By Steven

Many of us would love to work for ourselves but such a step is unlikely, if not entirely impossible.  The problem with working for ourselves isn’t that we cannot do it, it is that our perspective on what it means to be our own boss is slightly skewed.  What if I told you that you could work for yourself without even quitting your job?

That is exactly what I am going to tell you!  You can work for yourself without even quitting your job! How?  It is all about modifying your perspective on what it means to work for yourself.  When we think of working for ourselves, we think about working from home in our underwear or creating a passive income so that we can lounge on the beach while we make bank.

Dreams are nice, but for most people what I described above will only ever be a dream.  Not because it is impossible but because there are limiting factors in our lives (mostly self-imposed, but that is for another time).  Most of us will never realize such a reality, yet, we can still work for ourselves every single day of our lives.

What does it mean, then, to work for yourself if not to become an entrepreneur?  Again, it is all about perspective.  We need to ask ourselves only one simple question:

“Who do I work for?”

Once we answer this question honestly we can begin to ask ourselves how to change.

Most people will answer this question with the name of the company which employs them and while this is not entirely false, I would say that it is not a good answer.  The company that signs your paycheck simply provides you with a source of income and benefits.  You trade your time and energy in exchange for monetary reimbursement but is that really the same as working for them?

Maybe you are confused, and you should be.  We have been raised to believe that because we are employed by a company we work for them.  This is just not true.  The relationship is simply an arrangement between two parties which mutually benefit from one another.

Working for someone really depends on where that money is going, rather than how you earn it. Exchange of services for monetary reimbursement might equate to work but “doing work” and “working for” are not synonymous.  So, ask yourself again,

“Who do I work for?”

Now that we are able to see that though we are employed by a company and they pay us for our services, we are not working for them. Beyond an exchange of services, the relationship ceases.  The answer depends on where your money goes.  Who are you paying?

Is your paycheck going to Visa, Fanny Mae and countless other corporations which you are indebted to?  This is who you work for. These companies are your boss.   And all this time you have been venting your frustrations about the wrong people!

It is time to fire your bosses and begin working for yourself.

It can start today.  Create a budget, spend less than you earn and live within your means.  Adopt a lifestyle of frugality and begin paying down your debts as fast as possible and stop adding new debt to the pile.  Reign in your spending habits and stop buying stuff you don’t need.

Adopting these few simple principles can allow you to begin working for yourself sooner than you might think and from this point on, you can walk into work knowing that you are working for yourself, that you are your own boss and that your relationship with your employer is simply an exchange of services.

There is great power in working for yourself.  You have control over your destiny. You no longer need to rely on your employer to provide a paycheck.  You have the freedom to seek other opportunities.

The day you become debt-free is the day when “ME!” becomes the answer to the question, “Who do I work for?”

Author bio: this article was written by Steven, author of Hundred Goals, a blog about achieving your goals while managing your finances. Steven writes about traveling the world while completing a life list of 100+ goals including skydiving and becoming debt free.

By Peter Clemens

Unless you have been living under a rock, you will know there are some major problems in the world’s financial markets at the moment. Working for a global bank, I guess you could say I have a front row seat for this debacle that in recent days has worsened with the stunning collapse of Bear Stearns (Update: and all the other recent collapses! There are too many to mention now….).

Much of what I have read has blamed Wall Street for turning the problems related to subprime lending into a major global problem. But I also recently read this Newsweek article where a former mortgage broker shares his insights into the fraud and greed that has plagued his former industry:

Lenders… which underwrote loans offered up by brokers and resold them to giants like Countrywide, spent much of their workdays trying to spot the stupid tricks brokers routinely used to get unqualified borrowers approved for loans. They’d say a buyer intended to live in a house when it was really an investment property. They’d falsify the buyer’s income by having a relative pose as his employer, or use scanners and software to forge W-2 forms. They’d find ways to hide debts (like a car payment) by looking for a credit report that omitted key data. They also routinely gamed the appraisal system, encouraging appraisers to look for “comparables” that were far nicer homes in better neighborhoods—all in an effort to drive up the appraised value of the home they were mortgaging.

Perhaps because I know a lot of people in this industry, this article really got me thinking about wealth and the ways in which we go about trying to accumulate it.

Greed and shady business dealings are obviously nothing new, but what are we to make of them? And how does it relate to personal growth?

