was done we were all happy and in good spirits. I am confidant that the next milking will go very smoothly. Milking is not my favorite thing but it comes with the joy of owning milk goats and having wonderful little kids to watch grow up. Having wealth comes from doing consistent wealth building actions even when we don’t want to. The short term pain is worth it for the long term gain. Madalyn
Along the same lines, check out: Why you need a coach and You have to have boundaries
Wealth Building 101 – You have to have boundaries
The thought of boundaries strikes fear into the heart of a freedom loving, renegade, dreamer/creator like me but I now realize why I need to have them if I am serious about wealth building. Energy that is not channeled by boundaries tends to be scattered and dissipates without much effect. Energy that is not channeled can even be destructive.
My Kiyosaki, Rich Dad education coach is helping me to understand the concept of boundaries on my path to wealth building. He has me working within a dream achievers program that forces me to break down my dreams into goals, projects and action steps. The action steps have priority of 1, 2 or 3.
A 1 must happen in a day, a 2 within a week and a 3 is on the someday list. The challenge for me is the 1s and 2s are generally not fun tasks but they must be done. It is much more fun for me to day dream about the 3s.
Once my goals are entered into my dream achievers program a schedule for each day is generated that sets my agenda. Agenda is another word I have not been fond of. All of these boundaries and agendas seem so anti-freedom. I expressed this concern to my Kiyosaki, Rich Dad education coach. He understood exactly where I was coming from but patiently explained that my true freedom and success with wealth building would come from setting and living within boundaries.
Here are some examples of boundaries:
Setting goals – Goals are a dream with a deadline
Deadlines – A date that a task must be completed or there will be negative consequences.
Agendas – Set the program for how something will be accomplished
Budgets – Set limits on the amount of money that can be spent on a project or within a set amount of time
Rules – Guidelines that must be followed
Laws – Rules with more severe consequences for not being followed
Values – Rules for behavior that benefit all concerned
So look at it this way. E + B = FM = S = F. Energy plus boundaries = forward motion = success = freedom. Enjoy the journey. Madalyn
Enjoy a similar post: Hope is not a strategy
Wealth Building 101 – Why you need a coach
Last Monday I had 3 coaching calls before noon. One with my Kiyosaki, Rich Dad education coach, one with my network marketing coach and one with my personal and business coach. Yesterday I took my horse and had a lesson with my barrel racing coach.
Why do I work with all these coaches? The answer is simple. All these people know more than I do about what I want to get better at. I want to become more money smart, be a stronger network marketer, a better writer and person and learn to barrel race. I sure can’t do these things by myself and be successful.
Being coached is not always a pleasant experience. I don’t particularly enjoy being told what I am doing wrong but I know my coaches have my best interests at heart and they give me positive feedback along with the constructive criticism.
My coaches see what I can’t see. For example, with my barrel racing, I am supposed to run my horse full speed to a spot a few feet from the barrel, slow down enough to turn, but not lose momentum. I find that when I slow my horse down we lose momentum and end up losing a lot of time in our turns.
My coach was able to see that I was stopping my body momentum instead to continuing to drive my horse forward even as we slowed down to prepare for the turn. She modeled what she wanted me to do on the horse she was riding.
My coach pointed out that I was thinking slow down when I really needed to be thinking gather and prepare. A Ha! I got it. I doubt I would have figured this out myself and even if I did it would have been after much stress for me and my horse.
I also tend to be off in my timing when I ask for my horse to get ready to turn. Unfortunately, this is not something my coach can teach me. Perfect timing has to come through feel and this will take lots of practice. What my coach can do, however, is help by calling out when to give the slow down cue until it becomes instinctive for me.
