April 29, 2016 Are you caught with your pants down?

   Just the other day I was having a conversation with a friend of mine and he brought up an interesting topic that intrigued me. This friend of mine is old enough to be my father so he has gone around the black a couple of times, so I value his knowledge. The topic that he touched upon was about always being prepared.

   'But Josh how can you always be prepared, when Life always throws something new at you?' I'm not saying that anyone is a hundred percent ready for anything that comes their way. I know people that are swinging at a fast ball and off a sudden Life throws a bowling ball at them. In my interpretation always being prepared means you never know what is coming your way but you have to be ready for it in some degree. A prime example of this is to always have a couple of business cards on you at all time. As an author, I must make it my duty to always carry business cards. The reason for this is because in my business I have to gain an audience and the best way to do that is by word of mouth. If I hand out one card to a person and they enjoy my writings, then they might tell their friends about my work. Guess what if I never handed out my business card to that person then I can not help them or the multitude of  people they are connected to. You may be thinking to yourself at this point that my example sounds like networking, well that's because it is networking. Many situations arrive throughout our lifetimes and one way to prepare for them is by having a network of people that can help you get through any situation. My network consists of  almost any profession or knowledge base, anywhere from garbage me to rocket scientist.

   Another way to be prepared for some of life's rough patches is a rainy day fund. This is something that I learned from Dave Ramsey. This fund has to be a minimum of a thousand dollars but not easily accessible. This fund is not for you to go buy the newest IPhone. A couple of months ago Murphy came a knocking (Murphy's law), in the form of my water heater failing on me. Even though I had an unplanned expense I was able to overcome it because of this rainy day fund. A thousand does not sound a lot of money but its just a starting point. When you can you can add more money in it because some obstacles can cost more than others. 

   Thanks for reading, the above information is not new but sometimes you just have to hear it in a different way.

                                                                                                                                          Stay prepared,

                                                                                                                                                     Josh R.

April 26, 2016 Are we Financially Secure

 Just the other day I was too sick to go into work. On my sick day my brain started to think about how financially secure I truly was. After evaluating all my monthly expenses against my savings and assets, I realized that I was not financially secure. If I was to be let go from my current job and unable to receive unemployment I would only e ale to survive for about 4 months.

   This post is just here to help you the reader re evaluate your current financial situation. Think about if you were forced to go on short term disability or your job closes down how would that affect your financial situation. I'm not here to tell you how to manage your money or anything, I am just asking do you really know where your money is going. The average American does not have a written monthly budget, and just like a goal statement if it's not written out then it is not binding. If you plan out everything accordingly then you get to allocate funds correctly and cut any unnecessary expenditures. 

   Other than learning how to budget your money, you must learn how to make your money work for you. There are different ways to make your money work for you such as stocks, mutual funds, real estate any many more options. To have my money work for me I personally have some money in mutual funds, some in stock and working on residual income from my books. For those of you that are not familiar with residual income, it is income that continues to pay out throughout your lifetime. Royalties for songs and payment on book rights are two simple forms of residual income. Without having our income work for us then we rely on our jobs as our only source of income. So if anything were to happen to our work we would essentially become financially insecure.

                                                                                                 Thanks for reading,

                                                                                                                 Josh

April 21, 2016 Why?

   Today's topic is very important, without it you can not succeed in almost anything. The topic of today is "why", this may sound like a simple topic but it is not. Why do we work in our current job, why do we try to better ourselves? So today I will briefly touch on our why statement.

   The "Why Statement" is another concept that I picked up from my time in network marketing. Yes, it is literally a statement explaining our "whys". The "whys" are mainly a person's reason for doing network marketing but it can be applied to almost all aspects of life. Our why is what motivates us to move forward, if you have a strong why you will give your all. If you have kids, then they are your reason for working hard. When you have a reason to succeed then you can not afford to fail. I want to issue you the reader a challenge. Write down a list of reasons why you can not afford to lose at life. After you make that list I want you to make another list, on this list I want you to write out why you must succeed in life. Even though both lists are  outlining your whys they have different answers. If I don't succeed in life then I will not be financially free. I need to succeed in life because if I don't then I can not inspire generations of people through the written word.

   Today's post is a bit short but it is a powerful one. You must weigh your actions against your cause. I am writing this blog to help my readers in any form that I can. So my actions must be able to satisfy my ambitions. All I really want to say is make sure you truly know why you put in all those hours in at the office.