Ends and Means

Now, the last thing I want to do in this article is come across as self-righteous in the moral advice that follows. Let me state here that I am far from perfect, and I am not always proud of the ways I act. But this current chaos in the world’s financial markets, and other recent examples of greed (eg Enron), reminded me of Gandhi’s teachings of the seven things that will destroy us. These are:

• Wealth without work
• Pleasure without conscience
• Knowledge without character
• Commerce without morality
• Science without humanity
• Worship without sacrifice
• Politics without principle

As Stephen R. Covey points out in The 8th Habit, each of these admirable ends (eg wealth and commerce) can be accomplished through an unprincipled or unworthy means.

Many people give little attention to the means as their ego tells them the ends justify the means. Such an attitude was infamously advocated by Machiavelli in The Prince, a book which details the shrewd methods an aspiring prince could use to acquire the throne (remind you of any modern day politicians?).

If you live according to this philosophy, I would like to invite you to consider a very different way of looking at ends, and the means in which you go about accomplishing them. If you are to quell your ego, and instead live a life where you follow our conscience, then the ends and means should be inseparable.

According to Stephen R. Covey, if you reach an admirable end through the wrong means it will ultimately turn to dust in your hands. This is due to unintended consequences that are not seen or evident at first. The example he gives in The 8th Habit is:

• The parent who yells at their kids to clean their rooms will accomplish the end of having a clean room. But this very means has the potential to negatively affect relationships, and it is unlikely the room will stay clean when the parent leaves town for a few days.

Now, to return to the topic of wealth, I think it is possible to see much of the world’s current financial problems as stemming from people who wrongly believe the ends justify the means.

My advice? It is fine to aspire to wealth, but don’t lose sight of the means to accomplishing it.

What do you think?

* * *

The Cab Ride I’ll Never Forget – this is one of the most touching stories I have read in a long time. Don’t forget your Kleenex.

By Mark David Gerson

In recent weeks, several friends who are experiencing financial challenges have posed this question to me:

Why is that so many aspects of my life seem to be flowing, but when it comes to money, I feel so stuck?

Or,

Why is it that when I’m meditating, creating, writing or “in the zone,” I feel alive and vibrant, as though I’m living at the highest of frequencies, but when it comes to finances, I come crashing back to earth?

These are important questions and the answers are both simple and complex.

They remind me of a time in my life of profound financial struggle, a time when both these questions were constantly on my mind.

The “Olinda Effect”

We were living on Maui then, in the coastal community of Kihei. Here, in this amazing Pacific paradise, money was a constant challenge. And despite my two jobs and our weekends selling crystals at the island’s flea market, there was never enough to cover all our bills.

Kihei was supposed to have been a landing place, we thought, our first stop on the climb to prosperity. Our desired destination was the tourist-free — and pricier — uplands of Kula.

Every couple of weeks we’d drive up the mountain, often to the lush hills of Olinda, where we’d gaze admiringly at the handsome homes and go walking in Olinda’s serene experimental forest.

While strolling among the stately pines, anything seemed possible: infinite abundance, an Olinda mansion, work that impassioned us… It all felt within our grasp. Easily.

And then we’d drive back down the mountain to Kihei, down to our tiny condo with its overdue rent and overdue bills, back to the jobs I hated, back to a life that wasn’t in flow.

By the time we reached sea level, the “Olinda Effect,” as we’d dubbed it, had fully kicked in: We were anxious, fearful and no longer in that anything-is-possible Olinda resonance.

Money and Flow

I’ve thought about that story a lot as I’ve reflected on my friends’ questions and on my time both on Maui and now in Albuquerque.

It’s said that if you do what you love, the money will follow. But money follows, when it does, not because we’re doing what we love. It follows because in living our passion we are living at a vibration where lack cannot exist, where flow is infinite.

But — and it’s a big “but” — unless we can hold that resonance when the bills come in, we crash back down into a consciousness of scarcity.

That’s what happened on Maui. That’s what’s happening to one of my friends. Let’s call her Julie, even though she’s a composite of several people.

Julie loves her work. When she’s in the midst of it — and in much of her life beyond it — she’s one of the most powerful, conscious and aware people I know. Through most of her days, she breathes light and enlightenment.

Then rent day approaches. Or the car payment. Or some other bill that she doesn’t, in the moment, know how she’ll cover.

Fear and anxiety roll in like a heavy fog, casting a pall over the passions of moments earlier. Like I did on Maui, she comes down from the mountaintop of infinite possibility and finds herself in a swamp of doubt and apprehension.

For as long as she lives in that place of doubt and apprehension, it will be harder for the money to flow.