In summary, why you need a coach:
A coach knows more than you about the subject you want to get better at
A coach has your best interests at heart and gives you encouragement even as they point out your mistakes
A coach sees things that you can’t see
A coach will model the correct actions
A coach will point out your limiting or incorrect beliefs
A coach can cover for your lack of skill while you practice
I love my coaches. I would recommend the Kiyosaki, Rich Dad education training program to anyone looking to go to the next level in becoming money smart. I love my business coach. She is a true friend and mentor. I love my network marketing coach and would never try to work my business without her. My network marketing coach works with me and my group in the big business, network building model. I am looking for a few partners who are ready to increase their cash flow monthly quickly and predictably. Contact me. Madalyn
For similar information check out: Is you dream big enough?
Wealth Building 101: Is your dream big enough?
One of the biggest challenges to wealth building is not having big enough dreams. After all wealth building is all about reaching your dreams and mediocre dreams do not inspire enough to motivate action.
I had a session with my Kiyosaki Rich Dad education coach and he made an interesting comment. He said so many of the people he coaches spend way too much time focusing on dreams that aren’t big enough to cause them to do the hard work required to reach them.
Here are some examples of dreams that tend not to inspire consistent wealth building actions:
Get out of debt
Save money for the kid’s college
Have money for retirement
Give more to charity
While all of these dreams are good I don’t see many people missing American Idol to work on them. They are important, worthy dreams but not big and exciting enough to motivate us to do the daily wealth building activities to achieve them.
On the other hand, here are some big, personal dreams that are more likely to stimulate the effort of wealth building:
Own your own farm
Take a year off work and travel around the world
Work entirely from home so you can spend time with your family
Become a professional golfer, rodeo contestant, race car driver, etc.
Big dreams, that are personal, will get you off your butt and into your office, on the computer or out finding business partners or customers. Big, personal dreams burn at your heart and keep you restless until you achieve them. They force you to focus on those boring details you don’t really want to pay attention to. The interesting thing is that when you become the person you need to be and do the things you need to do to realize big dreams often your other dreams happen naturally.
Next time you find yourself restless and unmotivated to improve your life, look at the dreams you have chosen and ask if they are big enough. Do you care enough to reach them. If not, search your heart for dreams big enough for you to take the wealth building actions to reach them. Madalyn
Like this post? check out Wealth building – Why Bother
Wealth Building 101: Can you embrace change?
Embrace change! You have got to be kidding? Even the thought of change strikes terror in the heart of most Americans? Why is that? Why do we cling, as individuals and as a society, to our actions, beliefs and relationships which are so obviously not working? We can be so paralyzed by fear that we can’t see what is happening in our lives. Others, who are less emotionally involved, can see our struggles quite clearly.
For example, I had a mule, named Jake, that was clearly more than I could handle, yet I kept working with him thinking he would change. Each day that passed he became more cantankerous but I was oblivious to this. My friends feared for my safety but I ignored their concerns. Finally, Jake did hurt me and suddenly the blinders came off and I realized how unrealistic I had been. Now I was ready to embrace change.
Luckily, I was not seriously injured but I spent 5 years with Jake that could have been spent with another animal that was a good match for me. Five years of frustration and bodily injury is a high price to pay for unwillingness to embrace a change.
Here are few questions to ask yourself about change:
What needed change in your life do you fear most?
What does your future look like if you resist this change?
What could be the worst thing that could happen if you embrace this change?
What would be the best thing that could happen if you embrace this change?
What are you waiting for?
Here is how these questions played out in my life:
My future, if I had kept Jake, I have no doubt would have led to a more serious injury.
My worst fear was that I would be seen as a failure and I would not be able to find another home for Jake.
In reality, I was not a failure but simply not up to training a mule as difficult as Jake. No one was critical of my decision to find a new home for Jake. Quite the opposite, as one of my good friends drove with me to New Mexico to deliver Jake to his new home. Jake and his new owner love each other and they are a perfect match.
Why did I wait so long when the need to make this change was so obvious to others. Fear! Irrational, paralyzing fear! I put this topic under wealth building because wealth is about more than your financial situation. Whether it is examining out of date belief systems, finding a better job, starting a home business, tackling bad debt or exiting a bad relationship you have to face your fear and embrace the change. Madalyn
No need to tackle change on your own. Lets work together.