April 19, 2016 Goal Setting

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   "If you plan to fail, you are planning to fail" - Benjamin Franklin. This is a powerful quote which is the basis for today's discussion on goal setting. When most people hear the words goals they tend to associate it to dreams and aspirations. Goals and dreams are not the same at all. A dream is something that you wish for, whereas a goal is written down and has an action plan.

   Through my journey in network marketing I always heard about the importance of having a "goal statement". The "goal statement" was a paragraph on where we saw ourselves in a time span of three to five years. You would first write in detail how great everything had turned out and after that you would then describe what made that possible. In my personal opinion, I do not believe that this type of goal setting is fully effective. I prefer having my action plan set up like a chart that has two columns, one labeled 'Goal' and the other column labeled 'Actions to achieve goal'. By doing an action plan in this manner I can pin point what tasks directly affect my progression towards my goal. This in turn makes sure that I am doing the "right" things to achieve my goal (see April 3, 2016's post for "right" things). I am not saying that my way of goal setting is the one and only way to set goals. As long as you have an action plan you are already a head in the game we call Life.

   Just having a goal and/or action plan doesn't mean that you are done with goal setting. A big part of goal setting is visualizing your goals, because if you can "see" your goals it makes them more attainable. One thing that I learned in network marketing was to have a "Dream Board", which is filled with pictures of things that the maker wants to achieve. I literally hate the word dream, because dream means wishful thinking. Wishful thinking will not get you towards your goals so I am renaming the "Dream Board" to 'Goal Board'. By creating this board you are able to put as they often say a face to a name. Sounds a bit confusing but let me give you an example... " I want to be a millionaire" this is a statement that most people answer when asked what they want in life. This statement is too broad because it does not specify what they truly want from life. The Goal Board would break down this statement to something such as financial freedom, the ability to take multiple vacations per year or even owning a car collection. Other than breaking down goals to smaller attainable parts it also sets up a deadline for completing the goal. 

   By setting a deadline for your goal, you create a way to measure progression towards a goal. By measuring your progress you are able to determine if your actions are helping you succeed in obtaining your goal. This grants us the ability to adjust our actions in order to maximize our productivity towards goal attainment. Goal deadlines also create a sense of accountability. If you fail to achieve your goal then you are the only person to blame. Think about deadlines at work, your boss holds you accountable if the deadline is not met so why should it be different here.

   I now have a rather simple question to ask. After reading this post, do you have dreams or do you have goals? If you answered goals then I have one more question for you. Have you done goal setting? If you answered no then it is not a goal but rather it is a dream. But do not fret and worry because you now should know how to turn that dream into an attainable goal. If you follow your plan you will be successful.

                                                                                                        Thanks for reading,

                                                                                                                         Josh R.

April 15, 2016 Cyber Security

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  Today I learned a very important lesson in life. The lesson that I learned today was that you must make sure that all your information is secure. I was recently a victim of a cyber attack in which someone tried to withdraw money from one of my accounts. I always hear about people’s information getting stolen and always thought that it couldn’t happen to me. Turns out that I was wrong, very wrong.

  Most of people have at least two locks on their doors, one regular lock and a deadbolt lock. If you feel secure with two locks why have only one “lock” for our digital accounts. The one “lock” we have on our digital accounts is a password that most do not remember. The password is fine and dandy but can easily be broken into no matter how “secure” you believe it is. My password for the account that was hacked was 15 characters long and a pass-code that I had never used before. The funny thing is that the email that I use for the account has a 2-step authorization setup. The only problem is that I never enabled it on any account other than my email accounts. If I would have taken five minutes out of time to set it up for 2-step authentication then I would have saved myself a ton of time and frustration.

  Before you bring out the pitchforks and try to burn me at the stake, just take a step back and listen for a bit more. If you have a smartphone, then you are halfway to having true security on your accounts. The app that I personally use on my phone for 2-step authentication is Google Authenticator. If for some reason you do not like Google then there are many other options from big developers such as Microsoft. I’m not trying to tell you to go out and purchase a life lock subscription or anything. All I am recommending is that you try out a 2-step authentication method. A password or a pin was sufficient in the past but so were chip-less debit and credit cards. Why wait until cyber security is fully needed, act now and save yourself the trouble. I was lucky because I was able to find out within an hour, but will the next victim be as lucky.