I’m speaking here about money. But I could be speaking about love or peace or health or any other aspect of our life that doesn’t seem to be working.

Whatever it is, the more anxiety we attach to it, the more our fear keeps us from living in the fullness of our highest potential around it.

Our fear will always keep us from living that potential.

Passion and the Present Moment

Back in December 2004, I left Sedona, Arizona on what would ultimately become an open-ended road trip. I left with limited funds and no idea how I would be supported.

In those early months, I was very much like Julie, dropping into a state of panic whenever my car payment — then, my largest singly monthly outlay — was near due.

In those moments, that still, small voice we can all access would ask, Are all today’s needs taken care of? Food? Gas? Accommodation? My answers were always “yes.”

Then let tomorrow and tomorrow’s bills take care of themselves, the voice would say.

Somehow, through more miracles than I could possibly list, tomorrow and tomorrow’s bills always did take care of themselves. Not always in my preferred timing. Not always in my preferred manner. But in holding myself to the present moment and in knowing that I would be taken care, I always was.

Today, my life is infinitely more complex — and expensive. Yet the basis for how I live it has not changed.

Even as I still don’t know how I’ll be supported from day to day, I live each moment (to the best of my limited human ability) knowing that by holding the resonance of my passion, I will always be in the resonance of flow.

Many of us maintain a meditation practice of some sort. We carve ten or twenty minutes from our day to spend in the higher realms.

But meditation can be like Olinda. Sure, it can carry us into a place where everything is possible because in that frequency everything is possible. Yet when our moments of altered beingness come to an end, we can find ourselves back in our wordly life of bills, traffic and conflict, and the Olinda Effect can kick in.

We’re called to do more than meditate our way into higher modes of being. We’re called to reside there. Full-time. Even in the midst of all that life would throw at us. (See Rule #6 in “Mark David’s 10 Rules for Living” at http://markdavidgerson.com.)

Photo of the Sandia Mountains by Mike Pedroncelli

Today, I live in the Albuquerque equivalent of Olinda — in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, 1,000 feet above the city’s lowest elevation. And in many ways, it feels as though I’ve achieved at least some of what I thought I was seeking as I gazed longingly toward the Kula uplands from Kihei.

What I’ve achieved, though, has nothing to do with money. What I’ve achieved, most days, is an ability to live in infinite possibility full-time and to know that by living my passion, living in the moment and not freaking out at the latest stack of bills, the Olinda resonance lives within me wherever I am.

Ironically, the Hawaiian word kihei means “shawl” or “cape.” Even in the midst of that Kihei energy that felt so constricting and impoverishing, I was always embraced in a protective blanket of divine love.

Regardless of life’s externals, that kihei is always and ever present for us. The more we acknowledge it, know it and live it, the more we will experience it in all aspects of our life, including the financial. And the more that the Olinda resonance will show up — and remain present and alive — in our lives.

About the writer: Mark David Gerson is an internationally recognized speaker, mentor and coach whose inspirational writings are read in more than two dozen countries. Award-winning author of The MoonQuest: A True Fantasy and The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, Mark David lives in New Mexico. For more information about Mark David, visit http://markdavidgerson.com or his blogs, http://newearthchronicles.com and http://thevoiceofyourmuse.com.

In each of these extremes is a greater truth. Wealth magnifies your deeper personality traits. The thoughtful, caring person with access to financial resources will benefit him/herself AND others. But someone who only cares about keeping score will never have enough, regardless of the fortune amassed.

Warren Buffett, the famous investor and billionaire, once said that he intends to leave his children “enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing.” He wanted to help his children reach their full potential, but understood that too much money, without corresponding effort, would sap their will to achieve.

Teach Your Kids – Prepare Your Heirs

A child growing up in a wealthy family may be more insulated from money than the child growing up in poverty. But at either end of the spectrum and at all points between, kids need to know how a family’s finances work. They need to understand that money really doesn’t grow on trees. Failing to instill that value young will create heartache when they’re older.

Teach your children that money isn’t inexhaustible. Rack up too many bills and the largest income won’t cover it. Amass too much debt and you’ll spiral down into bankruptcy. Teach them about responsible spending, investing, giving and earning.

Head off future family squabbles by talking openly about their future inheritance. Set up trust funds so that your heirs aren’t able to spend their entire inheritance before they’re emotionally ready to handle the responsibility.

Family Values – More than a Buzzword

With wealth comes responsibility. What does your spending say about your values? If your teenage daughter wants the biggest blow-out party to outdo her best friend, is that a wise use of money? Your son wants the fast car or the “crotch rocket” to impress his friends. But in the hands of an inexperienced driver, you know that’s a recipe for disaster.