Wealth Building 101: Change your stinkin thinkin!
There is one common denominator in all your financial failures. You! Have you tried changing your job, your location, your business or your investments but been frustrated that your financial situation did not change. Until you change your stinkin thinkin your actions will never yield the results you desire.
Before you start accusing me of pointing fingers let me assure you I have been this person. If working harder or changing the focus of your efforts was the answer to wealth building I would be a billionaire. It was only when I changed my thinking that my fortunes begin to reverse.
See if you have any of these very common examples of stinkin thinkin and let me offer some alternative viewpoints.
Do you think 10 to 15 hours a week to start a home based business is too much to add to your busy schedule?
What if I could show you a way to spend these hours doing something that you enjoyed and were good at and these consistent actions brought in an additional $500 cash flow monthly into your household?
Do you think investing in your own business is too risky?
What is your current risk of doing nothing and falling further and further behind? What is the real risk of investing in products each month that dramatically improve your health and spending some time in learning skills that will help you grow personally as well as professionally?
Are you afraid your friends and family will not approve of you starting your own business?
Are your friends and family financially successful and living fulfilled lives? If so, by all means follow their advice and get them to teach you their wealth building skills. One caveat, what they did probably won’t work for you until you change your stinkin thinkin.
Do you think $35 initial membership and $200 a month in product purchases is too much to invest in a business that can add $500 to your cash flow monthly ?
So what other options have you explored that can match these odds?
I started this blog to offer people alternative options to the stinkin thinkin that held me back from wealth building for so long. I realize my writing is a bit heavy and I am working on this. The information, however, is sound and I speak to you from my heart. I welcome your comments, constructive criticism and personal stories. Madalyn
Like what you see in this post? Check out Hope in not a strategy
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/outatbobs/ / CC BY 2.0
Wealth Building 101: The first step in your Perfect Wealth Formula
The first step in your perfect wealth formula is to have a dream. Wealth = Achieving Your Dream! Without a dream to focus on, the chances are you will never do the other steps required in the perfect wealth formula. So let me ask you a few questions.
First, what does wealth mean to you? What is your dream, your definition of wealth? Wealth is something different to each person and it goes far beyond money.
For instance, I have achieved my dream to have my own farm, now I find myself dreaming of improvements. Yesterday I had an automatic gate opener installed at my property entrance.
This made me feel very wealthy. Why? Because I dreamed about it. I love my farm but I hated wrestling with the gate. The pleasure I get from watching that gate swing open and closed while I sit in the comfort of my vehicle keeps me focused on what I love in my life.
Focusing on what I love keeps me working my perfect wealth formula.
Second, do you focus on what wealth means to you or do you try to meet expectations of others? When you try to keep up with the Jones there can be no perfect wealth formula. Wealth has to spring from your heart alone. A perfect wealth formula starts with connecting to your greatest heart desire!
I was visiting with a friend of mine the other day and we were talking about her dreams. She never mentioned money. She spoke with deep passion of her desire to own, train and ride an Olympic level dressage horse. Yes, that will take money but her desire was not for the money but for the experience. Her desire will drive her to seek her perfect wealth formula.
So here is the way to successfully work step 1 in your perfect wealth formula.
Get clear on what you really want in life and be willing to do whatever it takes to get there.
Write your dream down and make a plan to achieve it.
Ask yourself constantly if what you are currently doing is getting you closer to your picture of wealth.
Never waste a moment in worry or regret.
Dwell on your dream!
Once your dream is strong in your heart you can move into the other money smart steps of the perfect wealth formula such as getting rid of bad debt, increasing your cash flow monthly and investing in assets. Madalyn
Does this hit a chord with you? Have you given up on your dream and feel all is hopeless? Please share your thoughts and comments so I can know if what I am saying is helpful.
For similar line of thinking check out Hope is not a strategy