                                                                                                                                     Protect yourselves,

                                                                                                                                                               Josh R.

 

April 14, 2016 Change

  This post today is another post straight from the heart. The topic of today’s post is Change. I am not talking about change is a monetary sense, but change that happens to us throughout our lifetime. We get too comfortable in our current situations that even the slightest change can scare us.

  Doing network marketing for a couple of years there was one saying that was repeated over and over when talking about traditional businesses. The saying was simple, catchy but memorable “If you’re not a dot com,then you’re a dot gone.” The reason why I am bringing up this quote is because it pertains to a business changing from a traditional brick and mortar into a online store. Nine years ago I used to work for a big electronic store named Circuit City. If that name does not ring a bell it is because they are no longer in business. They attempted to change their ways but it was too little too late. Now you must be asking yourself what does this all have to do with you. The connection is very simple, if we fail to adapt to the changes that life puts our way we are doomed to fail.

  How can not adapting to a change in our everyday life lead to failure? Let us take a look at a smoker if they fail to change their smoking habit they are likely to contract a number of diseases including cancer. Before you start saying that the above example is too broad let us take a look at something that might hit closer to home. There are workers out there that have to change the way they work because of new management or a shift in the company. If they do not adapt to the new focus then they might not be with the company for much longer. It is hard to change, I still struggle to this day to change. If I don’t change for the better who will?

  If your current situation is not satisfying you, then you have to take a step back and look hard at it. Remember Albert Einstein’s famous quote “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” You will never grow if you don’t change with the times. If you try to fight the change you might end up like Palm, Circuit City, RadioShack or even The Wiz. Change can be good so try and embrace it.

                                                                                                                   Thanks for reading,

                                                                                                                                     Josh

Day 17 ....... April 12, 2016 Life

  Today’s post was going to be about how harmful stress could be but it’s not. Today’s post is something from the heart and it hits harder to home than my post about paying off a credit card that I had debt on for eight years. Today I will be talking a bit about the greatest obstacle in life…… Life itself.

  Sylvester Stallone said it best “Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place, and I don't care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!“ When we think everything is working out in our favor Life appears out of nowhere and it hits harder than Mike Tyson. At this point in time I have tangled with Life many times before but it seems that it comes back stronger with each new fight. This time Life has brought me to a fork in the road. On one side I have a road in which the outcome is predetermined, continue living life as I am now but there’s a ninety five percent chance that it will come to an end soon. On the other side we have a path full of mystery, that is truly a sink or swim situation. This path might last for a couple of months or for the rest of my life.

  To think that at age twenty six I would have to make a decision that will definitely change my future. If I choose wrong then I would have to start over from the beginning. For those of you who have had to start over should know that is is hard. There is no pillar that will hold me up if my world begins crumbling, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I have begun planning things out so if my world crumbles that I will not be stuck under the rubble. The only problem is that my projects are not able to support themselves let alone me. So what that essentially means is once Life strikes I will be going down for some time. I will get up before the 10 count no matter what it takes.

  You must be asking yourself as to why I am sharing this. I am sharing this for two reasons one is to show that I also bleed and the second is for you the reader. When I say that I bleed I am talking about me being no different from the average joe. By revealing my inner conflicts I give hope to those in similar situations. Some readers out there might read this and say wow if he can power through this then I can get pass my own dilemmas. I am down in the trenches everyday just like many others, but unlike many I WILL NOT let anything stop me. No matter what Life is planning for me, I will achieve my dreams. As long as there is a breath in my lung I can get up and try again.

  For everyone reading this I just want you to know that this was written 100% from the heart. This subject is something that came to me about an hour before writing this. You are not alone with any of the problems that you are facing. Go out there and show Life that it’s a bully and that it can not keep you down.

                                                                                                                          Keep Swinging,

                                                                                                                                          Josh R.

 

Day 16 ......... April 11, 2016

  Stress. One word that brings only negative images to the minds of the masses. The reason why I am choosing to write about stress today is because we all deal with it daily. Stress is not always bad and sometimes can actually be beneficial.

  Before you stop reading because you think that I am making things up, just hear me out. When a person is given a deadline that seems nearly impossible, they somehow make the deadline. The reason for their achievement is the stress of failing makes them work twice as hard in order to prevent failing. I remember talking myself out of a situation that required I hand in a term paper that second. I was given three hours to write a five page paper that I had not begun or researched. The result was a six page paper that I was praised for writing.