What are your family’s values? What do you do and talk about as a family? Do your kids see you being generous to those less fortunate? Do you involve them in the process? Don’t just tell them about responsibility, model it and involve them.

Money is not a game, where the man with the most notches on his belt wins. No, it’s a means to achieve larger and greater things in life. Keep this in perspective and your family will benefit now and in the future.

What money lessons have you taught your kids? And how did you go about it? I would love to hear your answers in the comments below.

About the author: this article was written by David B. Bohl – Husband, Father, Friend, Lifestyle Coach, Author, Entrepreneur, and creator of Slow Down FAST. For more info visit his blog at Slow Down Fast blog.

Photo by Fisk Fisk

By Peter Clemens

In 2004 I returned to Perth, Australia, after a year of traveling overseas. I returned to a city with a ridiculously strong economy. Demand from China had driven commodity prices to record highs, and the mining industry was booming. For those unfamiliar with the geography of Australia, Perth is the capital of Western Australia, which is approximately one third of the land mass of Australia (ie it has A LOT of land for mining). In recent years, people have been flowing into Western Australia (in particular Perth) from across the country and, as a result, housing prices have soared. In fact, in November 2006 Perth overtook Sydney as the most expensive city in Australia with a median house price of $564,000 (I believe this has since reversed). Three years earlier, Perth house prices were less than half of those in Sydney.

During this period, there seemed to be endless news stories about the booming economy and soaring housing prices. Also, the banking job I had at the time meant I was dealing with housing appraisals every day. It was obvious that many people were becoming wealthy, but since I did not own any property and had little invested in the share market I was not one of these people. And for this reason, each housing appraisal or story of the booming economy was like a nail being driven further and further into my skin.

In addition to this, I lived in continual hope that I would be given a helping hand financially by my family to purchase a house. With the benefit of hindsight, I can say that the effect of this hope was to close my mind to what I could do to help myself. In essence, I wanted an easier life given to me. I even played the role of a victim by harbouring internal bitterness that I was missing out on the fruits of a booming economy.

Then, sometime in 2006 something very important happened: I changed my thinking. To be specific, I stopped wishing my life was easier and instead committed myself to being better. At first this consisted of taking small steps: I started to read self improvement books, visit the Steve Pavlina forums (I was a lurker for sometime before actually joining), and listen to podcasts and audiobooks. Basically I decided to stop focusing on what I didn’t have and get on with creating the life I wanted. Also, I shifted my outlook from one where I thought about what other people could do for me, to what could I do for other people (which manifested itself in the creation of this blog, amongst other things).

Now, I am certainly not wealthy yet (at least in the monetary sense), but I have rid my thoughts of any regrets and bitterness about the past. And importantly, I feel I am on the right track to become wealthy due to my own efforts. There are always setbacks, but I feel I have learned many lessons from my past. These days I take a “get over it and get on with it” approach to setbacks that cannot be changed. The following are some specific ways I deal with setbacks, both online and offline:

Negative Comments

Thankfully I don’t receive many negative comments on this blog, but from time to time someone decides to write something nasty (note: this is different from constructive criticism which I welcome). I am a fairly sensitive person, so I would be lying if I said that negative comments don’t sometimes hurt.

What I have learned, though, is that negative comments have less to do with what I write and more to do with how widely read a particular article is. To put this another way, it is only the articles that become popular with the social media that seem to attract negative feedback. And if an article becomes popular with the social media, that means many people have enjoyed it, right? So a nasty comment might hurt for a second or two, but I comfort myself with the knowledge that many others have enjoyed the article and just get on with things.

Being Ignored

I hate being ignored, but I have learned that it is an unavoidable consequence of putting myself out there and trying to meet new people. Since I have started blogging, I have tried to make contact and/ or establish relationships with a number of people online. There have been a number of cases where I haven’t received a reply, but by the same token I have had some great successes (eg this guest post on ProBlogger).

The occasions where I haven’t received a reply have led me to review my approach. I have come to realize that, in many cases, I don’t always approach people the best way possible. For example, I came to understand that I wasn’t putting enough thought into how I approached people who I knew to be very busy. So I have learned that taking a few extra minutes to craft a well-worded email can make all the difference (although sometimes I seem to forget this).

By the same token, I try to to reply to everyone who contacts me, although I am not perfect and I know I miss a few. Perhaps it is because I know I miss a few that I find it easier to discard any negative thoughts about not receiving a reply.