  The above story is just showing what I was capable of when I was stressed about making a deadline. Failure was not even a thought in my head because that would result in me not being able to graduate. Stressing over uncontrollable aspects of our lives is meaningless. For weeks I was stressed over a corporate visit and it was all for nothing. The visit came and went without a an issues and will happen again next quarter. Use stress to your advantage, I was stressed about my debt so I began tackling it. Don’t let stress hurt you instead let it help you.

                                                                                                          Thanks for reading,

                                                                                                                         Josh

Day 15 ....... April 6, 2016

  Today’s blog post is going to be a bit different, because I was not planning on touching this topic at all. But now I feel obligated to blog about it because of events that have recently unfolded in my life. The topic that I am referring to it fate. Don’t confuse fate with faith because fate doesn’t have to involve religion.

  The main reason that I am starting to believe in fate is because all the pieces of the puzzle seem to fit. Just recently I posted that I had recently paid off a credit card balance of six thousand. I have had that credit card for eight years and paid it off in a little under a year. Once that card was paid off I was looking for inspirational youtube videos. I came across a youtube video featuring Jim Carrey in which he spoke of fate. He wrote a check for 10 million dollars and put it in his wallet and said he would be able to cash it in three years. Right before the deadline was up he landed a part in Dumb and Dumber with a payday of 7 million. If you want something bad enough you WILL get it.

  In my case I asked for motivation and received it, so of course I asked for more. To my surprise I received the answer I was looking for on twitter of all places. The answer this time came from Tony Robbins and his podcast that happened to come out on the same day that I asked for guidance. So at that point in time I was two for two and decided to try my luck one more time. Sent one text out and received a response that I was not expecting. That response made me three for three in asking for something and receiving exactly what I had asked for. Listen I am not saying that your results will be exactly the same. All I am saying is ask the universe for something and see if it responds.

                                                                                                                 Thanks,

                                                                                                                          Josh

Day 14 ...... April 3, 2016

  Do you sometimes find it hard to stay on topic? No matter how hard you try to accomplish a task it seems nearly impossible to succeed. How about every time you take one step forward you are forced to take three steps back. If the above statements perfectly describe you then I have one question for you….. Are you doing the “right” things to help you achieve your goal?

  Josh what do you mean by the “right” things, I’m talking about activities that propel you towards your goals. It’s actually easier for me to tell you some the “wrong” things that might be keeping you from your dreams. The internet, yes the internet is one of the biggest obstacles keeping us from our dreams. How can the internet be an obstacle, well if you don’t use it correctly it will become a distraction. Instead of using it as a tool to achieve our dreams we use it to distract ourselves and make time pass. Just think back and try to remember when you actually only watched ONE Youtube video or ONE item on Netflix. My point exactly whether it's facebook, emails or cat videos most of us are not using the internet to better ourselves.

  Don’t worry I’m not going to turn this blog post into a five page rant about how you must stay focused on your goal no matter what. We all know what is not helping us achieve our goals, yet most of us do not know what actually helps us reach our goals. You can still go on YouTube but instead of watching a cat video watch a video that will show you something beneficial. Make the best use of your resources while you still have them.

                                                                           

                                                           Don’t let your dreams stay dreams,

                                                                           Josh

 

Day 13 ....... April 2, 2016

   Today’s post is going to be a bit different than normal. I actually accomplished another one of my goals today. About ten months ago I was introduced to Dave Ramsey through a random night of web browsing. In less than a year I have finished paying off about six thousand dollars in credit card debt. The book that helped me was ‘The Total Money Makeover’.

   The info in the book is stuff that you might already know but it is said in a way that makes it easy to understand. Before you think that this is a sponsored post, it is not. This book actually changed my life and some of my friends’ life. The book does not require you to start eating ramen noodles for every meal. The book teaches about how to snowball your debt. Also it taught me about Roth IRAs, if you don’t know what that is you should really look it up.

   By taking control of your money you get to tell your money where to go. It’s a concept that a lot of financially free people talk about. I was first introduced to this concept by Robert Kiyosaki in his book ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’. So if it works for them and worked for me and my friends it could work for you. Like I said this post is in no way sponsored but I had to write about it because it changed my life and could change someone else’s life. If you have a chance just listen to some of The Dave Ramsey Show, he might be blunt but he knows his stuff.

                                                                                                Thanks for reading,

                                                                                                                Josh

Day 12 ...... March 31, 2016

  Looking back at one's childhood can either bring up good memories or terrifying ones. One good memory that I can remember is how happy my grandparents all were. They all immigrated to the united states from other countries and were all lower class. How could they possibly be happy if they have almost no money and live in one of the most expensive cities in the world, the answer is pretty simple. My grandparents because of their upbringing knew how to cherish the little things in life.

  Since I did not grow up during the great depression or during  any world wars my views on life are a bit different than theirs. Since I have not fully learned how to cherish the little things in life, I sometimes find myself stressed out over things that should not affect me. Years ago when I had lost my job at a fortune 500 company after five years, I was in despair. Because of all the stress that I was under I developed insomnia and fell into a small state of depression. Before you go saying that my reaction was quite normal for someone who had lost their job. That in my opinion is wrong. My situation could have been worse, trust me a lot worse than it was and I should have been thankful of that.

  Listen I’m not here to tell you that you should give thanks for every little detail in your life, such as how green your lawn is or that you dodged a weekend with the inlaws. I am just saying that no matter how grim things look they could always be worse. There is one thing that I have learned from listening to audios from speakers like Tony Robbins and that is there is really only one rock bottom. Do you know what rock bottom truely is? Death, plain and simple. As long as you are still breathing you can overcome anything. If you do not believe me look at Steve Jobs he was kicked out his own company and still managed to take back control later on and make it one of the most successful company in the world. Never give up because as long as there is air in your lungs you can make it through anything.

                                                     Your neighborhood writer,

                                                                    Josh

 

Day 11 ...... March 30, 2016

   Don’t you love it when a person tells you time equals money. A simple saying that does not hold true, because time is worth more than any monetary value. Time is one of the most valuable resource that we have and it is very limited.

  It’s funny that the reason that I am writing about time is because of the apple commercial with Cookie Monster. If you have not seen the commercial it is just showing off SIRI (apple’s virtual assistant) by using the timer function. I find the commercial comical because he is complaining how time is moving too slow. The reason I laugh at this is because time is something that once lost it can never be recovered. Have you ever spoken to someone who has been at working at the same place for over 15 years. I am 90 percent certain that they will tell you they do not know where the time went.

  The neighborhood where I work is home to an older crowd. Whenever I ask for a small bit of advice they all tell me the same thing…. “Don’t get old.” You might think that this is just a joke that everyone older uses, but it isn’t. My interpretation of the saying is basically to cherish your youth while you have it because it doesn’t last forever. Even though it feels like I haven’t been at my current job for that long I have been here for three years. If you don’t manage your time you will be left behind, but that is a post for another day.

                                          Thanks for reading,

                                                       Josh

Day 10 ...... March 29, 2016

   Following with the theme of  yesterday's post,  today will be another post on a classic saying. The saying that I want to touch on today is 'It is not what you say but how you say it.' Just so you know it is totally what you say and how you say it they are both as important. Before you go off stating that if its a saying it must have some truth to it, look at 'Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me'. Sticks and stones is dated as are most cliche sayings. But these saying still hold some truth today.

   It is always important to stay mindful of what you say to people. If you say something offensive no amount of sugar coating can change what you said to something pleasant. If you see a heavy set person and walk up to them and say why are you fat, you might get punched in the face. Since I have been in the retail industry for almost ten years I know some of the things you are not allowed to say. Calm down is on the top of the list of what not to say to a customer. Like I said I have ten years of experience talking to people face to face in a retail environment, learning to pick the right words takes time.

   How you say it plays a big role in a bunch of different things in life. Think about that job interview you were sure that you said all the right things but didn't get the job. Now try and replay the interview in your head but take notice of how you said most of your answers. A person's tone and body language can say something different than what is actually being said. Think about when you are talking to someone and they aren't really interested in what you are saying, they are giving signs unconsciously that they want no part in the conversation. Another part of how you say something is your tone. Are you empathizing with the person or are you being condescending? Make note on if you are elevating certain parts of the sentence because that can make you seem uncertain. Just remember words when spoken take on a whole new meaning  depending who is speaking them. 

                                                                                                    Thanks for reading,

                                                                                                                    Josh