Failure

I have said it before and I will say it again: failure is the price of ambition. Failing is not simply something that “failures” (I hate that term) do. Rather, failure is a byproduct of stretching yourself. So if something doesn’t work out the way I planned, I take comfort in the knowledge that I have most likely stepped out of my comfort zone. To be honest, I don’t think I fail enough.

Lost Opportunities

So I didn’t get rich from the booming economy while living in Perth – no worries! It doesn’t bother me anymore. What it has done is made me more aware of the opportunities that presently exist in my life. Considering I have moved to Vancouver, a city even more expensive than Perth, real estate is still off the table, at least in the short term.

Personally, it is the Internet that excites me because I see it as a place of unlimited opportunities. Blogging, in particular, is something that has the potential to open the door to my recently discussed dream of being a published author. Yes, I’m well and truly over the lost opportunities that existed while living in Perth and I am just getting on with creating the life I want.

Is there something you need to get over in your own life?

Photo by Bunny Beats!

By Peter Clemens

Ok, I have a confession. I went a little crazy on the spending in December.  Perhaps it was the new credit card I received early in the month. Or maybe it was the new job conveniently located opposite a mall. I don’t know. What I do know, however, is that a “finance guy” such as myself should know better. That’s why I have called this article “8 Important Money Reminders“. Don’t expect to find some new revolutionary money tip here. I’m going back to basics, if not for you, then definitely for me.

1. Track Your Spending

For the first half of last year Kathryn and I had the good habit of writing down everything we spent. It seems, however, that we left this habit in Australia as we completely stopped it after the move. It’s such a simple, yet highly effective habit because it makes you conscious of every dollar you spend.

2. Include Family Members

If you have a partner or kids (or all of the above!), there is little point watching your spending while they run amok. Make money management a team effort. The best way I know how to do this is to do the following  together…

3. Set Goals

What are your financial goals? The start of a new year is the perfect time to take stock of your situation and work out what you want to achieve financially. We want to put enough money away for a Maui holiday in the first half of this year, but after a some liberal spending in December it is clear we need to be more disciplined.

4. Know the Difference Between Needs and Wants

Saying “we need to be more disciplined” is one thing, but what does this really mean? Well take, for example, my comment just now that “we want to go to on a Maui holiday”. Now I would be willing to argue that everyone needs a holiday each year for the sake of their own sanity. But there are certainly less expensive ways to holiday than jumping on a plane and flying to Maui.

There is nothing wrong with having wants, just don’t confuse them for needs. Needs are those things you must pay in order to live and avoid bankruptcy: mortgage/ rent payments, taxes, groceries, etc. Wants are the sorts of things you don’t explicitly need, such as expensive vacations and dining out.

5. Be Prepared To Make Sacrifices

One aspect of financial discipline is a willingness to make some sacrifices in terms of what you buy and consume. In December I wasn’t willing to make sacrifices. I fell into the “if I want it, I’ll buy it trap”. And I know I’m not the only one. My friends south of the border in the United States have a mind boggling $800 billion in credit card debt. For some reason to Rolling Stones song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” comes to mind here. Then again, if all this talk of slashing expenses doesn’t interest you there is always the option to….

6. Make More Money

If you focus solely on cutting expenses, then you are neglecting half of your Income Statement. In addition to everything I have said so far, Kathryn and I are also busy working on ways to improve our financial situation by making more money.

The New Year is a great time to start thinking about ways to increase your income. Can you apply for a job with a higher salary? Do you have any ideas for developing other streams of income? Now is the time to take action!

7. Use Debt Intelligently

A simple rule to live by is to not pay interest on anything that loses value. Although I was a bit reckless with my new credit card in December, I haven’t paid interest on credit card debt in years because I know how debt works (I work in banking) and I have, for the most part, pretty good spending habits. When you think about it, to use debt intelligently you need to have some financial smarts. An excellent place to start is by reading a couple of great blogs dedicated to all things money, Get Rich Slowly and The Simple Dollar.

8. Avoid Store Cards

I succumbed to the oldest trick in the book – I signed up for my first store card so that I would receive a discount on my purchase. Now I can’t wait till they send me the thing so I can cut it in two and send it back (with a cheque for the balance of course). I know you can get little discounts here and there by having store cards, but at the end of the day these cards don’t save you money if they tempt you to spend more on stuff you don’t really need.

So now that I’ve come clean about my month of reckless spending, do you have any bad money habits you want to confess?

Photo by AMagill.